partnerships

Two teams of researchers at the University of Toronto have partnered with Moderna Canada to advance new mRNA-based therapies for HIV and other diseases.

The projects – one led by Mario Ostrowski, an infectious disease physician at Unity Health Toronto and a professor of medicine, immunology and pathobiology and lab medicine at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine; and the other by Haissi Cui, assistant professor in the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science, and Landon Edgar, assistant professor in the department of pharmacology and toxicology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and an investigator in the PRiME research group – are supported through the partnership framework agreement between U of T and Moderna.

Launched in April 2022, this partnership was the first between Moderna and a Canadian university and provides opportunities for U of T researchers to collaborate with a leading biotechnology firm to create new tools to prevent and treat diseases.

“The partnership between the University of Toronto and Moderna Canada is a testament to the power of industry and academic collaborations, and one that will advance the frontier of mRNA-based vaccines and therapies,” said Derek Newton, assistant vice-president, innovation, partnerships and entrepreneurship at U of T.

“Researchers from both organizations have a shared vision to create new health-care innovations to prevent and treat infectious diseases that will impact patients across Canada and globally.”

From left: Researchers Mario Ostrowski, Haissi Cui and Landon Edgar will be working on projects supported through the partnership framework agreement between U of T and Moderna (supplied photos)

Ostrowski’s project brings together his decades of research on the immune response to HIV with Moderna’s expertise in mRNA vaccines to develop personalized mRNA vaccines to treat HIV infection.

This strategy could address one of the biggest challenges in HIV management: the long-term persistence of viral reservoirs within immune cells in the body, which necessitates life-long antiretroviral therapy treatments for people with HIV. While these therapies help people with HIV live longer, they can also lead to side effects that negatively impact a person’s overall physical and mental health.

To tackle this challenge, the researchers will design mRNA vaccines that are tailored to the unique strain of HIV found in each person. Ostrowski believes that these highly targeted vaccines can activate powerful immune cells to seek out and eliminate hidden viral reservoirs. Similar approaches have been used successfully to create personalized therapeutic vaccines for people with cancer.

This work will also leverage the capabilities of the Toronto High Containment Facility (THCF), which is equipped to allow researchers to study high-risk pathogens, such as HIV and SARS-CoV-2, in a safe and secure way. The facility is a cornerstone of the Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) institutional strategic initiative, a partnership between U of T and five major Toronto hospitals to advance innovative infectious disease research and strengthen preparedness for future pandemics.

Containing the only containment level 3 (CL3) research lab in the Greater Toronto Area and the largest in the province, the THCF plays a critical role in supporting Ontario’s life sciences research ecosystem. Its unique infrastructure and capabilities enable cutting-edge research on vaccines and therapeutics and provide training opportunities needed to drive innovation and biomanufacturing in Ontario.

Modulating the body’s immune response is also at the core of the project led by Cui and Edgar.

Their work focuses on the sugars that coat the outside of all immune cells. These sugars, called glycans, have recently been shown to play an important role in fine-tuning the function of some immune system components. However, designing targeted and effective therapies to modulate the glycans themselves has remained elusive.

In collaboration with Moderna, Cui and Edgar will develop mRNA technologies that can be used to adjust glycan levels within specific tissues – or even on specific cell types. If successful, this approach could be used to alter how immune cells function in a myriad of diseases.

Through this cross-faculty and cross-sector collaboration, Cui and Edgar’s work would demonstrate the feasibility of using these cutting-edge technologies to manipulate the architecture of a cell’s surface and to improve immune responses through cell-surface engineering.

“At Moderna, we are focused on the creation of transformative mRNA medicines. For the past 13 years, we have been investing in research and innovation into different facets of mRNA science,” says Patricia Gauthier, Moderna Canada president and general manager.

“Our collaboration with the University of Toronto and its exceptional scientists further strengthens our resolve to push the boundaries of what can be achieved in this rapidly evolving field to improve the lives of patients through mRNA science.”

As part of the partnership, each team will be paired with a scientific expert at Moderna who can champion their research and provide support and feedback.

The selection of these two projects follows the announcement in October 2022 of a partnership between Moderna and a team of U of T researchers led by Omar F. Khan, an assistant professor in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, to develop next-generation RNA platform technologies. The project recently received support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Alliance Grant program, which aims to foster collaborations between university researchers and partner organizations in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors.

