Winners of the 2015-2016 William and Rhea Seath Awards Competition
Professor Nathalie Tufenkji and Dr. Vimal Maisuria, postdoctoral fellow, both Chemical Engineering, for their “Maple Syrup Extract to Reduce Antibiotic Resistance” project.
Executive summary:
They have showed that an extract from maple syrup can make disease-causing bacteria more susceptible to common antibiotics. This is a simple and effective approach for significantly reducing antibiotic usage (up to 97%), thus slowing the spread of antibiotic-resistance. The extract also acts synergistically with antibiotics in destroying resistant bacterial communities known as biofilms. The proposed synergism-based treatment may expand the spectrum of existing antimicrobials, prevent the emergence of resistant strains, and minimize potential cytotoxicity due to high antibiotic doses. They envision the extract being incorporated, for example, into antibiotic capsules or creams as an antibiotic-boosting agent. The award will be used to conduct necessary in vitro and in vivo experiments with maple syrup extracts to confirm the efficacy of this non-obvious and potentially disruptive technology.
Dr. Mehrdad Mahoutian, postdoctoral fellow, and Professor Yixin Shao, both Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics, for their “Green, Carbon-Negative Construction Materials” project.
Executive summary:
They have developed a carbonation technology that produces construction materials using steel slag as binder and carbon dioxide (CO2) as activator. A specific example is a standard construction block, which are traditionally made from Portland cement. The method developed uses the carbonation activation technique to make steel slag a primary binder for block applications. This will eliminate the use of Portland cement, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, convert steel industry waste into value-added products, sequester carbon dioxide into stable carbonates, and consume zero virgin materials. These construction blocks have equivalent mechanical properties compared to commercial cement-based concrete blocks. As well, the production cost of the green blocks is approximately 25% lower than the commercial standard. The well-established block market suggests a great business opportunity for this new product. The award will allow the team to further generate commercially-relevant data and de-risk the technology for future investment.
Farshad Mirshafiei, PhD student Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics and Dr. Mehrdad Mir Shafiei, Postdoctoral fellow, Electrical and Computer Engineering, for their “Novel Three-Dimensional Seismic Assessment Method (3D-SAM) for Structures based on Sensing Tests” project.
Executive summary:
In the world we live in, earthquakes often cause damage to structures, pose threats to human lives and result in huge economic losses. Existing earthquake assessment solutions start with visual inspection of the structure and subsequently more detailed earthquake evaluation may be planned. Detailed assessment is based on theoretical models that require detailed engineering plans, is both complex and time consuming with an accuracy that depends on the engineer. To address the shortcomings of the current methods, the team invented a new three-dimensional seismic assessment method, 3D-SAM, based on real data recorded by sensors. They established Sensequake to commercialize the idea in September 2015. The award will help to enhance the technology and also to purchase required sensors.
