Health Innovation Roundup: March 27, 2019

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

• Microbiologists out of the University of Alberta have found a bacteria capable of infecting single-cell algae and inducing apoptosis — programmed cell death. Research published in Scientific Reports called “Phaeobacter inhibens Induces Apoptosis-Like Programmed Cell Death in Calcifying Emiliania huxleyi,” shows apoptosis in algae, something once only thought to happen in multi-cellular organisms. The finding could lead to antibiotics calibrated to individual cells, instead of wiping out all bacteria, the researchers told Folio.The discovery has other potential applications such as increasing algae’s lifespan for use in biofuels.
• The inaugural Synthetic Biology Solutions Challenge at the Student Innovation Centre at the University of Alberta successfully paired business with science to pitch lab grown seafood.
• Medo.ai‘s Siyavash G. Nia and Scope AR‘s David Nedohin spoke about technology, economic diversification, and the election on CBC’s Edmonton AM.

Events

• The 2019 Annual Warren E. Kalbach Population Conference will be held at the Stollery Executive Development Centre on March 29.
• Ten years after the Healthcare Botnet Malware Incident that occured at Alberta Health Services, the lead incident handler Thomas Matthews will give a talk on cybersecurity in health care on March 29 at the Royal Glenora Club.
• The ATB Datathon: Solve For Alberta, Solve for the World event will take place from March 29-31 at MacEwan University.
• Save Your Skin Foundation, Myeloma Canada and CONECTed will host a pre-election Alberta Health Care Town Hall on April 10 at MacEwan University from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• The 2019 Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health Symposium will be held in Edmonton from April 14 to 16.
• SingularityU Canada’s 2019 Summit will be held in Edmonton on April 23 and 24. This year’s event will focus on challenges concerning Health, Energy, Prosperity, and Citizenship.
• The John Cameron Changing Lives Foundation will host the fundraising music and speaking event CRESCENDO at the Winspear Centre May 4 at 7 p.m. TSN sports personality Michael Landsberg and performers with Edmonton Singing Christmas Tree will take the stage in support Addiction and Mental Health Access 24/7.
• The Canadian Cytometry and Microscopy Association will host its next conference at the University of Alberta on June 17 and 18.

You’ll have to travel for:

• 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.
• 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.

Beyond Edmonton 

• TechCrunch reports that California-based company Meditab leaked medical records because a fax server was not properly secured. The electronic fax server had no password and the data was not encrypted.
• Discover Magazine wrote about a study of a woman who can smell Parkinson’s disease. Now researchers are trying to train dogs and to develop  laboratory machines to sniff out the disease in its early stages.

The Health Innovation Roundup, sponsored by Health City, is a weekly email newsletter written and published by Taproot Edmonton.

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