Sleeping giant of research waking up, German professor says

Thunder Bay is awakening a sleeping giant when it comes to the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute, said German physics professor Sergei Baranovski.

"I met (founding scientific director) John Rowlands four years ago in Toronto and he told me about the plans for the institution," said Baranovski. "I couldn’t’ imagine how fast and efficient would be the development and if it develops further with the same speed, yes, it will grow into a scientific giant in the field of research."

Baranovski, a professor at the University Marburg in Germany, was one of the speakers at the inaugural Lake Superior Imaging Consortium at the Best Western Nor’Wester Resort Hotel Monday.

The three-day event is a partnership between the TBRRI and Lakehead University; it aims to bring together experts into a collaborative environment to share ideas about medical imaging technology, said TBRRI vice president of research Michael Wood.

"Unlike many conferences in lecture rooms, this is a setting that allows people to get together in a collegial atmosphere and thin of what they might be able to do together to advance the field," he said.

Wood said having the workshop in Thunder Bay is a chance to attract professionals to the area that see the environment as conducive to the research field.

"There is already a nucleus of people here who are interested in doing medical research and the atmosphere for doing research is very ripe," he said. "It attracted me to the area and other people will also see the benefit of coming here and setting up a research program where they can go from basic discovery all the way to (commercialization.)"

The TBRRI has a research program that begins with identifying some needs that are underserved in the medical imaging community, Wood added.

They’re doing basic research to develop some promising technology, which they plan to test in clinical trials at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.

"If all goes well, it catches the attention of industry and we have discussions about licensing…or even more interesting for the Thunder Bay region, we encourage people to form a small company and get the technology into the market," Wood said. "If that goes well, it brings jobs to Thunder Bay."

Workshop participants included delegates from LU, TBRRI, several Canadian universities and scientists and speakers from Lithuania, Japan and the U.S.