The type of problems we wanted to address with the new technology development has to do with those that are potentially life-threatening for both baby and sometimes complications for the mothers as well.
The real challenge is that it's a fairly substantial number. Canada has 33 million people and 350,000 pregnancies per year. If you look at Ontario, for instance, we have 140,000, and in Quebec there would be about 70,000 or 80,000 new births per year. About 1% to 3% of them would have a birth defect associated with them. It affects the entire system, from brain to heart to lungs to the abdominal organs.
The type of technology we want to develop is essentially to make the system smart. Currently we use very dumb instruments, 1990s technologies that we pay a huge amount of money to buy and use.
The second thing is to not only make those instruments smart but make them small, so that it's applicable right across, in all children of all ages, from even before they are born, and it's a type of technology that's scalable for adults as well.
The other fundamental change for us is that this is an opportunity for not only clinicians such as myself, but it allows interaction with engineers. It's a new paradigm, in a sense. It's an open canvas where scientists, engineers, and clinicians can interact.
Canada has always been a leader in using the technology, and I think this is really the beginning of an opportunity to be able to put things together and make a difference.