We’re funded by the Collaborative Health Research Program (CHRP) for 2015–2019, in a program to develop a new technical platform, together with the foundations of new applications science, for less-invasive ultrafast laser surgery by arthroscopy. This is an enormously exciting project that needs strong components of applied-physics foundations research, state-of-the-art fiber laser development, novel kinds of laser control, and ultrafast nonlinear optics research.

CHRP is a program jointly funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). The program’s objectives are to bring together researchers in physics, chemistry and engineering with researchers in the health sciences, around specific projects which are promising for the improvement of future health care in Canada.

We’ve hired one PDF on this project, and are looking immediately for high-aptitude ambitious graduate students. The project PI is Robin Marjoribanks, and the other leaders include Professor Lothar Lilge (Dept. Medical Biophysics, Univ. of Toronto, and Princess Margaret Hospital Cancer Care Centre), Professor Margarete Akens (TECHNA Institute, also Dept. Medical Biophysics, and Department of Surgery, Univ. of Toronto), and Professor Vaughn Betz (Dept. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Univ. of Toronto). The project is in partnership with FiberTech Optica (Kitchener, ON), and Axis Photonique Inc. (Varennes, QC).

This work trades on our established research in laser-biotissue interaction, published and unpublished, as well as our pioneering work in ultrafast-laser burst-mode processing of materials, for which we hold patents in the USA and Canada. Our patents are licensed internationally to IMRA Inc., and to Rofin, following their acquisition of the assets of FiLaser LLC.

Last update : 2016 September

©RSMarjoribanks 2016