THUNDER BAY – When Sasha Bubon left the Ukraine seven years ago, he thought he was going to spend his life as a computer scientist.
How things change.
On Friday the Lakehead University PhD students launched Radialis, which is partnering with the Centre for Imaging Technology Commercialization to design, manufacture and market a high-resolution positron emission mammography device.
It’s a joint venture between the university and the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute, and possibly the start of things to come for the medical imaging industry in the city.
It’s the stuff of dreams, Bubon said.
Seeing his research put into practices is reward in itself.
“I’m really eager to show that you can not only research it, but make an application out of it and bring it to people. In our case you bring it to market and you actually make patients benefit from it,” he said.
Bubon admitted there are plenty of challenges facing Thunder Bay researchers.
For starters, the infrastructure that might be found in larger centres like Toronto isn’t in place.
“We kind of have to build it from the beginning,” he said. “Things that require knowledge, it’s a little bit off the beaten path for many services we’d require. But we try to build our relationships here with suppliers and vendors and different services.
“If we can’t find the knowledge in town we try to bring it here. And in the worst-case scenario we try to contact it out and try to build our own knowledge. It is challenging sometimes, but most of the time we can work around it and make it work.”
Bubon is confident the city can host a vibrant technological industry.
“I think innovation should be successful. We are already creating things to make the world a better place,” he said.
Canada research chair Alla Reznik, the chief scientific officer at Radialis said the device will help patients for whom conventional breast-cancer screening methods don’t always work.
Reznik said the university, which is entering Research and Innovation Week, has provided the support that makes a company like Radialis – and hopefully others down the road – possible.
“We are not only developing something, it doesn’t only end with proof of concept. Our laboratory prototypes, our idea to go the whole way from invention to commercialization means the patient will benefit from what we’re doing in the lab,” she said.
It’s a way to diversify an economy awaiting just this type of innovation.
“Our economy has all the prerequisites to be based on science,” she said, noting Radialis is the second spinoff company through the TBRRI, after XLV Diagnostics.
“It’s going very well and they are almost ready for clinical trials here at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.”
Andrew Dean, the school’s vice-president of research and innovation, on Friday also announced the launch the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research, which will promote and support research and innovation and entrepreneurship at Lakehead.
