Goodbye, Alberta Bonjour, Québec

Picomole Instruments Inc. is leaving town.
Company founder and CEO Dr. John Cormier is relocating his company to Quebec City. In the works is an exciting new partnership with a yet to be revealed Quebec company which will help Picomole turn its prototype into a commercial product.
While the move is Edmonton’s loss, this is [...]

Innovotech receives green light for sale of bioFILM PA™ test

In June, writer Greg Gazin interviewed Ken Boutilier, president and CEO of Innovotech Inc. for the July issue of Edmontonians. The focus of the article was the company’s breakthrough test that allows doctors to more accurately identify the right antibiotics required to treat serious, chronic infections that are biofilm based. Since at least 80 per [...]

Will nano crystalline cellulose save our forest products industry?

According to forestry giant George Weyerhauser Jr., trees will play a big role in the nano revolution, and nano crystalline cellulose will be the hot new raw material.
Nano crystalline cellulose comes from all parts of the tree where cellulose and lignin are broken down into their molecular components. Then through nano fabrication, these molecules [...]

The mystery of misfolded prions

Transmission is a big question for scientists studying prion disease. Misfolded prions are associated with mad cow and chronic wasting disease. What makes the misfolded prion infectious within a species, and what stops it from being transmitted between different species?
In his research, University of Alberta biochemist John Paul Glaves studied fragments of peptide fibrils or [...]

Artificial lake to replace Syncrude Oilsands Mine

In 2012, Syncrude will finish a pit where it has been  mining oil sands over the last two decades. In its place, the company will build a huge experimental lake it is calling Base Mine Lake.
As Syncrude’s technology development officer Jim Lorentz explains, dried tailings left over from oil sands production will form the lake [...]

Investing in start-ups “a challenging, hands-on sport”

AVAC Ltd. isn’t exactly a household name but one of the products it helped bring to market certainly is. Cold-fx, might not have made it off the lab bench onto supermarket shelves if it hadn’t been for the early stage investment by AVAC, an Alberta venture capital company.
According to Ross Bricker, president and CEO of [...]

Mining Trees for nano-enabled biomaterials

If Dr. Carlo Montemagno has his way, no one will ever look at trees the same way again.
Montemagno is the Dean of Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He was in Edmonton for the recent conference on nanotechnology and forest products, sponsored by TAPPI and Alberta Ingenuity.
In Montemagno’s world, trees produce more than lumber and [...]

Are nano particles risky?

Engineering new materials at the nano or atomic scale holds great potential for improving products and industrial processes.
But what risks do these novel materials pose human health or the environment?
Joanne Shatkin addressed this issue at the recent Conference on nanotechnology and forest products hosted by TAPPI and Alberta Ingenuity.
Shatkin is an author and managing director [...]

Optics improve nanofabrication

Wave goodbye to silicon chips.
Thanks to advances in nanotechnology, the chips that power computers and other electronic devices may one day be made from the cellulose of trees.
But manufacturing these tiny electronic circuits at the nano or atomic scale depends on optics or new ways of dealing with light.
That’s what Dr. Martin Moskovits talked about [...]

Social Media 101

The magic is in the trends.
Have you clearly defined a goal for your web presence beyond simple brand awareness? For folks with an e-commerce presence, that goal is seemingly simple: conversion of traffic into sales.
I assumed that many website owners had heard of Google Analytics, and had installed the free software within their website code. [...]