Edgar Matida: 2011 Research Achievement Award

Edgar Matida’s research concentrates on how medications dispensed by inhalers reach the lungs, or how well they don’t.

“Anyone who relies on medical inhalers to help them breathe when they are gasping for breath knows how crucial they are,” says Matida. “They can save lives. We think there is even greater potential for these inhalers to help people coping with lung and non-lung diseases as, right now, a lot of the medication isn’t reaching the lungs.”

Matida has received funding from the Natural Sciences and Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to purchase the necessary equipment and build the infrastructure to conduct the research.

The research team includes Carleton’s Junjie Gu, Matthew Johnson, Fred Nitzsche and Cythia Cruickshank, as well as researchers from Umea University in Sweden, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, University of Waterloo and the University of Alberta.

Matida and Cruickshank are also working with five students on a new fuel cell by performance testing flowing electrolyte – direct methanol fuel cells.

“Potential applications include golf carts and forklift trucks, but this cell could eventually be used to power portable devices such as blackberries, i-Pods or cellphones,” notes Matida. “They would be competitive against batteries and hydrogen fuel cells because of their high power and energy densities, and viable infrastructure requirements.”