UNB Researcher Inspired By Desire To Help Victims In War-Torn Countries
Growing up in Thailand, Dr. Angkoon Phinyomark saw first-hand how important things like prosthetics could help amputees recover from a disaster.
“In my hometown in Narathiwat, in the southern part of Thailand, we have a problem between the governmentand a group of local people,” explains Phinyomark.
The friction between the two groups led to terrorism, which included frequent car bombs, which claimed the limbs of both area soldiers and civilians alike.
“My parents still live in my hometown and we still have that kind of problem to this day,” says Phinyomark.
Witnessing these tragedies has led Phinyomark all around the world, studying the body’s muscular, skeletal and neurological systems and how prosthesis and myoelectric control devices could help transform the lives of amputees.
Most recently, his passion had brought him to the University of New Brunswick’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering (IBME), where this month he’s being recognized by the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation with a Rising Star Research Award.
The award is for Phinyomark’s recent paper, which focused on the body’s muscular system and developing signal processing and machine learning algorithms to accurately classify human gestures from surface electromyogram (EMG) signals.
The EMG signal is the electrical activity of the muscles. The outputs of these algorithms can then be used to control physical devices and software, known as a “myoelectric control” system. These systems are advanced hands-free user interfaces, which can be to replace a traditional user interface such as mouse and keyboard.
Phinyomark has studied and worked in Thailand, France, Italy and Calgary, but says working at UNB has been a dream since he first began studying for his PhD back in 2008. He says the first paper his advisor gave him was out of its Institute of Biomedical Engineering.
“I chose that paper, and thus have been working in the research topic of myoelectric control since then,” he says. “IBME at UNB, in my opinion, is one of the top three [institutions] in the world that work on myoelectric control … so finally I am here.”
Besides working at a place that was on his personal “bucket list,” Phinymark says he’s also been able to benefit from funding from the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation.
“They gave us freedom to do research that we would like to do. That’s a good thing,” says Phinyomark. “We can dig into areas that we’re interested in.”
Dalhousie Medicine researcher says new facility invaluable
Doing research in New Brunswick has many other benefits. For Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick doctoral candidate Kenneth D’Souza, it meant working in a brand new research lab; an opportunity he says that would be tough to come by in his home province of Ontario.
“I actually took this job in part because I could work in a new research lab operated by a new principal investigator,” he says. “That was very appealing to me because I was able to set up the lab and set up the protocols and experiments right from the beginning.”
D’Souza is the other NBHRF Rising Star Research Award recipient for this month. His recent research paper focuses on autotaxin, a protein that’s secreted from our fat molecules. Autotaxin generates a potent molecule called lysophosphatidic acid.
“Previously autotaxin and lysophosphatidic acid signaling has been involved in many different diseases such as cancer, inflammation and fibrosis,” says D’Souza. “But we’re actually interested in its role in obesity and insulin resistance which can progress into type two diabetes.”
Their findings showed that it can cause a defect in the mitochondria, which produces energy to the cell, to break down glucose. This can contribute to increasing levels of blood glucose, which can lead to insulin resistance.
“In the future, we want to see if an autotaxin inhibitor can actually prevent or reverse obesity and insulin resistance,” says D’Souza.
That next phase has already started with an experiment on mice.
“We want to give mice, for example, a high-fat diet,” he says. “We want to make them obese and insulin resistant and then after they have developed that, we would like to give them an autotaxin inhibitor and see whether we can actually improve weight gain or insulin sensitivity.”
Research is often an isolated activity, incredible findings often go unnoticed publicly or celebrated. This is especially true in bigger centres like Ontario. That’s why D’Souza says he likes the NBHRF’s Rising Star awards.
“I’ve spent about two and a half years on this project. Finally, it came out after a lot of hard work and I’m being recognized, whereas, in another place, it’s like ‘Ok good, you got this one, now what’s next?’ ” he says.
“I’m really appreciative of what they’re doing and how they’re acknowledging the researchers.”
This story is sponsored by the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation.