Laboratory for Drug Delivery and Biomateria

2024

March: Congratulations to Alistair, Nehil, and Yannick on their paper titled Formulating biopharmaceuticals using three-dimensional printing being published in the Journal of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences!
February: Listen to Dr. Ho’s interview with CBC regarding our research on the development of a siRNA nanomicrobicide for the prevention of HIV infection. Read the Press Release on Technology Networks and Medical News Today; Congratulations to Sidi, Yufei, Jijin, Angela, and Ruey-Chyi on their paper titled pH-sensitive dual-preventive siRNA-based nanomicrobicide reactivates autophagy and inhibits HIV infection in vaginal CD4+ cells being published in the Journal of Controlled Release!

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2021

October

Congratulations to Chuying Feng for being awarded the prestigious WIN Nanofellowship Award!

September

Welcome Alistair for joining our group as a MSc student!

June

HoResearchGroup press release on Segmented intravaginal ring for the combination delivery of hydroxychloroquine and anti-CCR5 siRNA nanoparticles as a potential strategy for preventing HIV infection, being published in Drug Delivery and Translational Research:

Health Europa, Mirage News, University of Waterloo

Congratulations to Dr. Ho, Co-PI on the NSERC CREATE grant!

Congratulations to Yannick on being awarded for Best Student Presentation in the Pharmacy Research Seminar Series!

Congratulations to Chuying for Pharmacy Graduate Award for Highest Final Grade in the Course PHARM610 Topics in Drug Development!

May

Congratulations to Dr. Yannick Traore on his succesful Ph.D. defense!

April

Congratulations to Derek on his succesful MSc defense!

Congratulations to Yannick Traore, Yufei Chen, Fernanda Padilla on their paper titled Segmented intravaginal ring for the combination delivery of hydroxychloroquine and anti-CCR5 siRNA nanoparticles as a potential strategy for preventing HIV infection being published in Drug Delivery and Translational Research!

Congratulations to Yannick Traore and Jennifer Rett on their paper titled Sustainable Materials for Fused Deposition Modeling 3D Printing Applications being published in Advanced Engineering Materials!

2020

December: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for his contribution on a paper titled Microfluidic Technology for Antibacterial Resistance Study and Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing: Review and Perspective. being published in ACS Sensors!
November: Welcome Calvin for joining our group as a MSc student!
October: Congratulations to Jin and Derek for their paper titled Challenges in the development and establishment of exosome-based drug delivery systems. being published in Journal of Controlled Release!
September: Welcome Sihan and Chuying for joining our group as a MSc students!
August: Congratulations to Sidi for her paper titled Anti-α4β7 monoclonal antibody–conjugated nanoparticles block integrin α4β7 on intravaginal T cells in rhesus macaques. being published in Science Advances!
July: Congratulation to Yannick Traore on being awarded the Special Merit Award for Substatial Impact on Overall Research Mission!!
April: AsliTech helps the fight against COVID-19 by donating 3D prininted face shields to support front line health care workers.AsliTech Supporting the Fight against COVID-19; Congratulations to Dr Ho and his collaborators on being awarded the NSERC Research grant to develop a COVID-19 Vaccine!.University of Waterloo researchers developing DNA-based COVID-19 vaccine
February: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded the Ontario Research Fund-Research Infrastructure award!
Ontario government awards $3.4 million to Waterloo researchers for infrastructure,
January: Congrats to Yannick on being awarded the WS Rickert Graduate Fellowship recognizing his outstanding research in the field of nano-medicine!

2019

September

Congratulation to Yannick for being awarded the prestigious 2019 Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship NSERC!

Welcome Lisa for joining our lab as Master Student!

August

Congratulation to Dr. Ho on receiving CFI infrastructure funding!

Congratulation to Dr. Ho on receiving CIHR project competition grants for the next 5 years!

May

Congratulation to Yannick on being awarded the 2019 Canada CSPS Award in Lipid-based Drug Delivery!

Congratulation to Dr. Ho and collaborators for receiving CHIR grant to work on the combination of 3D printed and injection molded delivery devices to prevent HIV infection!New methods and old medicines to prevent HIV transmission

April

Congratulation to Dr. Ho for been awarded Outstanding Faculty Mentor in Graduate Program at University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy!

Well done Nehil on your video explaining your project submitted for the CRS_FG Transdermal and Mucosal Delivery competition!

3D-printed intravaginal scaffold for prevention of HIV infection,

HoResearchGroup press release on Autophagy induction and PDGFR-β knockdown by siRNA-encapsulated nanoparticles reduce chlamydia trachomatis infection. being published in Scientific Reports :

New York Post, Mirror, University of Waterloo

February

Congratulations to Sidi and Yannick for their paper titled Autophagy induction and PDGFR-β knockdown by siRNA-encapsulated nanoparticles reduce chlamydia trachomatis infection. being published in Scientific Reports!

January

Welcome Christina for joining our lab as NSERC Undergraduate Researcher!

2018

October: Congratulations to Seungil(Leo) and Yannick for their paper titled Design and development of pH-responsive polyurethane membranes for intravaginal release of nanomedicines being published in Acta Biomaterialia!
September: Welcome Jennifer, Nida and Hyojin for joining our lab as Undergraduate Students!
September: Welcome Nehil RG and Jin Wang for joining our lab as MSc students!
August: Congratulations to Yannick and Yufei for their paper titled Current State of Microbicide Development being published in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics!
August: Congratulations to Seungil(Leo), Yannick, and Yufei for their paper titled Switchable On-Demand Release of a Nanocarrier from a Segmented Reservoir Type Intravaginal Ring Filled with a pH-Responsive Supramolecular Polyurethane Hydrogel being published in ACS Applied Bio Materials!
July: Congrats Yannick Traore for being awarded 2018 CRS Young Scientist Travel Award !
July: Welcome Derek Chen for joining our lab as MSc student!
May: Welcome Benita, Alyssa joining our group as summer students!
April: Congrats Yannick Traore for being awarded 2018-2019 Ontario Graduate Scholarship!
April: HoResearchGroup press release on Implants attenuating vaginal T lymphocyte activation and inflammation :
CTV News, CBC News, Chatelaine Magazine and EurekAlert.

Mar: Congratulations to Yufei, Yannick, and Sidi for their paper titled Implant delivering hydroxychloroquine attenuates vaginal T lymphocyte activation and inflammation being published in the Journal of Controlled Release!

2017

Nov: Congratulations to Miral for her collaborative work with Dr. Song Liu's research group titled A new strategy for battling bacterial resistance: turning potent, non-selective and potentially non-resistance-inducing biocides into selective ones being published in the Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine!
Nov: Congratulations to Yufei on successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis! Proud of you! Yufei(Andy) has been very productive during his Ph.D. studies and been awarded multiple competitive prestigious awards provincially and nationally. Nicely done, Dr. Chen!
Nov: Congrats to Yannick, Miral, and Jijin for their article titled Dynamic Mechanical Behaviour of Nanoparticle Loaded Biodegradable PVA Films for Vaginal Drug Delivery being published in the Journal of Biomaterials Applications! Well done guys!
Aug: With mixed emotions we announce HoResearchGroup is relocating to School of Pharmacy at University of Waterloo! We sincerely appreciate the support from University of Manitoba, especially all our colleagues at the College of Pharmacy!
Aug: Congratulations to Seungil and Yannick for their new paper titled Self-assembled nanoparticles made from a new PEGylated poly(aspartic acid) graft copolymer for intravaginal delivery of poorly water-soluble drugs just being published! Good job everyone!
July: Congratulations to Sidi on successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis! Proud of you! Sidi has been very productive during her Ph.D. studies and been awarded multiple competitive prestigious awards provincially, nationally, and internationally. She is the first Ph.D. student graduated from HoResearchGroup! We wish you a great success in your future career, Dr. Yang!
June: Congratulations to Yannick Traore being awarded a highly competitive 2-year Graduate Studentship by Research Manitoba! We sincerely appreciate Research Manitoba for this prestigious award!
May: Welcome back Gabriel for working with us this summer again!
May: Congrats Lyndon Walker for being awarded the 2017 GSK/CSPS National Undergraduate Student Research Award! He is the 5th consecutive undergraduate student from the our group for this prestigious award!
March: Congratulations to Jijin and Karam on their paper titled Development of antibody-modified chitosan nanoparticles for the targeted delivery of siRNA across the blood-brain barrier as a strategy for inhibiting HIV replication in astrocytes has been officially accepted for publication in Drug Delivery and Translational Research!
Janurary: Congratulations to Yufei! His research project is featured in University of Manitoba ResearchLIFE Winter 2017 edition (page 8)!

2016

Dec: Congrats to Dr. Ho on being awarded the prestigious Leslie F. Buggey Professorship in Pharmacy! It is a great honor!
Oct: Congrats to Leo and Andy for their co-first author paper "Reversibly pH-responsive Polyurethane Membranes for On-demand Intravaginal Drug Delivery" being published in Acta Biomaterialia! Our first collaboration paper with Liu Group from Textile Sciences at U of Manitoba - well done everyone! More papers to come!
August: Welcome Giulia joining our group as a French Pharmacy Undergraduate Student!
July: Congratulations to Yufei for being awarded a 2-year PhD Graduate Studentship from Research Manitoba!
June: Congratulations to Yannick on receiving CC-CRS abstract award at the 2016 CSPS/CC-CRS conference! Yannick was also chosen to give an oral presentation during the "Protein and Peptide Delivery" session! We would like to express our greatest gratidutes to CIHR, NSERC, MHRC, CC-CRS, and Collge of Pharmacy, U of Manitoba for providing the research funding and travel support!
June: Congratulations to Sidi and Celine on receiving CC-CRS post award and abstract award at the 2016 CSPS/CC-CRS conference!
June: Congratulations to Karam being awarded the GlaxoSmithKline National Summer Student Research Program Award at the 2016 CSPS/CC-CRS conference! Karam has been the 4th consecutive winner from the HoResearchGroup for this prestigious award!
June: Congratulations to Miral on receiving her M.Sc. degree! Proud of you! Miral has been very productive during her M.Sc. studies and been awarded multiple competitive prestigious awards both provincially and nationally. She is the first student graduated from HoResearchGroup! We wish her a great success in her future career!
May: Congratulations to Miral - her paper titled Nanoparticles encapsulated with LL37 and serpin A1 promotes wound healing and synergistically enhances antibacterial activity has been officially accepted for publication in Molecular Pharmaceutics!
May: Welcome Lyndon, Gabriel joining our group as summer students!
March: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being granted Tenure and promoted to Associate Professor!
March: Congratulations to Sidi for being awarded the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad from the China Scholarship Council!
March: Congratulations to Miral for passing her MSc defense - the first graduate of HoResearchGroup!
Feb: Learn more about Yannick's Research on intravaginal rings and HIV prevention !

2015

December: Congratulations to Yufei for being awarded the 2015 Leslie F. Buggy Graduate Scholarship in Pharmacy and Miral for being awarded the 2015 MPhA/William G. Eamer Graduate Scholarship in Pharmacy by College of Pharmacy, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, U of Manitoba!
November: Congratulations to Miral for being awarded the Manitoba Graduate Scholarship from the Province of Manitoba. This is given to the highest ranked applicant that applied for the most recent UMGF competition!
November: Congratulations to Sidi for being awarded the 2015 Outstanding International Student Award by Manitoba Council for International Education!
October: Welcome Vincent Jimenez, our new NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award recipient joining our group!; Congratulations to Karam Al-Bayati and Celine Jimenez on receiving this year's Pharmacy Student Research Award!
September: Congratulations to Yannick and Yufei – their paper titled Evaluating the Impact of Hydroxychloroquine-Loaded Polyurethane Intravaginal Rings on Lactobacilli has been published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy!; Congratulations to Miral, Sidi, and Jijin their paper titled Protein/peptide-based entry/fusion inhibitors as anti-HIV therapies: challenges and future direction has been officially accepted for publication in Reviews in Medical Virology!
August: Congratulations to all summer students for the great productivity during the summer and nice presentations! Impressed with all work everyone has accomplished!
August: Congratulations to Sidi and Yufei for their marriage! We wish them eternal love and happiness!
June: Congratulations to Sidi for being awarded a 2-year Graduate Studentship from Research Manitoba!
June: Congratulations to Jijin and Sidi – their paper titled Biodegradable Film for the Targeted Delivery of siRNA-loaded Nanoparticles to Vaginal Immune Cells has been officially accepted for publication in Molecular Pharmaceutics!
May: Welcome our summer students Karam, Kelsie, Celine, Fernanda and Jimmy joining our group!
May: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded a grant from the University Research Grants Program (URGP) for the project entitled "Topical Nanomedicine for Accelerated Chronic Wound Healing"!
April: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded a 5-Year Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)!
April: Congratulations to Dr. Gu, Yufei(Andy), Sidi, Miral and Yannick for their abstracts being accepted for presentation at the 2015 CSPS/CC-CRS meeting in Toronto from May 26 to 27! Congratulations to Dr. Gu and Andy for being awarded the CC-CRS travel award to attend the conference! Andy also has been selected to give an oral presentation during the "Mucosal Drug Delivery" session! We would like to express our greatest gratidutes to CIHR, MHRC, CC-CRS, and our Faculty for providing the travel support!
April: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded the 2015 Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada (AFPC) New Investigator Research Award! Join us to celebrate this during the upcoming CSPS/CC-CRS conference!
April: Congratulations to Miral for being awared the 2015 University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship (UMGF)!
April: Congratulations to Jessica! - Recipient of the 2015 GSK/CSPS Undergraduate Student Research Program Award!
April: Congratulations to Miral! - Recipient of the 2015 Gattefosse/CSPS Award in Lipid-Based Drug Delivery! She will receive her award in Toronto in May!
March: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded a Diagnostic Services Manitoba (DSM) Research Operating Grant (2015-2017) for the project entitled "Development of a Microfluidic Device for the Rapid Detection of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria".
March: Dr. Ho has been invited to give a presentation entitled "Application of nanotechnology and medical device design in microbicide development" as part of the University of Manitoba, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics Seminar Series.
January: Dr. Ho's TEDxUManitoba talk, "Nano-medicine: The Way of the Future?", is available on TEDx YouTube channel! If you missed the event, watch it now!

2014

December: Congratulations to Sidi for being awarded this year's College of Pharmacists of Manitoba/William G. Eamer Graduate Scholarship in Pharmacy!
December: The interview of our group - "Research group is developing new strategies to prevent HIV" is featured in UM TODAY for 2014 World AIDS Day!
November: Dr. Ho gave a TEDx talk "Nano-medicine: The Way of the Future?" on Nov 4, 2014 at TEDxUmanitoba!
October: We are indexed by the Canada Foundation For Innovation (CFI) Research Facilities Navigator and can help with your pharmaceutical formulation development! Check out our services page and contact Dr. Ho for more information.
September: Congratulations to Yufei and Sidi – their paper titled Development of an Analytical Method for the Rapid Quantitation of Peptides Used in Microbicide Formulations has been officially accepted for publication in Chromatographia!
September: Welcome Seungil (Leo) Kim for joining our group as a PhD student from Biomedical Engineering!
September: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being selected to speak at the TEDxUmanitoba with the topic "Nano-medicine: The Way of the Future?" on Nov 4, 2014! Check out other amazing speakers and sign up to attend the talk (before Oct 10, 2014)!
September: Congratulations to Jessica on receiving the Pharmacy Student Research Award!
August: Yufei(Andy) is presenting his research poster at Globalization of Pharmaceutics Education Network (GPEN) 2014 meeting at Helsinki, Finland!
August: Congratulations to Yufei, Yannick, and Amanda – their paper titled Development of Polyether Urethane Intravaginal Rings for the Sustained Delivery of Hydroxychloroquine has been officially accepted for publication in Drug Design, Development and Therapy!
July: Jijin, Yufei(Andy), and Sidi are presenting their research posters at 2014 CRS Annual Meeting at Chicago!
July: Congratulations to Sidi for being awarded the International Graduate Student Scholarship from University of Manitoba!
June: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded a 2-year Operating Grant from MHRC!
June: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for receiving the GSK/CSPS Early Career Award and giving the Lecture at 2014 CSPS/CC-CRS conference! Sidi is also discussing the RNAi-based nanomicrobicides at the conference! Also, congratulations to Amanda for being one of the recipients of the GlaxoSmithKline National Summer Student Research Program Award!
May: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being invited to give a talk on "Polymeric Intravaginal Rings for Microbicide Development" at the 2014 Prairie Infectious Immunology Network (PIIN) Meating at Hecla Provincial Park!
May: Congratulations to Sidi for being selected to give an oral presentation on "RNAi-Based Nanomicrobicides" at the CSPS/CC-CRS Meeting in Montreal!
May: Congratulations to Dr. Gu, Yufei(Andy) and Sidi for their abstracts being accepted for presentation at the 2014 CRS meeting in Chicago from July 13 to 16! We would like to express our greatest gratidutes to MHRC, CC-CRS, Faculty of Graduate Studies and Faculty of Pharmacy for providing the travel support!
May: Congratulations to Yufei(Andy) and Sidi for receiving the CC-CRS Travel Award and Graduate Student Travel Award from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Manitoba to attend the CSPS/CC-CRS Meeting in Montreal! They will be presenting their research posters at the 2014 CSPS/CC-CRS conference at Montreal from June 10 to 13! We are so grateful for the support from CC-CRS and our Faculty!
April: Congratulations Yannick on winning 3rd place for his research presentation during "La Journee Du Savoir"!
April: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded the 2014 University of Manitoba Rh Award as an emerging researcher for outstanding contributions to display exceptional promise, high qualities of innovation and stimulation to research colleagues in their own and related disiplines!
March: Congratulations to Sidi for being awarded the 2014 Rx&D Student Research Poster Award at the 2014 AFPC Annuel Meeting at Saskatoon!
Feburary: Welcome Miral Fumakia for joining our group as a MSc student!

