Animal behaviouralist Clover Bench, left, co-created a non-invasive device and method to measure animal health. Food engineer Feral Temelli, right, invented a technology that creates opportunities for ingredients to deliver bioactive components.
Two researchers and the groundbreaking technologies they invented while working in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences will be celebrated this month for the patents those innovations received in 2016.
Clover Bench, an animal behaviouralist, and Feral Temelli, a food engineer renowned for her work in supercritical fluid technology, are scientists in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science. Each will receive an Innovation Award from TEC Edmonton.
The Innovation Awards honour University of Alberta researchers, their ingenious technologies and the commercialization community that helps transfer those innovations from the lab to the world.
Bench created, along with adjunct professor Al Schaefer, an apparatus and method that automatically collects and interprets non-invasive infrared images from one or more animals at a time, to predict their health, growth or reproductive state using both thermal and behavioural biometrics.
The technology simultaneously enables scientists to gather large amount of radiated heat and behaviour information from animals in short periods of time, for a variety of applications that can be customized for the species and the setting, said Bench.
"From a behaviour science standpoint it has opened up a whole new way of approaching animal behaviour, by using the unique attributes of the infrared camera to capture the subtle movements of an animal that cannot be observed easily using standard visual-based methods," she said.
Temelli's patent is for generating micro- and nano-sized particles and fibres from biopolymers (biodegradable molecular structures) so that they can be used to impregnate a bioactive component and/or encapsulate a bioactive component with biopolymers.
"Our new technology overcomes the challenges associated with conventional techniques for drying of high molecular weight biopolymers and creates new opportunities for ingredients to deliver bioactive components, targeting a variety of applications," said Temelli.
The event, which takes place Nov. 16, is hosted by TEC Edmonton, which is the commercialization agent for UAlberta. The awards ceremony shines a spotlight on achievements that are poised to improve the quality of life and economic future of Albertans.
The awards ceremony will be held in Lister Hall from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Admission is free, but registration is requested.