Five areas of technological innovation at UBC
Digital technologies UBC has a long history of revolutionizing digital technologies. Computer scientist David Lowe’s SIFT image-matching algorithm, created in 1999, has since been used in applications that couldn’t have even been anticipated at that time, including cellphone image panoramas and drone-based mapping. UBC researchers continue to change how we create and consume digital media, digital design and augmented reality. Cool real-world development: Dinesh Pai and spin-off company Vital Mechanics develop computer models of how skin moves to generate visual effects in movies like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Composites Research Network UBC’s Composites Research Network (CRN) at the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses is collaborating with academic and industry partners to advance the manufacturing of lightweight composite materials, which have enormous promise for applications from sports to aerospace. Cool realworld development: CRN is developing an on-campus manufacturing facility that combines the disruptive forces of automation, simulation and big data. “It will be like a teaching hospital for engineering,” says Anoush Poursartip, director of the CRN. “This is next-generation manufacturing.”
Adapting to a changing world UBC’s biodiversity researchers are applying their understanding of evolution and biodiversity to improve the management of the environment, forestry, fisheries and agriculture. This research ranges in scale from individual genes to entire ecosystems, to harness adaptive potential to maximize the benefits not just to humans, but to the planet as a whole. Cool realworld development: CoAdapTree shows that selecting and planting trees optimized for new climates could increase future forest productivity by 30 per cent.
Translational cancer genomics UBC’s Translational Cancer Genomics research cluster aims to provide personalized treatment for individual patients to target difficult-to-treat cancers. Cool realworld development: UBC researchers are examining the DNA in individual tumours to find out what makes them unique and looking for weaknesses. That will help them to develop a platform that will allow cancer patients to benefit from the most appropriate treatment strategies, while avoiding treatments that won’t work.
Antibiotic resistance This UBC project is finding out why bacteria are developing resistance to formerly effective antibiotics, such as penicillins and cephalosporins. By visualizing the atomic details of drug-resistance mechanisms using powerful new microscopes, researchers contribute to the understanding and treatment of antibiotic-resistant infections. The goal: to shut downs a pathogen’s defence mechanisms, to create new antibiotics and to develop vaccines against them. Cool real-world development: determining the molecular blueprint of a syringelike bacterial nanomachine that infects human hosts by injecting virulent proteins directly into their cells.