McMaster’s new $22 million biointerfaces institute is expected to create major medical breakthroughs.

The facility officially opened today and is Canada’s first and only of its kind. It will offer both students and industry professionals in Hamilton a chance to use state-of-the-art technology. Researchers will use high-speed robots to tackle some of the most difficult health and safety problems.

John Brennan, a Canada Research Chair, is working on developing test kits to diagnose certain infections immediately. “If you go into a doctor’s office, they’d have to make a decision very quickly in terms of what your diagnosis might be. If they have to take a sample, send it to a lab, wait several days to get an answer back, you could end up with a deteriorating condition.”

“If we can create something that’s easy to use and cheap, that a doctor will be able to use himself in his own office to get immediate answers, that’s going to have a transformative effect on how medicine is done.”

The facility is also expected to generate spin-off companies and create new jobs for students in the Hamilton area.