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Dr. Jolanda Cibere

Nominated by the Canadian Arthritis Network, Dr. Jolanda's Cibere's innovative research has had an important impact on current thinking and practice in treating osteoarthritis, a common form of arthritis that affects about 3,000,000 Canadians.

Her research into diagnosis and prevention of osteoarthritis led to the development of a standardized knee exam for early detection that has become standard practice in clinics and is being adopted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Her widely read study of glucosamine sulphate showed that the popular over-the-counter supplement – regarded by many as a natural cure for osteoarthritis – offers no long-term improvements.

A research scientist at the Arthritis Research Centre of Canada in Vancouver, Dr. Cibere, 43, is leading an investigation into how knee osteoarthritis progresses among different people and how to predict which patients' conditions will worsen over time. The findings will help guide how to best direct therapy.

Dr. Mohamed Hafed

Dr. Mohamed Hafed's big breakthrough came from thinking small.

As a trainee with Micronet – Microelectronic Devices, Circuits and Systems at McGill University in Montreal, he was intrigued by the idea of shrinking the cumbersome multi-million-dollar machines used to test semiconductors down to something more manageable and less expensive. The work he did with his supervisor, Dr. Gordon Roberts, led directly to the creation of DFT Microsystems Canada Inc. in 2002. The successful Micronet spin-off company has patented technology to test microchip semiconductors – such as those used in cell phones, hearing aids, hand-held computers and auto parts – with much greater ease, at much lower costs.

The innovations introduced by Dr. Hafed, 29, not only made the testing of analog/mixed-signal microchips more-efficient and less-expensive, it made it better: Fewer faulty microchips now make it to the market. His ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit has enhanced Canada's role in the international semiconductor industry.

Dr. Monisha Scott

Named one of the world's Top 100 Young Innovators by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review, Dr. Monisha Scott, 34, is doing world-class work in finding ways to defeat infectious bacteria that are ever-increasingly resistant to traditional antibiotic therapies.

Instead of taking on the bacteria directly, which could then become resistant to its new attacker, her strategy is help the host, boosting the body's immune system with antimicrobial peptides. She calls them non-antibiotic antibiotics. Her ground-breaking research led to the creation of Inimex Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Vancouver, which has ranked among the Top 10 Investment Prospects for Canadian life-sciences companies for four years running.

Dr. Scott was nominated for the Young Innovator award by the Canadian Bacterial Diseases Network. She is a strategic consultant at Inimex, which is in the process of developing a portfolio of clinical programs to address a range of antibiotic-resistant infections.