The VPMI is a state-of-the-art technology adoption centre located in the heart of Niagara’s bioproducts and chemical manufacturing clusters. The Institute provides industry with technological solutions and access to highly skilled talent to support the growing bioproducts, bioscience, bio-agriculture, and chemical manufacturing sectors in Southern Ontario.
Our pillars
Discovery
Applied research and innovation
Development
Testing, prototyping, and support for early-stage manufacturing
Disruption
Technology transfer and training for technology adaptation into production practices, processes, and operations
Industries we support
Support for
health promotion and disease prevention & treatment.
Nothing is more crucial than health. We all want to promote well-being while preventing and treating diseases. But how can we better understand what our bodies are telling us about the world around us, the food we eat, and the activities we do?
At the Brock-Niagara Validation, Prototyping, and Manufacturing Institute (VPMI), we have advanced equipment that helps us gain valuable insights into these questions.
One important way to assess health is by analyzing biological tissues.
The VPMI’s state-of-the- equipment provides an in-depth analysis of how our tissues respond to the foods we eat and our physical activity. This allows us to develop lifestyle strategies that support healthy, active living.
Our equipment and expertise support an understanding of how changes in foods, like de-alcoholizing beer, affect their composition and health impact.
We can also determine the genetic profiles of bacteria, yeast and viruses. We use this information to create ways of boosting health and treating diseases.
By using VPMI’s advanced analyses, we can learn more about how our environments, the foods we eat, our exercise habits, and the medications we take affect our health, diseases, and nutrition.
VPMI IS
the only institute
TO HOUSE ZEISS CANADA’S
LSM 9 EQUIPMENT.
Support for
The environment.
SPECTROSCOPY AT
U15 CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES
The VPMI fills an important spectroscopy equipment gap in Canadian universities. When compared with the top 15 research universities in Canada, the Institute is one of only three in Canada 8890 GC with PAL3 RTC 120 autosampler bundle and Gerstel Olfactory Detection Port 3 (ODP3) equipment, and the only one outside of Western Canada to have these.
Record-breaking temperatures, out-of- control wildfires, more extreme weather: these and other developments continue to place the natural environment high in the public’s mind.
Industry is under increasing pressure to abide by legislation and best-practice standards that mitigate, and prevent, damage to the natural environment.
There are also great opportunities to create, or enhance, environmentally friendly products, services, and programs.
The Brock-Niagara Validation, Prototyping and Manufacturing Institute is here to support you in these endeavours.
We design chemical products and processes that contain little or no substances toxic to the environment and human health. We do this with our unique, cutting-edge mass spectrometry suite.
If you are already using such ‘green chemistry’ in your operations, we assess whether your products and processes meet ‘green’ standards.
We also test the properties and durability of your ‘green’ products and can enhance what you have at the present.
We identify, quantify, and understand what’s in the air, ground, and water. This is particularly useful in monitoring and tracking pollutants. The analysis is key for remediation efforts and to identify areas that need protection or rehabilitation.
Support for
The bio-agricultural sector.
Agriculture is a delicate business. A lot depends on the weather, soil, plant health, and other factors seemingly out of our control.
It’s vital this sector flourish. From wineries that attract tourists to farms that promote food security, agriculture is a mainstay of local and national economies.
Great biological and technological strides have been made in recent years to support agriculture’s success by bringing more under the farmer’s control.
The Brock-Niagara Validation, Prototyping and Manufacturing Institute houses these innovations.
Our state-of-the-art Zeiss suite of microscopes and scanner conducts sophisticated imaging of biological cells to develop pesticides and treat plant diseases.
Another machine rapidly sequences genetic information in bacteria, yeast and viruses, enabling scientists to detect all known and unknown viruses in grapevines with high accuracy and reliability, among other uses.
We can analyze your soils and water sources for pollutants that affect your crops and can also create, and test, new materials that enhance their health.
Our leading-edge mass spectrometry suite boosts your wine and juice products by creating and testing molecules that add desired flavours and smells. This suite also supports ‘green chemistry’ involving the design of chemical products and processes that contain little or no substances toxic to the environment and human health.
WHAT ARE
GREEN STANDARDS?
Green Development Standards (GDS) are voluntary or mandatory measures created by municipalities to encourage environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable design. GDS are comprehensive principles to guide development at a level of planning and design that focuses on the community as a whole.
Support for
The bio-agricultural sector.
TAKE A LOOK
In an effort to develop more sustainable materials, researchers are using the VPMI’s scanning electron microscope to study novel self-healing and recyclable silicone polymers aimed at reducing plastic waste.
Agriculture is a delicate business. A lot depends on the weather, soil, plant health, and other factors seemingly out of our control.
It’s vital this sector flourish. From wineries that attract tourists to farms that promote food security, agriculture is a mainstay of local and national economies.
Great biological and technological strides have been made in recent years to support agriculture’s success by bringing more under the farmer’s control.
The Brock-Niagara Validation, Prototyping and Manufacturing Institute houses these innovations.
Our state-of-the-art Zeiss suite of microscopes and scanner conducts sophisticated imaging of biological cells to develop pesticides and treat plant diseases.
Another machine rapidly sequences genetic information in bacteria, yeast and viruses, enabling scientists to detect all known and unknown viruses in grapevines with high accuracy and reliability, among other uses.
We can analyze your soils and water sources for pollutants that affect your crops and can also create, and test, new materials that enhance their health.
Our leading-edge mass spectrometry suite boosts your wine and juice products by creating and testing molecules that add desired flavours and smells. This suite also supports ‘green chemistry’ involving the design of chemical products and processes that contain little or no substances toxic to the environment and human health.