Biotechnology / en From the lab to saving lives: Moderna co-founder Derrick Rossi on becoming a serial entrepreneur /news/lab-saving-lives-moderna-co-founder-derrick-rossi-becoming-serial-entrepreneur <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">From the lab to saving lives: Moderna co-founder Derrick Rossi on becoming a serial entrepreneur</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/drr.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=BtGTbhu4 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/drr.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=rBkjCjjg 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/drr.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=hN8UyJ2w 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/drr.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=BtGTbhu4" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>rahul.kalvapalle</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2021-02-22T12:08:43-05:00" title="Monday, February 22, 2021 - 12:08" class="datetime">Mon, 02/22/2021 - 12:08</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Derrick Rossi, a U of T alumnus who will speak at a U of T Entrepreneurship Week event on March 11, co-founded COVID-19 vaccine-maker Moderna more than a decade ago. He's since been involved with four other biotech firms (photo courtesy of Derrick Rossi)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/rahul-kalvapalle" hreflang="en">Rahul Kalvapalle</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/global-lens" hreflang="en">Global Lens</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/coronavirus" hreflang="en">Coronavirus</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-entrepreneurship" hreflang="en">U of T Entrepreneurship</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/alumni" hreflang="en">Alumni</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biotechnology" hreflang="en">Biotechnology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/entrepreneurship" hreflang="en">Entrepreneurship</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/innovation-entrepreneurship" hreflang="en">Innovation &amp; Entrepreneurship</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/startups" hreflang="en">Startups</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/thisistheplace" hreflang="en">ThisIsThePlace</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>When stem cell biologist <strong>Derrick Rossi</strong> co-founded the biotech firm Moderna, he envisioned that its novel solution – using modified messenger RNA molecules to relay genetic code to human cells – would have widespread applications in the realm of genetic disease.</p> <p>“We studied in my undergraduate program and grad school that genes and mutations in genes underlie pretty much all human genetic diseases, which is a large fraction of human diseases,” says Rossi, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in molecular genetics at the Ƶ.</p> <p>More than a decade later, Moderna – named for “modified RNA” – recently launched its first approved product. It had little to do with Rossi’s original vision but was no less significant in its potential impact: a vaccine for the virus that causes COVID-19.</p> <p>“Viruses are not a particularly good business model,” says Rossi, who is no longer affiliated with Moderna, but remains an investor.</p> <p>“It’s not something that a biotech company would be thinking about because there’s not much money to be made there.”</p> <p>The exception, it turns out, “is in the case of a global pandemic – but that was not foreseen.”</p> <p>Rossi is set to discuss his unique journey as a biologist-entrepreneur and his thoughts on biotechnology innovation in a March 11 discussion for the RBC Speaker Series event during <a href="https://entrepreneurs.utoronto.ca/entrepreneurshipweek/">the fifth annual U of T Entrepreneurship Week</a>. His conversation with BNN Bloomberg anchor Amber Kanwar promises to be a signature event of the annual celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship, which runs from March 8 to 11 <a href="https://hopin.com/events/u-of-t-entrepreneurship-week?ref=96134d99ee3">and is open to all members of the U of T community and the public</a>.</p> <p>The free, four-day program, held virtually this year, features an array of events including pitch competitions, startup showcases, workshops and networking sessions. It shines a light on U of T’s vast entrepreneurship ecosystem, which has spawned more than 500 companies and secured over $1.5 billion in investment over the past decade, with U of T recognized as Canada’s top university-managed incubator for research-based startups.</p> <p>“Derrick’s many achievements – which include laying the groundwork for Moderna and a COVID-19 vaccine that’s poised to save lives in Canada and around the world – are a source of pride for the Ƶ,” says <strong>Jon French</strong>, director of U of T Entrepreneurship.</p> <p>“We are delighted to welcome him back to his alma mater, albeit virtually, to learn from his journey as a scientist-entrepreneur and hear his thoughts on biotechnology innovation and its potential to save and transform lives.”</p> <p>Rossi retired from his position at Harvard University in 2018, where he was an assistant professor in the department of stem cell and regenerative biology. He remains an active entrepreneur.</p> <p>He says one of the most important lessons that he learned, and that he looks forward to sharing with young entrepreneurs at U of T, is the importance of asking the right types of researcher questions.</p> <p>“There are two types of questions,” says Rossi. “As a biologist in a lab, you can answer a question that’s really interesting but isn’t going to move the needle on patient health at all, or you can ask a different question that. if you get an answer to it, might solve a problem that could be moved towards patients.</p> <p>“As soon as I realized that, pretty much all the questions we asked in my lab had that type of focus.”</p> <p>Rossi’s lab at Harvard focused on various aspects of stem cell biology, “a field which, by the way, has its origins in Toronto – Till and McCulloch started that entire field,” he points out, referring to U of T researchers <strong>James Till </strong>and <strong>Ernest McCulloch</strong>, who demonstrated the existence of stem cells in the early 1960s.</p> <p>The question that prompted Rossi’s lab to develop the process underpinning Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine had to do with whether mRNA could be altered to coax cells in the body to produce specific proteins.</p> <p>He explains that proteins are the “worker bees of the cell,” while DNA holds the genetic code.</p> <p>“So, you need this intermediate molecule called messenger RNA that carries code from the DNA to the protein-manufacturing facility inside the cell,” says Rossi. “I call it the trifecta of life. DNA makes RNA, makes protein – makes life.”</p> <p>But despite the role of mRNA being known to scientists since the 1960s, molecular biologists had struggled to leverage it in their work.</p> <p>“The question is: why? Well, the answer that most molecular biologists would give you is that RNA is very unstable – it’s a very transient molecule, it’s easily digested by enzymes ... and that’s true, but it seemed unsatisfying to me,” says Rossi.</p> <p>Rossi’s lab began its work by trying to code genetic instructions for green fluorescent protein – a protein that exhibits green fluorescence in jellyfish – into mRNA and delivering it into cells in a dish. “We got a few green cells, but we mostly got a lot of dead cells,” he says. “Dead cells is not what we wanted.”</p> <p>The researchers later repeated the experiment – this time using modified versions of nucleosides.</p> <p>“We found that we could now basically get the green fluorescent protein expressed in all the cells in the dish. So that was the ‘eureka’ moment.”</p> <p>The process was then established in animal models. A key milestone was an experiment in which Rossi’s lab made a modified mRNA for a protein that causes fireflies to light up at dusk and injected it into the thigh muscles of mice, causing them to glow.</p> <p>Along the way, Rossi says an entrepreneurial flame was lit – something he says he wouldn’t have predicted when he was starting out as a scientist.</p> <p>“I was thinking about science primarily as an academic pursuit, answering questions that are previously unknown and being pretty happy to do that,” he says. “It actually even used to be taboo for scientists to think about moving their stuff to [market] ... but that changed in the mid 1-980s when the first biotech companies were being formed.</p> <p>“Then I did it once with Moderna and I got the bug.”