Innovation Cycle
The PHSA is connecting the University of Alberta’s precision health ecosystem players across the Innovation Cycle ‘For the Public Good’. It will help achieve transformational change in the health and well-being of individuals by better connecting the full scope of University of Alberta activity across the innovation continuum from discovery through to implementation of new products, processes, and policies. Their contributions aim to continuously improve our ability to support people in managing health and well-being across a lifetime.
The Precision Health Innovation Cycle includes four interrelated cross-cutting themes - Research & Discovery; Development & Validation; Commercialization and Integration / Knowledge Translation. When applied to sectors such as Digital Health, Precision Diagnostics, Precision Therapeutics and Public Health and Wellness, they cover a matrix of research and teaching activities across the university including, but not limited to: Basic science, applied and clinical science, and academic inquiry relating to public engagement, ethics, policy and equity.
Impacts
We are home to leading experts in many fields. Our technology transfer and entrepreneurship programs help transfer many innovations technologies out of the university and into society, so everyone benefits. Here are just a few examples:
- Purified synthetic insulin in the 1920s so diabetes wasn't a fatal diagnosis. In the 1990s created a new technique that eliminated dependence on daily insulin injections for many.
- Canada's first open-heart surgery
- One of the world’s first 'bionic' knees
- Blood test to detect prostate cancer
- Test to detect and prevent colon cancer before it starts
Find more information at the University’s Research and Innovation site.