UTM biology students explore research in healthcare, global industry
The real-world learning experiences and innovative research experiments of biology students at the University of Toronto Mississauga were the focus of last Wednesday’s Biology Internship Presentations Day.
Students in BIO400, a part-time, unpaid, 200-hour internship program for fourth-year biology students, shared the research projects and organizational initiatives they participated in as part of their placements at various public and private organizations within the GTA. The full-day event, which took place at the Faculty Club at the William G. Davis Building, featured 21 presentations on a wide range of topics, including the effects of sedentary behaviour on the musculoskeletal system, addressing cardiac problems in survivors of childhood cancer, marketing intelligence strategies for startup companies, and how aging affects cognition.
Naisargee Patel, who interned in the Seniors & Rehabilitation Day Hospital Program at Credit Valley Hospital, studied whether smartphone applications can help maintain independence for older adults who have experienced a mild cognitive impairment from a stroke. She evaluated and rated different Apple and Android apps, such as MyMedSchedule, which creates medication schedules and sends users text and email reminders to take their medicines; and Out of Milk, which simplifies making and using food shopping lists. She concluded that many of these apps could help improve older adults with cognitive deficits better manage the tasks of daily living.
“The smartphone apps…could facilitate their transition from the medical environment into the community much faster and much more smoothly,” Patel said, adding, “It’s important to teach the older population how to use these apps to cope with their cognitive deficits, maintain their independence in the community and be active.”
As an intern in the Employee Health, Safety and Wellness Department at Trillium Health Partners, Kaitlin Kory was involved in an initiative to create a mental health plan aimed at the more than 11,000 employees who work at the organization’s three hospitals in Mississauga. The project was a priority for Trillium because health care workers are at a higher risk of developing mental disorders than the general population, and such disorders can affect workplace performance and productivity. Cory’s work involved helping to draft the goals and initiatives for the plan, and creating resource packages for employees on subjects such as smoking cessation, exercise and nutrition.
Muhammad Sami Rehman interned as a laboratory technician at Kal-Trading Inc., a Mississauga-based company that recycles post-industrial plastic scrap into reusable materials. He investigated bioplastics, which are plastics derived from renewable biomass sources such as corn starch, pea starch, vegetable fats and oils, agricultural byproducts and used plastic bottles. For his research, he reviewed the current status of the bioplastics industry in Canada and worldwide, and its use in areas such as medicine and the automotive industry. He explained that global demand for bioplastics is expected to increase from its current level of 890,000 tonnes per year, to 2.9 million tonnes annually in 2017.
How technology has enhanced productivity was the focus of Ahmad Yassin Tasabehji’s research during his internship in the pharmacy department at Credit Valley Hospital. He examined how a new electronic system introduced in 2012 for collecting patients’ medical histories was an improvement over the previous approach of collecting such data by pen and paper. He was able to determine that the new system had indeed improved the information-gathering process in multiple ways.
“The old approach was time consuming, there were legibility problems and papers would get lost,” Tasabehji said. “The electronic system prevents any loss of information, and makes it easier and faster [to share] information between people.”