</p> <p>After Moderna, Rossi went on to co-found Intellia Therapeutics, which uses the genome editing technology CRISPR/Cas9 to create novel medicines for genetic diseases; Magenta Therapeutics, which is developing ways to use stem cell transplants to reset patients’ immune systems to cure autoimmune diseases, blood cancers and genetic diseases; and Stelexis Therapeutics, which focuses on the discovery of drug targets for cancerous stem cells.</p> <p>He’s now the CEO of Convelo Therapeutics, which is developing a novel treatment for multiple sclerosis.</p> <p>As for Rossi’s entrepreneurial “bug,” there apparently is no cure.</p> <p>“I retired from academia two years ago with the intent of really retiring – taking my kids to school, picking them up from school, and just doing some different things in my life,” he says.</p> <p>“But I can’t say no to the science. I’ve known the scientist behind [Convelo] for many years, so I started helping with moving his science into the clinic and founding a startup, and I got more and more involved with advising ... and somehow I became the CEO of this company.”</p> <p>With the experience of founding or co-founding five companies now under his belt, Rossi says he’s come a long way since his first foray into entrepreneurship as the founder of Moderna.</p> <p>“When I did it the first time, I didn’t really know much about it,” he says. “Of course, why would I when I didn’t have any training?</p> <p>“But now I’ve done it a number of times, so you tend to get pretty good at it.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Mon, 22 Feb 2021 17:08:43 +0000 rahul.kalvapalle 168496 at U of T event to highlight biotech's potential to improve health care, drive post-COVID-19 economy /news/u-t-event-highlight-biotech-s-potential-improve-health-care-drive-post-covid-19-economy <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">U of T event to highlight biotech's potential to improve health care, drive post-COVID-19 economy</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/GettyImages-520238063.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=1_mhYaDs 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/GettyImages-520238063.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=KFzPTrz_ 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/GettyImages-520238063.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=Fo8SmdCq 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/GettyImages-520238063.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=1_mhYaDs" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2021-02-12T10:11:11-05:00" title="Friday, February 12, 2021 - 10:11" class="datetime">Fri, 02/12/2021 - 10:11</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">PRiME, a U of T-led precision medicine initiative, is hosting a Feb. 17 event to highlight the high-growth potential for biomedical innovation and biotechnology in Canada (photo by JVisentin via Getty Images)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/nicole-bodnar" hreflang="en">Nicole Bodnar</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/temerty-faculty-medicine" hreflang="en">Temerty Faculty of Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/bioengineering" hreflang="en">Bioengineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biotechnology" hreflang="en">Biotechnology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-applied-science-engineering" hreflang="en">Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/leslie-dan-faculty-pharmacy" hreflang="en">Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/mount-sinai-hospital" hreflang="en">Mount Sinai Hospital</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>PRiME,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prime.utoronto.ca">a Ƶ-led precision medicine initiative</a>, is working with partners across Canada to&nbsp;generate support for the creation of a network of biotechnology research hubs across the country that would transform health care and propel the post-pandemic economy.</p> <p>“Growing our talent base and creating a constellation of new companies launched from universities will be essential to realize the economic development and societal impact that the growth of the biotechnology industry can deliver,” said&nbsp;<strong>Shana Kelley</strong>, <a href="https://www.provost.utoronto.ca/awards-funding/university-professors/">University Professor</a> in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and director of PRiME.</p> <p>To highlight the high-growth potential for biomedical innovation and biotech in Canada, PRiME is hosting <a href="https://www.prime.utoronto.ca/news/prime-second-annual-symposium-s82kk">a virtual showcase on Feb. 17 called&nbsp;Building Biotech: Science and Talent Accelerating Biomedical Innovation</a>. It will feature a panel of biotechnology leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs and investors who represent Canada’s three main biotechnology ecosystems in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. The panelists&nbsp;will explore how investment in academic science can create societal impact and health security, while also helping to drive post-pandemic economic growth.</p> <p>“Canadian biotech is a small industry with most of our graduates drawn to opportunities in the world-class U.S. biotech sector,” said&nbsp;<strong>Molly Shoichet</strong>, a University Professor in the Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering who is a member of the PRiME steering committee and a serial entrepreneur.&nbsp;</p> <p>“It doesn’t have to be this way. We have homegrown talent with strengths in basic science fundamentals, drug discovery and therapeutic development. What’s missing is meaningful government investment along the continuum of research to commercialization to transform Canadian biotech from a fledgling industry to a true powerhouse of Canadian economy.”</p> <p>Kelley, Shoichet and colleagues across U of T say discussion is critical in the context of the pandemic. The global rush to deploy a COVID-19 vaccine – with Canada effectively being out of the game due to the lack of biomanufacturing capacity – highlights how a thriving biotechnology industry could improve the country’s pandemic response&nbsp;while also providing jobs for graduates and significant economic benefits. &nbsp;</p> <p>There is already evidence the Canadian biomedical community is gaining momentum given recent successes including&nbsp;Repare Therapeutics, a therapeutics company that was based on discoveries made by <strong>Dan Durocher</strong>, a professor in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and a researcher at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, part of the Sinai Health System. Repare raised more than US$250 million through an initial public offering last year on&nbsp;on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Fusion Therapeutics and AbCellera are two other spinoffs from Canadian universities that also had successful IPOs over the past six months. &nbsp;</p> <p>Kelley will kick off the event with her talk, “Tackling Disease with Precision Therapeutics and Diagnostics: PRiME and the GTA Ecosystem.” She will be followed by four speakers representing Vancouver’s and Montreal’s biomedical innovation centres&nbsp;– all of whom lead translational and commercialization-focused organizations.</p> <p>Following these sessions, Andrew Casey, CEO of&nbsp;BIOTECanada, will moderate a panel of entrepreneurs and investors discussing how to build momentum in the biotech sector. He believes that the social and economic impact of the pandemic has increased awareness of the important role the biotech sector can play in delivering innovative solutions. &nbsp;</p> <p>“It will be biotech-based solutions – including vaccines and therapeutic drugs – that will facilitate the ability of society and the economy to return to normal,” said Casey. “The biotech sector can also play a foundational role in the significant economic rebuild that lies ahead.</p> <p>“To maintain a globally competitive biotech sector, it is critical that Canada invest now in manufacturing capacity, research institutes, scientific and entrepreneurial talent and companies.”&nbsp;</p> <p>Kelley said that establishing a network of biotechnology hubs in Canada could be crucial for post-pandemic economic recovery.</p> <p>“It’s time to transform Canada from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy,” Kelley said. “With government investment, we can work quickly to build infrastructure, gather talent and create a breakthrough-to-commercialization pipeline of made-in-Canada discoveries that will address the needs of today and the unmet needs of tomorrow.”</p> <p><strong>Christine Allen</strong>, U of T’s associate vice-president and vice-provost, strategic initiatives, said investing in the future is important.</p> <p>“The biomedical sciences at U of T and across Canada are an area of significant strength and a critical national resource that must be cultivated,” said Allen, a professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.