Each week Taproot brings together the latest on the research, technology, companies and people changing health and healthcare for the better in Edmonton. If you have a suggestion for a future edition of the roundup, send it to hello@taprootedmonton.ca for consideration. Here are some highlights from this week’s Health Innovation Roundup: News A group of University of Alberta computing scientists developed an algorithm that’s faster and more accurate at picking out lung cancer tumors during an MRI scan. The use of the algorithm could help reduce damage to healthy tissue during radiation treatment. Because lungs move during an MRI, it can be difficult to pick out tumors from the healthy tissue. MEDO.ai was one of the companies featured on the importance of capital investment in order to get the artificial intelligence industry off the ground in Edmonton. Edmonton-based companies are well represented in the latest group of five Canadian companies to participate in the Chicago Innovation Mentors, which was created as part of the Canada-Chicago Mentoring Program. Creators of the thermal meditation device Umay Care, RUNWITHIT Synthetics, and Health Gauge will participate in the six-month mentoring and scholarship program. A virus previously thought to be harmless may actually be one of the more common causes of encephalitis, according to researchers out of the University of Alberta. Doctors had been unable to find a cause of the encephalitis in two patients who died in Edmonton while they were alive, but during a post-mortem examination that involved sequencing the brain’s RNA, they found pegivirus replicating in the brain. Edmonton-based DrugBank has two full-time job openings — one for a data curator/biocurator and another for a business development associate. VisionState, a publicly-traded Edmonton-based company, added three hospitals including an Alberta hospital to the list of clients using WANDA, a touch-screen device that tracks cleaning, maintenance and supply usage. Events Health City’s next breakfast talk will take place on March 5 from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Matrix Hotel. Guest speaker Ifor Ffowcs-Williams, CEO of Cluster Navigations will give a presentation on cluster-based economic development. Inventure$ 2019, an “un-conference” for entrepreneurs and startups to connect with investors, will be held in Calgary from June 7 to 9. The deadline to apply to pitch is March 15. The Healthy Community Symposium by the Communities ChooseWell and the Alberta Cancer Prevention Legacy Fund will host the “Connecting Changemakers” symposium at the Santa Maria Goretti Centre at 11050 90 Street from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on March 7 and from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 8. The 2019 Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health Symposium will be held in Edmonton from April 14 to 16. The T4M Start-up World trade show for medical technology innovators will be held in Stuttgart, Germany on May 7 to 9. Abstract submissions for eHealth 2019 have closed, but there is room at the conference for delegates. The conference runs from May 26 to 29 at the Beanfield Centre in Toronto, ON. The Health Innovation Roundup, sponsored by Health City, is a weekly email newsletter written and published by Taproot Edmonton. Sign up to get the full edition delivered directly to your inbox. If you sign up for a Taproot membership using the code HEALTHCITY, you’ll get 10% off the first year.