2013

October: Dr. Ho was invited to host a scientific workshop at the China Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing.
October: Congratulations to Juliana Nguyen and Amanda Li for being awarded the 2013 Faculty of Pharmacy Summer Student Research Award!
September: Welcome Yannick Traore (Lab Assistant) for joining our research group!
Aug: Our research paper titled Novel Intravaginal Nanomedicine for the Targeted Delivery of Saquinavir to CD4+ Immune Cells
has been offically published in the International Journal of Nanomedicine. Congratulations to the authors!
July: The interview of Dr. Ho - Treating and preventing HIV has been published in International Innovation.
June: Congratulations to Jijin and Sidi for being awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Graduate Studentship respectively from MHRC!
June: Congratulations to Alicia for being one of the recipients of the GlaxoSmithKline National Summer Student Research Program Award in 2013 CSPS conference!
June: Our lab is funded by the Federal Government through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Leaders Opportunity Fund (LOF) to establish a "Microbicide Development and Characterization Laboratory" - offically announced by CFI! The news is also reported by University of Manitoba News Room!
June: June – Dr. Ho has been invited to speak at the 2013 joint conference for the Canadian Chapter-Controlled Release Society (CC-CRS) and Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences (CSPS) and will also be co-chairing the session "Nanomedicine and Gene Delivery".
June: Yufei, Sidi, and Alicia will be presenting their research posters at the 2013 joint conference for the Canadian Chapter-Controlled Release Society (CC-CRS) and Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences (CSPS) - June 11-14 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
May: Congratulations to Sidi for being awarded the International Graduate Student Scholarship from University of Manitoba!
May: Congratulations to Sidi, Yufei, Kaien, and Alicia – their paper titled “Novel Intravaginal Nanomedicine for the Targeted Delivery of Saquinavir to CD4+ Immune Cells“ has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Nanomedicine!
April: Our paper entiltiled Characterization of long-circulating cationic nanoparticle formulations consisting of a two-stage PEGylation step for the delivery of siRNA in a breast cancer tumor model recently published in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences is recognized as one of the top 10 most downloaded papers in the past three months!
March: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded an Operating Grant (CHVI Vaccine Discovery and Social Research) as co-PI from CIHR entitled "Limiting HIV target cells by inducing immune quiescence in the female genital tract".
Feburary: Congratulations to Sidi, Yufei and Roien – their paper titled Advancements in the field of intravaginal siRNA delivery is published in Journal of Controlled Release!

2012

June: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded a 3-year Establishment Grant from MHRC.
June: Congratulations to Yufei for being awarded a 2-year Graduate Studentship from MHRC.
March: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded a grant from The Dr. Paul H. T. Thorlakson Foundation Fund entitiled "Novel nanomedicine for the active targeting of lymphoid tissue".

2011

December: Congratulations to Yufei for being awarded the Manitoba Pharmaceutical Association / William G. Eamer Graduate Scholarship in Pharmacy and the University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship in 2011!
December: Congratulations to Sidi for being awarded the Faculty of Graduate Studies International Graduate Student Entrance Scholarship in 2011!
December: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded a Grant from the >Manitoba Medical Service Foundation (MMSF) entitled "Novel Intravaginal Ring for Prevention of HIV Transmission".
March: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded an Operating Grant from CIHR entitled "Intravaginal Ring to Prevent HIV Transmission".

2010

: Faculty Recruitment
: The Bulletin Newspaper

2009

: Fast Company 2009 Five Creative Ways to Improve Health Care in the Developing World
: Congratulations to Dr. Ho for being awarded a grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation!

2024

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