&nbsp;“We must invest in our future and support growth of our ecosystem in this area.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Fri, 12 Feb 2021 15:11:11 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 168384 at Gillian Hadfield appointed inaugural director of U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society /news/gillian-hadfield-appointed-inaugural-director-u-t-s-schwartz-reisman-institute-technology <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Gillian Hadfield appointed inaugural director of U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society </span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Gillian-Hadfield---weblead.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=hqB_5acE 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/Gillian-Hadfield---weblead.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=FchUao2B 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/Gillian-Hadfield---weblead.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=7SwLh2Xu 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Gillian-Hadfield---weblead.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=hqB_5acE" alt="Photo of Gillian Hadfield"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2019-07-26T12:23:00-04:00" title="Friday, July 26, 2019 - 12:23" class="datetime">Fri, 07/26/2019 - 12:23</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">In her new role, Gillian Hadfield will draw on her varied background – in economics and law, humanities, business and high tech – to help ensure technological innovation is implemented fairly and equitably in society (photo courtesy of Gillian Hadfield)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/geoffrey-vendeville" hreflang="en">Geoffrey Vendeville</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/schwartz-reisman-innovation-centre" hreflang="en">Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/schwartz-reisman-institute-technology-and-society" hreflang="en">Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/artificial-intelligence" hreflang="en">Artificial Intelligence</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biotechnology" hreflang="en">Biotechnology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/computer-science" hreflang="en">Computer Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/creative-destruction-lab" hreflang="en">Creative Destruction Lab</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/economics" hreflang="en">Economics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-information" hreflang="en">Faculty of Information</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-law" hreflang="en">Faculty of Law</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/graduate-students" hreflang="en">Graduate Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/humanities" hreflang="en">Humanities</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/meric-gertler" hreflang="en">Meric Gertler</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/philosophy" hreflang="en">Philosophy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/regenerative-medicine" hreflang="en">Regenerative Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/robotics" hreflang="en">Robotics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/rotman-school-management" hreflang="en">Rotman School of Management</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/social-sciences" hreflang="en">Social Sciences</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/vector-institute" hreflang="en">Vector Institute</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Facial recognition technology. Algorithms that decide who is a good candidate for a loan or medical procedure. Interactive robots in workplaces and seniors’ homes.</p> <p>These are just a few examples of the many new and emerging technologies that promise to reshape society in profound and, perhaps, unexpected ways – often raising thorny ethical questions in the process.</p> <p>As the inaugural director of the Ƶ’s new Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and the inaugural Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society,<strong> Gillian Hadfield</strong> will draw on her varied background – in economics and law, humanities, business&nbsp;and high tech – to help ensure technological innovation is implemented fairly and equitably in societies around the world.</p> <p>“Technologies are a means to an end,” says Hadfield, who is a U of T professor in the Faculty of Law and the Rotman School of Management.</p> <p>“And the end must be a world that is better, safer, kinder, fairer for us all.”</p> <p>The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society draws on U of T’s across-the-board strengths in sciences, social sciences and humanities to help foster cross-disciplinary solutions to the profound challenges spawned by rapid technological shifts. The institute <a href="/news/landmark-100-million-gift-university-toronto-gerald-schwartz-and-heather-reisman-will-power">was established thanks to a landmark $100-million donation</a> – the largest in U of T’s history – by business leaders and philanthropists <strong>Gerald Schwartz</strong> and <strong>Heather Reisman</strong>. The gift will also be used to help break ground on the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre at the northeast corner of College Street and University Avenue, a new space for students and faculty innovators working in business, computer science and biotechnology, among other fields.</p> <h3><a href="https://sr-institute.utoronto.ca">Learn more about the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society</a></h3> <p>“U of T researchers are leaders in fields as diverse as machine learning, regenerative medicine, philosophy, and culture and communications,” says U of T President <strong>Meric Gertler</strong>.</p> <p>“The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society will leverage these strengths to help us understand the impact of technology on society – and, indeed, on humanity itself. The work of the institute will also explore the ways in which public policy, politics, and culture can shape the development and application of technology to serve societal ends.</p> <p>“It is an ambitious and important mandate, and we are thrilled to welcome Professor Hadfield to her new role as the institute’s inaugural director and chair.”</p> <p>Hadfield re-joined U of T’s Faculty of Law last year after teaching for 17 years at the University of Southern California. She was originally on faculty at U of T between 1995 and 2001.</p> <p>The native of Oakville, Ont. has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Queen’s University and a law degree and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. She clerked for Chief Judge Patricia Wald on the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, and has held visiting professorships or fellowships at Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Chicago, and Stanford.</p> <p>Hadfield was a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, an experience she says has influenced her vision for U of T’s new institute. As an example of the serendipity that can happen when scholars of a wide variety of fields come together, she recalls hearing a talk by an art historian on the complex geometry of Gothic architecture during her fellowship that meshed with her own ideas on economies and how they pass down knowledge. The lecture focused on how much of the know-how needed to reproduce intricate Gothic buildings was bound up in practice rather than in plans and sketches.</p> <p>“The complexity was rooted in simplicity and it was knowing what steps to take – rather than the math of the whole – that generated the result,” she says. “When masters stopped building the buildings, the knowledge was lost. I remember this point converging with my own thinking about how economies find and transmit knowledge, and how that can also be rooted in practices and not just theory.”</p> <p>She hopes researchers at the Schwartz Reisman Institute will similarly find inspiration and points of connection in each other’s work, sparking new ideas and maybe even whole new branches of knowledge.</p> <p>U of T is a particularly suitable home for such collaboration because it boasts world-leading scholars in a wide spectrum of disciplines, she adds.</p> <p>“The Ƶ is a top-flight research university in so many different fields,” she says. “Our ambition for the institute is to knit together research across the sciences, social sciences, the humanities and other fields to find new, concrete solutions to make sure our emerging and powerful technologies go in the direction we want them to go.”