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Betty Zou & Mayuri Punithan

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Institute of Biomedical Engineering

U of T Mississauga launches SpinUp, a wet lab incubator for life science startups

siddiq22 — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 19:45:20 +0000

U of T Mississauga launches SpinUp, a wet lab incubator for life science startups

siddiq22 Wed, 06/07/2023 - 15:45

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Christina Kakaflikas, director of development with Mississauga’s Economic Development Office; Alexandra Gillespie, U of T Mississauga vice-president and principal; Bonnie Crombie, mayor of Mississauga; Kent Moore, U of T Mississauga vice-principal of research; and Jason Field, president and CEO of Life Sciences Ontario at the BIO 2023 convention in Boston (photo courtesy of City of Mississauga)

Topic

Research & Innovation

Startups

U of T Mississauga

Subheadline

The new venture will provide affordable wet lab space to support early-stage companies and entrepreneurs

Young entrepreneurs or new start-up companies seeking to break into the prolific life sciences sector in the Greater Toronto Area can find resources and mentorship through the University of Toronto’s network of world-class accelerator programs.

A critical gap exists in that life science entrepreneurship pipeline that the university is seeking to address – providing affordable wet lab space (where drugs, chemicals and other types of liquid biological matter can be analyzed and tested) dedicated to early-stage founders.

This week, U of T Mississauga, joined by the City of Mississauga, announced the launch of SpinUp – U of T’s first wet lab venture incubator with the objective of supporting early-stage life science companies and entrepreneurs.

U of T Mississauga Vice-President and Principal Alexandra Gillespie made the announcement at the BIO 2023 convention in Boston, alongside Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, Life Science Ontario President and CEO Jason Field and U of T Mississauga Vice-Principal Research Kent Moore.

“SpinUp will invite entrepreneurs into U of T Mississauga's New Science Building, which will open in 2023 as one of the most comprehensive and energy-efficient laboratory facilities in North America,” Moore said.

“At SpinUp, entrepreneurs can use this facility for a fraction of the cost of comparable spaces, gaining time and conserving capital to build their companies even before they have to seek major private investment.”

The incubator will offer affordable access to the specialized lab space, equipment and programming that emerging entrepreneurs need to mature their lab-based innovations. By addressing two major barriers – access to lab space and cost – U of T will offer a comprehensive set of resources for life science entrepreneurs and start-ups. It will also enrich U of T Mississauga's programs by creating new experiential learning opportunities and fostering research partnerships.

Most of the wet lab will be offered to ventures emerging from U of T’s accelerator programs, while a subset of spots will be available to those off-campus from within the region.

An illustration of the SpinUp lab space in the New Science Building, currently under construction

With any life sciences innovation or company, access to wet lab space and equipment is a critical step in maturing intellectual property and expanding a start-up. With SpinUp, U of T aims to keep new start-ups within the local ecosystem to avoid companies moving outside the region – or even failing before having a chance to begin.

“U of T Mississauga drives life science innovation,” Gillespie said. “Leading researchers, students and partners come together here to launch start-ups that promote health, prosperity and vitality in our communities and around the world.”

U of T ranks No. 1 in Canada for research-based start-ups and is in the top five for university-managed incubators globally. This focus on developing entrepreneurship and innovation has launched more than 600 companies over the past 10 years, leading to more than 9,000 jobs.

In recent years, U of T has been ranked second among North American universities for number of startups, after MIT. SpinUp will serve as a key resource for ventures emerging from the university and elevates U of T’s global position.

“SpinUp is a much-needed and welcomed addition to IDEA – Mississauga’s Innovation District – and we are thrilled that UTM’s new incubation space will be opening soon,” Crombie said.

“Our goal is to work with partners in the community, like U of T Mississauga, to provide resources and facilities to support businesses from early stages of inception to scale-up, until they ultimately transition into their own space with a sustainable path forward. SpinUp will be a key element in this journey for smaller life sciences companies and advances our city’s position as a leader in this space."

SpinUp will be part of the New Science Building, which is also the future home of the Centre for Medicinal Chemistry, UTM’s first-in-Canada program in forensic science and leading-edge research labs working to improve human health.

