The Health Innovation Roundup, sponsored by Health City, is written and published weekly by Taproot Edmonton to bring you the latest news and events in research, technology, companies and people changing health for the better in Edmonton. Sign up to get the full edition delivered directly to your inbox. Use the code HEALTHCITY & you’ll get 10% off the first year. Here are some highlights from this week’s Health Innovation Roundup: Headlines A new University of Alberta clinical trial showed that a single oral fecal transplant followed by fibre supplements improved insulin sensitivity in patients with obesity-related metabolic syndrome. Principal investigator Karen Madse said this research provided evidence that the microbiome can benefit patients’ health. A U of A professor’s cost-effective process for extracting beta-glucan from grains is now being used by Alberta-based companies. According to Thava Vasanthan, who invented Air Currents Assisted Particle Separation (ACAPS), the process mainly helps people with diabetes who can’t tolerate a glucose overload. U of A professor James Shapiro, who leads the Edmonton Protocol team, is trying to change Type 1 diabetes patients’ own blood cells into insulin-producing cells that could be returned to them. Shapiro told CBC’s Radio Active this treatment could remove the need for anti-rejection drugs altogether. Edmonton-based Translational Research in Oncology (TRIO) announced the completion of enrolment in its coopERA breast cancer trial. TRIO said 221 patients have enrolled in the trial three months ahead of schedule. The Ex-Vivo Organ Support System (EVOSS) developed by Edmonton-based medical device startup Tevosol was named among the winners by the Core77 Design Awards for 2021. EVOSS is a portable warm perfusion machine that helps preserve the function of donor organs for longer periods of time. U of A researcher Toshifumi Yokota has developed an online tool and database of synthetic molecules to advance exon-skipping therapy, a “precision medicine technique by which one or more of the protein-coding exons in a gene is skipped to mitigate the effects of genetic mutations.” The provincial government has launched a three-year pilot program to expand work-integrated learning in key sectors like technology and life sciences. The provincial government announced that it’s working with the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) on a number of initiatives to address “immediate challenges facing the health system.” Health City‘s Synthetic Data project was featured in a new piece by Edify. The project aims to demonstrate how synthetic data can be useful for the healthcare industry. The Synthetic Data Summit is taking place on July 7. The event is a collaboration between Health City and Replica Analytics and will “explore current applications of synthetic data generation methods for data reuse and sharing, as well as looking ahead to what the future of synthetic data may look like with the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning.” U of A clinician and researcher Dr. Peter Senior was appointed director of the Alberta Diabetes Institute as well as the Dr. Charles A. Allard Chair in Diabetes Research. The University Hospital Foundation (UHF) announced Joette Decore as a new board chair. Decore, who is an executive and management consultant, has been a board member since 2017. Events July 7, 9am: Synthetic Data Summit July 7, 5pm: AI in Health July 9, 12pm: Human Computer Interaction July 14: Networking session by Alberta Innovates July 30-Aug. 2: Alberta’s inaugural brain-computer interface hackathon (natHACKS) Sept. 22-24: Inventures 2021 Startup Pitch Event Oct. 26-27: Canadian Computational Neuroscience Symposium Nov. 3 & 4: i4 2021 Virtual Conference Dec. 2-5: University Hospital Foundation’s Festival of Trees Have a suggestion for a future edition? Send it to hello@taprootedmonton.ca for consideration. Become a “Roundup Cultivator” and sponsor Taproot Edmonton to help them chronicle health innovation in Edmonton. Learn more