</p> <p><strong>Vivek Goel</strong>, vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, points out that U of T is one of the few universities in the world that ranks among the top schools in a wide range of subjects.</p> <p>“U of T’s broad strength across disciplines makes it the ideal place to encourage a cross-pollination of ideas,” says Goel.</p> <p>“It’s our job to find innovative ways to break down silos between disciplines so these different ideas and perspectives have the opportunity to collide and, hopefully, yield new avenues for research and scholarship, including for graduate students.”</p> <p>The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society is just one example of how U of T is seeking to encourage interdisciplinary approaches, <a href="/news/christine-allen-appointed-u-t-s-first-associate-vice-president-and-vice-provost-strategic">having recently created a new senior administrative position tasked with seeding and scaling such initiatives</a>.</p> <p>Hadfield’s research spans different disciplines and addresses questions ranging from the philosophical to the mathematical. She has called for reforms to the legal system to reduce fees and other barriers faced by the roughly 80 per cent of people who go to court without a lawyer. She expanded on those ideas and the twin challenges of globalization and digitization in her 2017 book, <em>Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent it for a Complex Global Economy</em> (a reference to Thomas Friedman’s bestseller <em>The World Is Flat</em>.) She has taught a course based on her book at U of T and co-led the Legal Design Lab (with her husband <strong>Dan Ryan</strong>, a professor at U of T’s Faculty of Information), an incubator-workshop bringing together students in law, engineering, business, design and information studies to come up with innovative solutions to problems involving access to justice. At Rotman, she teaches about AI and how to ensure its responsible development with the Creative Destruction Lab and the new Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence-affiliated Master in Management Analytics.</p> <p>In addition to research and teaching, Hadfield brings experience as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Agile Governance, which focuses on “adaptive, human-centered, inclusive and sustainable” policy-making in the face of technological advancement. She is also deeply engaged in questions about rules and governance surrounding artificial intelligence as a policy adviser for Open AI in San Francisco, an adviser to courts and tech companies, and as a faculty affiliate at the Vector Institute.</p> <p>One of her early goals as director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society will be to build a “truly integrated, team-based approach to problem solving” by connecting researchers in different disciplines.</p> <p>“One of the first things we will be doing is looking for people who are really interested in engaging with, and respectful of, approaches in other disciplines,” she says. “The first thing we can do is find those people and start to build that community of collaboration. That’s something that takes thoughtfulness and care.”</p> <p>In the future, she wants the institute to be known around the world as the go-to place to learn about the technological challenges facing society and to convene to work on their possible solutions.</p> <p>“I think it’s a great ambition that in 10 years, we’ll have generated new fields of research,” Hadfield says. “I’ll be asking, ‘Have we really created something where we have broken down the silos between disciplines and created truly cross-disciplinary approaches?’</p> <p>“I’d like to see us being part of inventing a new way to do intellectual work. And with that, to have invented new ways to make sure that our powerful technologies develop in ways that serve humanity well.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:23:00 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 157346 at Toronto makes pitch to be world’s ‘Stem Cell City’ with new, state-of-the-art lab /news/toronto-makes-pitch-be-world-s-stem-cell-city-new-state-art-lab-0 <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Toronto makes pitch to be world’s ‘Stem Cell City’ with new, state-of-the-art lab</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-10-12-ccrm-lab-resized-main.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=POh_0r9h 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2017-10-12-ccrm-lab-resized-main.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=H2-05Ppv 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2017-10-12-ccrm-lab-resized-main.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=oX-2cYIm 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-10-12-ccrm-lab-resized-main.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=POh_0r9h" alt> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>rasbachn</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-10-12T10:44:38-04:00" title="Thursday, October 12, 2017 - 10:44" class="datetime">Thu, 10/12/2017 - 10:44</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">A researcher at the Centre for Advanced Therapeutic Cell Technologies pulls a sample of pluripotent stem cells from a bioreactor. The reactor, which uses disposable bags, can generate up to 25 billion cells at a time (photo by Jennifer Robinson)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jennifer-robinson" hreflang="en">Jennifer Robinson</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/alumni" hreflang="en">Alumni</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biotechnology" hreflang="en">Biotechnology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/medicine-design" hreflang="en">Medicine by Design</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research-innovation" hreflang="en">Research &amp; Innovation</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/stem-cells" hreflang="en">Stem Cells</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>With a prized view overlooking Queen’s Park, a trio of tiny bioreactors are quietly creating millions of stem cells –&nbsp;the building blocks of life and the foundation of some of the most promising medical treatments of the future.</p> <p>Housed in the&nbsp;new Centre for Advanced Therapeutic Cell Technologies (CATCT) at MaRS, the bioreactors, which are used to feed and grow new cells, are the smallest of several located on site in the state-of-the-art lab. CATCT is seeking advanced manufacturing solutions to industrialize the cell manufacturing process to meet the needs of cell therapy companies around the globe. &nbsp;</p> <p>The centre, <a href="/news/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-backs-commercialization-stem-cell-research-u-t-and-partners">funded by the federal government's FedDev progam and GE Healthcare for $40 million</a>, is integral to the operations of CCRM, a leader in developing and commercializing regenerative medicine technologies and cell and gene therapies.</p> <p>CCRM and its 10<sup>th</sup>-floor neighbour Medicine by Design, a Ƶ initiative, are at the heart of an emerging global regenerative medicine powerhouse populated by biotech startups, multinational corporations and hospital and university researchers clustered in Toronto’s Discovery District.&nbsp; The Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine&nbsp;is also housed here. &nbsp;It&nbsp;funds "disease teams" to move therapies to clinical trials.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>All of that activity is why Toronto is quickly becoming known as "Stem Cell City," said&nbsp;<strong>Vivek Goel</strong>, U of T’s vice-president of research and innovation, borrowing a term often used by <strong>Michael May</strong>, president and CEO of CCRM and a U of T alumnus.</p> <p>CCRM is helping to “bring all the pieces together” to build on the 1961 discovery of pluripotent stem cells by Ƶ researchers, biophysicist <strong>James Till</strong> and hematologist<strong> Ernest McCulloch. </strong>It was a “no brainer” to support CCRM as its institutional host, Goel told the audience at CCRM’s recent official opening.</p> <p>“It was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do this,” he said, later asking Till, who was seated in the audience with his family, if he could have ever imagined the day when their discovery would have led to the creation of an entirely new industry.</p> <p>Till, with a smile, shook his head “no”.</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__6369 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" height="431" src="/sites/default/files/2017-10-12-ccrm-till-resized-inset.