Novel treatment for recurrent glioblastoma shows promising results

siddiq22 — Wed, 17 May 2023 14:50:56 +0000

Novel treatment for recurrent glioblastoma shows promising results

siddiq22 Wed, 05/17/2023 - 10:50

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Researchers Farshad Nassiri, left, and Gelareh Zadeh found that a new therapy for glioblastoma can prolong patient survival (photos courtesy of UHN)

Topic

Breaking Research

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Cancer

Medical Research

partnerships

Research & Innovation

An international clinical trial led by researchers at University Health Network (UHN) and the University of Toronto has shown that a new therapy for recurrent glioblastoma prolongs patient survival, in some cases by several years.

The novel therapy involves the combination of an oncolytic virus, engineered to selectively infect and kill cancer cells, and type of a targeted immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibition.

“The initial clinical trial results are promising,” said the study's principal investigator Gelareh Zadeh, a neurosurgeon-scientist at UHN, where she is co-director of the Krembil Brain Institute.

“We are cautiously optimistic about the long-term clinical benefits for patients," said Zadeh, a professor in the department of surgery at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine who also holds the Dan Family Chair in Neurosurgery and the Wilkins Family Chair in Brain Tumour Research.

The study's findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Imaging from the study following infusion of the oncolytic immunotherapy DNX-2401 (supplied image)

Glioblastoma is a notoriously difficult-to-treat primary brain cancer. Despite aggressive treatment, which typically involves surgical removal of the tumour and multiple chemotherapy drugs, the cancer often returns – at which point further treatment options are scarce.

To meet the urgent need for new therapies, Zadeh and her colleagues evaluated the new treatment in 49 patients with recurrent disease from 15 hospital sites across North America. University Health Network was the only Canadian site and treated most of the patients enrolled in the trial.

First, the team slowly injected the virus directly into the tumour using stereotactic techniques, which are minimally invasive and guided by imaging and other technologies. Patients then received a common immune checkpoint inhibitor intravenously once every three weeks, starting one week after surgery.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are effective treatments for a variety of cancers, but have had limited success in treating recurrent glioblastoma.

“These drugs work by preventing cancer’s ability to evade the body’s natural immune response, so they have little benefit when the tumour is immunologically inactive, as is the case in glioblastoma,” Zadeh said.

“Oncolytic viruses can overcome this limitation by creating a more favourable tumour microenvironment, which then helps to boost anti-tumour immune responses."

The combination of these viruses and immune-checkpoint inhibitors results in a “double hit” to tumours: the virus directly kills cancer cells and stimulates local immune activity that makes the cancer cells more vulnerable to targeted immunotherapy.

The therapy had no major unexpected adverse effects and yielded a median survival of 12.5 months – considerably longer than the six to eight months typically seen with existing therapies.

“We’re very encouraged by these results,” said Farshad Nassiri, first author on the study and a senior neurosurgery resident at U of T.

“Over half of our patients achieved a clinical benefit – stable disease or better – and we saw some remarkable responses with tumours shrinking, and some even disappearing completely. Three patients remain alive at 45, 48 and 60 months after starting the clinical trial.”

The researchers also performed experiments to define mutations, gene expression and immune features of each patient’s tumour. They discovered key immune features that could eventually help clinicians predict treatment responses and understand the mechanisms of glioblastoma resistance – the first study of its kind for brain tumours.

Zadeh said that in general, the drugs used in cancer treatments do not work for every patient, but that a subpopulation of glioblastoma patients that will likely respond well to the new treatment. She also said that this kind of translational research, which combines basic bench science and clinical trials, is key to moving personalized treatments for glioblastoma forward.

“The trial would not have been possible without our incredible OR teams, research safety teams and researchers – including Dr. Warren Mason at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre – and our brave patients and their families. We’re also grateful to the Wilkins Family for providing the funds to enable us to complete trials that advance care for our patients,” Zadeh said.

The next steps for the researchers are to test the effectiveness of the combination therapy against other treatments in a larger, randomized clinical trial.

The research was supported by DNATrix Inc., Merck & Co. Inc., the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Foundation and the UHN Foundation.

Read the original story at the UHN website

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UHN Communications

'Breaking down barriers': U of T opens Blue Door to external partnership opportunities

siddiq22 — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 15:44:48 +0000

'Breaking down barriers': U of T opens Blue Door to external partnership opportunities

siddiq22 Tue, 01/17/2023 - 10:44

Cutline

Executives from LG join U of T's Christopher Yip, left, to announce an expansion of their partnership at the Collision tech conference in Toronto in 2019 (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Tabassum Siddiqui

Topic

Global Lens

Blue Door

Artificial Intelligence

International partnerships

Medicine

partnerships

Research & Innovation

Startups

Technology

Partnering with University of Toronto has emerged as a key strategy for many companies, non-profits and government to achieve their most important goals – from furthering research and developing new products and services, to figuring out solutions to specific problems.

