Winners of the 2013-2014 William and Rhea Seath Awards Competition
James McGoff and Charles A. Vincent, both undergraduate students in Mining and Materials Engineering for their “Novel Insulation Inserts for Improving Large-Scale BioPharma Logistics Operations”.
Executive summary:
LIFEPACK, the company that James and Charles co-founded, is commercializing a novel insulation product for companies seeking to improve their large scale cold chain operations without disrupting their current shipping logistics. Adopting the LIFEPACK product is the quickest and easiest way for companies to improve their cold chain packaging by 40% to 80%. The product’s development was heavily based on a continuous dialogue with key partners in the biopharma industry. These industrial partners included pharmaceutical developers, centralized laboratory services, contract research organizations (CRO’s), blood banks, hospitals, and third party logistics providers (3PL). The award will go towards scaling and sustaining the growth of the company.
Professor Andrew Kirk, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Philip Roche of the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, and Professor Mark Trifiro, McGill Department of Medicine and Chief of Endocrinology at the Jewish General Hospital, for their “Multiplex Measurement of PCR Reactions by a Label Free Plasmonic Thermocycler”.
Executive summary:
This new, better, cheaper, and faster method in the performance of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been demonstrated and patented at McGill. PCR is an essential tool in molecular biological investigations and dominates the field of molecular diagnostics, providing DNA fingerprinting for crime scene analysis as well as identification of disease processes (cancer resistance and susceptibility, hereditary illness and microbial infection). The award will meet the specific aim of delivering the prototype of a miniaturized, multiplex, energy efficient, and rapid real-time PCR platform that outperforms market leaders.