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="625" loading="lazy"></p> <p><em>Biophysicist&nbsp;James Till in front of&nbsp;a new permanent sculpture commemorating the discovery of stem cells by Till and hematologist Ernest McCulloch, which&nbsp;was unveiled on the north side of the MaRS building (photo by Jennifer Robinson)</em></p> <p>In the decades since their discovery, regenerative medicine has emerged as a promising approach to disease prevention and treatment, harnessing the power of stem cells to repair, regenerate, or replace damaged cells, tissues, and organs affected by disease.</p> <p>The future path for cementing Toronto’s cutting-edge role in the field, which is growing exponentially more valuable every year, lies in continuing advanced research, commercializing discoveries, providing quality stem cell manufacturing and the ability to support clinical testing – all in Toronto, said May.</p> <p>“If we are the leaders of [stem cell] manufacturing, the companies we create here will be sticky,” he explained.</p> <p>Already, pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG and venture capital firm Versant Ventures have made Toronto the home to one of the largest Series A financing the biotech world has ever seen – US$225 million to create BlueRock Therapeutics, also located in New York and Cambridge, Mass., which promises to turn stem cell science into real-world treatments for the heart and for degenerative brain diseases.</p> <p>“Why Canada? Why Toronto? The answer is simple,” Jerel Davis, a managing director at Versant Ventures, said when the news was announced last December. “We go where the science is best.”</p> <p>The BlueRock announcement followed on the heels of Medicine by Design, established in July 2015 with a $114-million grant – the largest single research award in U of T’s history – from the federal government’s Canada First Research Excellence Fund.</p> <p>Medicine by Design is accelerating discoveries in regenerative medicine research to improve treatments for conditions such as heart failure, diabetes and stroke. The initiative brings together more than 100 researchers from across U of T and its affiliated hospitals to collaborate at the convergence of engineering, life and physical sciences, mathematics and medicine. It works with CCRM, which provides it with commercialization and regulatory advice services.</p> <p>Dr. Ger Brophy, general manager of cell therapy for GE Healthcare, said the regenerative medicine industry is at an inflection point with the recent approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of a new leukemia treatment.</p> <p>Called Kymriah and produced by global drug giant Novartis, it’s considered to be the first gene therapy cleared for the American market.</p> <p>The important work being done at CCRM, Brophy said, is “underpinning translational activities” like this in regenerative medicine because of its “white-hot relevant technical and clinical skills.”</p> <p>“Canada is proving itself well in this developing space,” he said.</p> <p>In addition to the formal opening of the new space for CCRM, a new permanent sculpture commemorating the discovery of stem cells by Till and McCulloch was unveiled on the north side of MaRS, east of the Queen’s Park subway entrance.</p> <p>The installation by sculptor Ruth Abernethy, who also designed the Glenn Gould statue outside the CBC’s Toronto headquarters, was commissioned by Dr. Allen Eaves, chairman, president and CEO of Vancouver-based STEMCELL Technologies, a global biotechnology company.&nbsp; Eaves is also a member of CCRM’s board of directors.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Thu, 12 Oct 2017 14:44:38 +0000 rasbachn 118792 at The invisible clean-up crew: Engineering microbial cultures to destroy pollutants /news/invisible-clean-crew-engineering-microbial-cultures-destroy-pollutants <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">The invisible clean-up crew: Engineering microbial cultures to destroy pollutants</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-02-17-edwards.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=IoxVKLC2 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2017-02-17-edwards.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=z17tHMma 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2017-02-17-edwards.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=BdiKRAHy 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-02-17-edwards.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=IoxVKLC2" alt="Photo of Elizabeth Edwards"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-02-23T12:32:57-05:00" title="Thursday, February 23, 2017 - 12:32" class="datetime">Thu, 02/23/2017 - 12:32</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Chemical engineering professor Elizabeth Edwards and her team develop microbial cultures that can destroy harmful pollutants and clean up contaminated sites (photo by Jen Hsu)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/tyler-irving" hreflang="en">Tyler Irving</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Tyler Irving</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/engineering" hreflang="en">Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/environment" hreflang="en">Environment</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/decontaminate" hreflang="en">Decontaminate</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biotechnology" hreflang="en">Biotechnology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-applied-science-engineering" hreflang="en">Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>U of T engineering professor <strong>Elizabeth Edwards</strong> is internationally recognized for using biotechnology to clean up industrial solvents in soil and groundwater. Her technique earned her the prestigious Killam Prize in 2016 and has already been used to restore more than 500 sites around the world.</p> <p>One way to decontaminate industrial sites involves digging up the soil, but this costly technique is impractical once solvents have seeped into groundwater. At some sites,<br> Edwards noticed that anaerobic microbes –&nbsp;bacteria that live without oxygen –&nbsp;were breaking down the solvents naturally. But no one understood how.</p> <p>After sequencing their DNA, Edwards discovered that different microbe species collaborate to break solvents down in stages. She and her colleagues grew a culture of these microbes, pumped them into contaminated groundwater and proved they could clean it up inexpensively, effectively and safely. These invisible allies can also be used to create biodegradable plastics and even capture energy from waste. As Edwards says, we’ve only just begun exploring “the enormous, untapped potential of anaerobic microbes.”</p> <p>Edwards spoke with U of T's <strong>Tyler Irving</strong> about her research.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Can you briefly describe the problem you’re trying to solve?&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>As careful as humans try to be, every industrial site –&nbsp;whether it’s an oil refinery or a dry-cleaning facility –&nbsp;has contamination from pollutants that have leaked onto the ground. These pollutants can affect not only the site itself, but also groundwater that travels through the soil.</p> <p>In the past, people were not as aware of the risks of these chemicals, so there is a legacy of thousands of contaminated sites around the world. Industry and government have a responsibility to clean them up so they can be used for other purposes.</p> <p><strong>How does your research help clean up contaminated sites?</strong></p> <p>We started by just looking at the natural processes that affect the contaminants over time. It turns out that most of them do slowly transform, as a result of action by various microorganisms living in the soil or water. One way to speed up this process is to add oxygen, either by pumping air into the ground or digging up the underlying earth. That does encourage the growth of certain toxin-degrading microbes, but it takes a lot of energy.</p> <p>Our work focuses on anaerobes –&nbsp;organisms for whom oxygen is poison –&nbsp;that do wonderful biochemistry and actually degrade these harmful compounds without the need to dig up or aerate the earth. Relatives of these organisms exist everywhere, but a given industrial site might not have just the right ones for the compounds they are dealing with.</p> <p>In our lab, we start with soil or water from contaminated sites&nbsp;and grow enriched cultures of the anaerobic microbes that live there. By selecting the best performers over many generations, we create enriched cultures that are very good at degrading specific pollutants. We can then add these cultures back to the contaminated sites and speed up the natural degradation process. This is called bioaugmentation.</p> <p><strong>How did you commercialize your work?</strong></p> <p>I worked for an engineering consulting company for three years after finishing my PhD. I made a network of friends and colleagues in that community, and we continued to work together when I became a professor at U of T.</p> <p>Consultants are the ones working with companies on clean-up, so they had access to the sites I needed to study. They could also tell us whether what we were doing in the lab was relevant to the problems they were dealing with. And when we finally sniffed something interesting –&nbsp;when we found a culture that seemed to be good at degrading these compounds –&nbsp;they were there to help turn it into a business.</p> <p>In 2001, we founded SiREM, an environmental engineering consulting company. They grow and distribute our bioaugmentation cultures, as well as providing testing, monitoring and all the other services needed to clean up these sites.</p> <p><strong>What’s next for your lab?</strong></p> <p>Our earlier microbial cultures focused mostly on chlorinated solvents, which are chemicals used primarily in dry cleaning and industrial degreasing. Over the years, we have also developed anaerobic <a href="http://news.engineering.utoronto.ca/hungry-hazardous-waste-new-funding-will-help-commercialize-pollution-eating-microbes/">cultures</a> that can degrade benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene –&nbsp;collectively known as BTEX –&nbsp;which are often found in sites contaminated by oil and gas.</p> <p>We have finally figured out who are the most critical members of these microbial communities. Because their numbers are often low at contaminated sites, we are working with SiREM to grow up large quantities of these cultures and test them in the field to boost numbers and accelerate degradation rates. If it works, it will greatly expand the number of sites we can treat.</p> <p>We also study the organisms that grow in anaerobic digesters. These are large facilities that&nbsp;process organic waste from farms or cities and turn it into methane, which is then burned to generate heat and electricity. It turns out that many of the same organisms we studied in groundwater and soil also exist in these anaerobic digesters. If we can help that process work even better, we can generate lots of renewable, clean energy.</p> <p><strong>Why did you choose to be a professor at U of T?</strong></p> <p>When I was working in industry, I missed the interactions with students and constant streaming of new ideas and buzz that happens at a university. I missed going to seminars, but most of all I really missed doing lab work –&nbsp;I wanted to test stuff out for myself,&nbsp;not just read papers others had published.</p> <p>My boss in consulting, Dr. David Major, realized that I was wishing for a lab of my own and encouraged me to apply to academic positions. I began my career at McMaster, then joined U of T in 1997. What began as a series of informal collaborations with colleagues both inside and outside the university eventually grew into <a href="http://www.biozone.utoronto.ca/">BioZone</a>, a multidisciplinary centre that focuses on applied work at the intersection of biology and engineering&nbsp;from idea to commercialization.</p> <p>We now have a critical mass of equipment, tools and institutional knowledge in this area, which ensures that we don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time we gain a new student. Instead, we have this collaborative, friendly atmosphere where we talk about the things that don’t work, and try to solve difficult problems together. Our researchers are limited only by their imagination.</p> <p><em>Elizabeth Edwards is the director of BioZone, a professor in the department of chemical engineering &amp; applied chemistry and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her anaerobic biotechnology is just one example of extraordinary innovation and impact at U of T. Learn more at <a href="/news">utoronto.ca</a></em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Thu, 23 Feb 2017 17:32:57 +0000 ullahnor 104985 at “Person-on-a-chip”: U of T engineers create lab-grown heart and liver tissue for drug testing and more /news/u-t-engineers-create-lab-grown-heart-and-liver-tissue-drug-testing-and-more <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">“Person-on-a-chip”: U of T engineers create lab-grown heart and liver tissue for drug testing and more </span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2016-03-03T10:57:52-05:00" title="Thursday, March 3, 2016 - 10:57" class="datetime">Thu, 03/03/2016 - 10:57</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Milica Radisic and her team have created a new platform for growing realistic human heart and liver tissue outside the body (photo by Caz Zyvatkauskas)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/tyler-irving" hreflang="en">Tyler Irving</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Tyler Irving</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/medicine" hreflang="en">Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-applied-science-engineering" hreflang="en">Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biotechnology" hreflang="en">Biotechnology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Researchers at U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering have developed a new method of generating tissue outside the body. Called AngioChip, the “person-on-a-chip” technology will function as a platform for discovering and testing new drugs and could eventually be used to repair or replace damaged organs.</p> <p>Led by <strong>Milica Radisic</strong>, a professor in the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and the department of chemical engineering, and including graduate student <strong>Boyang Zhang</strong>, the team has found a way to manufacture small, intricate scaffolds for individual cells to grow on. These artificial environments produce cells and tissues that resemble real human cells and tissues more closely than those grown lying flat in a petri dish.</p> <p>The team’s recent innovations include&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v10/n8/full/nmeth.2524.html">Biowire</a><a href="http://news.engineering.utoronto.ca/tissue-velcro/" style="color: rgb(0, 42, 92); font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">™</a>,<span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span>a&nbsp;method of growing heart cells around a silk suture,&nbsp;as well as a scaffold for heart cells that&nbsp;<a href="http://news.engineering.utoronto.ca/tissue-velcro/">snaps together like sheets of Velcro™</a>.</p> <p>AngioChip takes tissue engineering to a new level. “It’s a fully three-dimensional structure complete with internal blood vessels,” says Radisic. “It behaves just like vasculature, and around it there is a lattice for other cells to attach and grow.” The technology is described in the journal&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat4570.html">Nature Materials</a></em>.</p> <p><img alt src="/sites/default/files/polymer-scaffolds.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 200px; float: left; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px;"></p> <p>Zhang built the scaffold out of POMaC, a polymer that is both biodegradable and biocompatible. The scaffold comprises a series of thin layers, each stamped with a pattern of channels that are 50 to 100 micrometres wide (shown at left: image by Tyler Irving/Boyang Zhang/Kevin Soobrian). The layers, which resemble computer microchips, are then stacked into a 3D structure of synthetic blood vessels. As each layer is added, UV light is used to cross-link the polymer and bond it to the layer below.</p> <p>When the structure is finished, it is bathed in a liquid containing living cells. The cells quickly attach to the inside and outside of the channels and begin growing as they would in the human body.</p> <p>“Previously, people could only do this using devices that squish the cells between sheets of silicone and glass,” says Radisic. “You needed several pumps and vacuum lines to run just one chip.</p> <p>“Our system runs in a normal cell culture dish, and there are no pumps. We use pressure heads to perfuse media through the vasculature. The wells are open, so you can easily access the tissue.”</p> <p>Using the platform, the team has built model versions of both heart and liver tissues that function like the real thing. “Our liver actually produced urea and metabolized drugs,” Radisic says.</p> <p>The platform can connect the blood vessels of the two artificial organs, thereby modelling not just the organs themselves but their interactions. The researchers have even injected white blood cells into the vessels and watched as they squeezed through gaps in the vessel wall to reach the tissue on the other side, just as they do in the human body.</p> <p>AngioChip has great potential in the field of pharmaceutical testing. Current drug testing methods, such as animal testing and controlled clinical trials, are costly and fraught with ethical concerns. Testing on lab-grown human tissues would provide a realistic model at a fraction of the cost, but this area of research is still in its infancy.&nbsp;</p> <p>“In the last few years, it has become possible to order cultures of human cells for testing, but they’re grown on a plate, a two-dimensional environment,” Radisic says. “They don’t capture all the functional hallmarks of a real heart muscle, for example.”&nbsp;</p> <p>A more sophisticated&nbsp;platform like AngioChip could enable drug companies to detect dangerous side effects and interactions between organ compartments long before their products reach the market, saving countless lives. It could also be used to understand and validate the effectiveness of current drugs and even to screen libraries of chemical compounds to discover new drugs.&nbsp;T<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">he team is already working on&nbsp;</span><a href="http://news.engineering.utoronto.ca/lab-grown-heart-cells-to-improve-drug-safety/" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">commercializing the technology</a>&nbsp;through&nbsp;<a href="http://www.hhvc.com/portfolio-item/tara-biosystems-inc/">TARA Biosystems Inc</a>., a spin-off company co-founded by Radisic.&nbsp;</p> <p>Radisic envisions her lab-grown tissues being implanted to repair organs damaged by disease. Because the cells used to seed the platform can come from anyone, the new tissues could be genetically identical to the intended host, reducing the risk of organ rejection. Even in its present form,&nbsp;AngioChip can be implanted into a living animal, its artificial blood vessels connected to a real circulatory system. The polymer scaffolding itself simply biodegrades after several months.</p> <p>The team still has work to do. Each AngioChip is made by hand. If the platform is to be used industrially, the team will need to develop high-throughput manufacturing methods to create many copies at once.</p> <p>Still, the potential is obvious. “It really is multifunctional, and solves many problems in the tissue engineering space,” says Radisic. “It’s truly next-generation.”</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/person-on-a-chip.jpg</div> </div> Thu, 03 Mar 2016 15:57:52 +0000 sgupta 7702 at Forging an image of the 3D-printing future /news/forging-image-3d-printing-future <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Forging an image of the 3D-printing future</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2016-02-22T08:05:45-05:00" title="Monday, February 22, 2016 - 08:05" class="datetime">Mon, 02/22/2016 - 08:05</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Matt Ratto of U of T's iSchool with orthopaedic technologist Joyce Nakibirango at the CoRSU hospital in Uganda. (Photo by ginger coons/Critical Making.)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/dominic-ali" hreflang="en">Dominic Ali</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Dominic Ali </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/features" hreflang="en">Features</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/ischool" hreflang="en">iSchool</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-staff" hreflang="en">Faculty &amp; Staff</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biotechnology" hreflang="en">Biotechnology</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Printed prosthetics are here, and complex bioprinting is coming, Matt Ratto says</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Once confined to the realm of science fiction, 3D printers have become part of the mainstream. These machines fabricate physical objects by melting and layering plastic through a nozzle. Users can create or download professionally designed plans and&nbsp;produce custom&nbsp;objects ranging from tree ornaments to <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/using-3d-printers-create-prosthetic-limbs-ugandans">prosthetic limbs</a>.</p> <p>No one understands the process better than U of T’s <strong>Matt Ratto</strong>. This associate professor at the iSchool and director of the Semaphore Research Cluster researches the intersection of digital technologies and the physical world.</p> <p><em>U of T News</em> talked to Ratto about how 3D printing will evolve, especially when combined with other contemporary technologies.</p> <p><strong>Is there one use for 3D printing that will revolutionize the world?</strong></p> <p>A lot of claims have been made about what will be the “killer app” of 3D printing, from just-in-time production of Tupperware lids to the printing of food. The first idea misses the energy costs of 3D printing. It’s a terrible replacement for mass producing forms that can easily and cheaply made through injection molding.</p> <p>The second idea seems to imply that most people like processed foods. 3D printing a food basically means grinding up the base form into a slurry and then printing it into a new shape or arrangement. We actually have a lot of foods like this in the marketplace.&nbsp;The Pringle is probably the best example. I think that the revolutionary qualities of 3D printing have to do with the ability to produce novel things: smart objects, unique biological forms, hybrid materials and topologies that could not be made before.</p> <p><strong>3D printers have evolved from large, expensive machines to smaller, cheaper units for home use. Where do you think the technology is heading?</strong></p> <p>I think 3D printing is moving away from general-purpose hardware and software towards more specific functions and uses. Such a move allows a better fit between user, use context and the design of the 3D tools and technologies. For instance, we are now seeing bioprinters that make use of the same general printer technology as plastic-based hobbyist printers. But they add heated environmental areas for the printing material (cells) and purified compressed air drivers that maintain a sterile printing area, functions specific to the <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/second-skin-u-t-invention-offers-hope-burn-victims">printing of complex biological forms</a>. There are even inexpensive versions of these printers, such as the Biobot, which is a 3D printer for living cells.</p> <p><strong>Which industries will be most affected as 3D printers become more pervasive?</strong></p> <p>Medical industries and specifically patient care are really set to be disrupted by 3D printing. Bioprinting of complex cellular assemblies is probably the furthest out, but this will really change how patients are treated. Closer to the market are custom medicines – pills that contain the specific active ingredients for an individual, rather than mass-produced units made for a general profile. And the 3D printing of custom braces, prosthetics and orthotics is right around the corner. We have a research project and non-profit spin-off called <a href="http://niatech.org/">Nia Technologies</a>&nbsp;that is already doing this in developing countries.</p> <h2><a href="http://niatech.org/">Read more about Nia</a></h2> <p>Productive disruption in this space will occur through socio-technical innovations that bridge humanities, scientific and engineering knowledge.</p> <p>(<em>Below: Ratto with <strong>Timo Gmeiner</strong>, U of T mechanical engineering student/ photo by ginger coons/Critical Making lab, creative commons Attribution-Noncommercial</em>)</p> <p><img alt="photo of Ratto with student" src="/sites/default/files/2016-02-24-ratto-and-student.jpg" style="width: 640px; height: 425px; margin: 10px 20px;"></p> <p><strong>The Internet of Things is touted as the next big thing. What&nbsp;will be its&nbsp;impact on Canadians?</strong></p> <p>IoT has been on the agenda for some time. Like “big data,” it will likely have its biggest impact once it has sunk in to business practice. We already have a number of examples of successful IoT innovations. ZipCar is probably the most obvious example. The best way to think about this is to look at specific industries and see how new forms of data analytics can help or hinder social life.</p> <p><strong>Can you foresee a combination of 3D printing and the IoT </strong>?</p> <p>We can now 3D-print objects that contain simple electronic circuits. As part of our research we’ve been working on the production of prosthetic braces and sockets that contain intrinsic pressure sensing circuits. The prosthetic device will then stream real-time information about the fit and comfort of the device directly to a mobile device, giving the patient or caregiver granular data over time about how the device is working. The ability to 3D-print “smart objects” is a really fascinating area of novel research.</p> <p><strong>Is Canada in a position to take advantage of either technology and become a world leader?</strong></p> <p>Toronto is really well placed. We have great educational resources with the variety of universities, including U of T, Ryerson and OCAD University. There is a terrific digital-media small-and-medium-sized enterprise infrastructure with great skills and abilities. Of course, Toronto is a crossroads of the world, and innovation benefits greatly from the intellectual churn that attends diversity.</p> <p>I do think we need to go our own way, to avoid the worst excesses of Silicon Valley, and to create innovation processes and environments that focus on real-world problems and not just economic gain and “convenience culture.” There is a kind of hubris in the innovation discourse that says “$5 billion of investment/profit in five years” or it doesn’t matter. I think such a focus distracts us from what we really should be doing, which is getting people together to ideate, to think creatively, and to engage with both social and technical systems in ways that provide real benefits.</p> <p>(<em>Below: Ratto with Ruth Nakaye (centre) and Moses Kaweesa, orthopaedic technologist at CoRSU hospital, Uganda/ photo by ginger coons/Critical Making lab, creative commons Attribution-Noncommercial</em>)&nbsp;</p> <p><strong><img alt="photo of Ratto with patient" src="/sites/default/files/2016-02-24-ratto-patient-sized.jpg" style="width: 640px; height: 425px; margin: 10px 20px;"></strong></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/ratto5.low_.jpg</div> </div> Mon, 22 Feb 2016 13:05:45 +0000 sgupta 7664 at Alumni named to Forbes Top 30 under 30 for startup that began in basement of University College residence /news/alumni-named-forbes-top-30-under-30-startup-began-basement-university-college-residence <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Alumni named to Forbes Top 30 under 30 for startup that began in basement of University College residence</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-02-24T06:23:45-05:00" title="Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - 06:23" class="datetime">Tue, 02/24/2015 - 06:23</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Members of the OOHLALA team including co-founders and U of T alumni Daniel Jameel (holding up hand), James Dang (first row of standing, in company t-shirt) and Peter Cen (front row, far right)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/blake-eligh" hreflang="en">Blake Eligh</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Blake Eligh</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utm" hreflang="en">UTM</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/university-college" hreflang="en">University College</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/trinity-college" hreflang="en">Trinity College</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/startup" hreflang="en">Startup</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/political-science" hreflang="en">Political Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/entrepreneurship" hreflang="en">Entrepreneurship</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/computer-science" hreflang="en">Computer Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/commercialization" hreflang="en">Commercialization</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biotechnology" hreflang="en">Biotechnology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/awards" hreflang="en">Awards</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/alumni" hreflang="en">Alumni</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Three of four co-founders of Montreal-based OOHLALA are recent U of T grads </div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p> Paying close attention to what students want to know and how they want to get that information has landed three&nbsp;U of T alumni a spot on <em>Forbes Magazine</em>’s 2015 <a href="http://www.forbes.com/pictures/lmh45mfhd/danial-jameel-29-alice-dinu-28-james-dang-24-peter-cen-26-not-pictured/">Top 30 Under 30</a> list.</p> <p> “I'm more interested in solving problems than in media hype –&nbsp;but this has been great,”&nbsp;said <strong>Danial Jameel</strong>, chief executive officer and an alumnus of U of T's University College. “It's validation for all the hard work and late nights.”</p> <p> Master of biotechnology alumnus <strong>Peter Cen</strong>, economics and political science alumnus&nbsp;Jameel and computer science grad&nbsp;<strong>James Dang&nbsp;</strong>comprise three of the four founding members of <a href="https://gotoohlala.com/">OOHLALA</a> a mobile platform that connects post-secondary students with the campus information they need most.</p> <p> “When we started this in a basement of my residence at U.C. we were just trying to help solve a problem,” said Jameel. “James was at Trinity and we were both active with student governments and struggling with the idea of how can a team of eight people engage with thousands of students each year?”</p> <p> Their solution, which began at&nbsp;a 2010 Rotman commerce&nbsp;business competition, brought the three together with McGill grad&nbsp;Alice Dinu&nbsp;to create an&nbsp;award-winning mobile platform that went on to win&nbsp;acclaim at a series of business competitions, all while Jameel and Dang were still completing their undergrad degrees.</p> <p> “Some of our professors suggested this could be more than idea,” said Jameel.&nbsp;“They said, why don't you try turning it into a business?”</p> <p> Today, Jameel is CEO, Dang is chief technical officer,&nbsp;Cen is in charge of mobile development and design and&nbsp;Dinu is chief financial officer of OOHLALA. Now based in Montreal, the company has grown to about 20 employees.</p> <p> Launched in 2011, the app helps institutions and student organizations connect with post-secondary students by bringing campus social networking together with institutional information and practical tools, like calendars and reminders, on a single mobile platform. It's used by about one million students at 110 post-secondary schools in five countries across North America and Europe to plan their timetables, keep on top of tests and exams, and connect with other students through photo sharing and a message wall.</p> <p> The app even features a reminder to students to go to class.</p> <p> “Many institutions don’t have a mobile version of their websites, which is problematic for students who depend on mobile devices,” said&nbsp;U of T Mississauga grad&nbsp;Cen. The app meets students where they spend their time&nbsp;–&nbsp;on their phones and tablets. “We provide branded applications of their college or university that access campus information, organize their coursework and communicate with other students or the administration.”</p> <p> The app also appeals to the social nature of the student demographic. “As we worked more with student organizations, we saw a problem of student engagement on campus and we evolved to our current focus on helping students engage with their campus,” Cen said. “People can feel isolated. They can use OOHLALA to become more engaged and to make friends and connections.”</p> <p> <img alt src="/sites/default/files/2015-02-23-peter-cen-forbes-top-30.jpg" style="margin: 10px; width: 350px; height: 233px; float: right;">Every step of the way, said Cen (pictured at right), he&nbsp;applied the business skills he learned during his MBiotech program.</p> <p> “At MBiotech, we had lots of exposure to entrepreneurship. I learned about business plans and how to make a pitch,” he said. “My experience with MBiotech and the coop I did through the program (at Toronto’s inDanio Bioscience firm) prepared me for pitching and networking, which I was heavily involved with as we first started OOHLALA.</p> <p> “The entrepreneurship and corporations course taught me a lot of the details of starting a new business, which resonated throughout the first year of the project.”</p> <p> OOHLALA is looking to open an office in Toronto soon, said Jameel, and they continue to hire employees with a range of backgrounds.</p> <p> “Even in the tech world, you see the value of studying the arts and humanities,” Jameel said.&nbsp;“The best people aren't necessarily business majors&nbsp;– we've even hired a music grad.”</p> <p> Next up for the team:&nbsp;increasing their client base and integrating additional services. </p> <p> “We plan to branch into admissions,” Cen said, adding that the app will eventually include the ability to handle event transactions, such as handling tickets for athletic events. “We are looking to become the mobile platform for the majority of post-secondary institutions in North America.”</p> <p> (<a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/meet-ta-named-forbes-30-under-30-list">Read about the U of T teaching assistant named to Forbes' Top 30 under 30 list</a>.)</p> <p> <em>Blake Eligh is a writer with the Ƶ Mississauga.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-02-24-oohlala-team.jpg</div> </div> Tue, 24 Feb 2015 11:23:45 +0000 sgupta 6818 at