Alex Mihailidis (left) and Illan Kramer (photos supplied)

And many of U of T’s 600-plus partners access world-class talent and expertise via the university's new Blue Door portal.

A point of entry for organizations who want to work with the university, Blue Door is an online portal that helps potential – and existing – partners identify opportunities across the three campuses and connects them with the right people and departments.

“We often hear from prospective partners: ‘How do I partner with U of T? How do I find the right person to work with there?’ So, we wanted to ensure there weren’t barriers to us growing great new partnerships,” says Alex Mihailidis, associate vice-president of international partnerships and a professor in the department of occupational science and occupational therapy in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Mihailidis, along with Illan Kramer, director of international research partnerships, developed the Blue Door initiative over the past two years – with significant input from U of T divisions – and officially launched it last February.

They recently spoke to U of T News about how the initiative helps streamline the partnership process and ensure both existing and emerging partnerships can evolve and grow.

What is the Blue Door?

Mihailidis: Simply put, it is a portal into the university. Within four clicks, a new partner or existing partner can be connected to the right person at U of T who will help them make further connections within the university to achieve their business goals. At a higher level, it’s a new philosophy in the way that we do corporate partnerships here at the university – a more collaborative approach across all the different divisions, campuses disciplines and departments.

U of T President Meric Gertler (front left) and Shigeru Sasaki, CEO of Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., sign a memorandum of understanding in 2017 (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

Why was it important for Blue Door to include an online portal for partners?

Mihailidis: One of the things you always hear from partners is that “the university is so big – it’s so complex.” We’re kind of like a federated model – multiple divisions with multiple goals – but we are one university at the end of the day, even across three campuses.

We started talking early on about, “Well, what if we can provide a concierge-style model?’ Through these four clicks online, you’re connected with someone, and that one person becomes your contact at the university. In that way, we’re ensuring that U of T is not seen as this big place that’s complicated to navigate, but straightforward and easy to work with.

Why do so many organizations want to partner with U of T?

Kramer: When you look at U of T’s size and our quality, we’re pretty much peerless globally. And one of the consequences of being such a big, world-class institution is that you have disparate communities of expertise that can talk to one another in interesting and creative ways. It’s why sometimes you'll see an automotive company come to us and you think, “Oh, they're going to want to talk to a mechanical engineer or an electrical engineer.” But it turns out that the people whose work resonates with their needs might be child psychologists or kinesiology experts. The big research and development challenges that these companies are looking to us to help solve are interdisciplinary. And at U of T, we have that kind of interdisciplinarity baked into our size and quality.

Mihailidis: These companies realize that partnering with University of Toronto just adds strength from a variety of levels – whether it’s research, accessing our talent or other areas to help their objectives. All that provides them with a competitive advantage at the end of the day.

In partnership with Moderna, Assistant Professor Omar F. Khan (back row, second from left) and his lab team focus on diseases that are currently incurable and untreatable (photo by Safa Jinje)

What are some examples of successful U of T partnerships?

Kramer: One longstanding partnership is with [Japanese electronics company] Fujitsu. They established a Toronto R&D hub in the Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship where grad students and Fujitsu researchers work elbow-to-elbow on new inventions and innovations. Since then, we’ve been expanding that collaboration to multidisciplinary applications by applying their microelectronics expertise to other fields like traffic engineering, financial modelling, surgical scheduling and beyond – touching on expertise that exists across the entire university.

Another impactful partnership is with [South Korean conglomerate] LG Electronics. One of the coolest things about this partnership is that it doesn't start and stop at collaborative research – it also includes elements of professional development. We’ve developed what we call an “inverted internship,” where LG scientists embed themselves with U of T research teams for four months to upskill their own AI abilities.

More recently, we launched a really exciting partnership with [American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company] Moderna, a company that a lot of people became familiar with in the last couple of years. Moderna recognized a huge level of expertise, especially in mRNA and regenerative medicine research, at U of T and wanted to do something comprehensive that would help them expand beyond the COVID-19 vaccine to a host of other potential applications. They’ve since launched a project with Omar Khan, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and have had several early successes already. So that’s a partnership where we really see the opportunity to be on the leading edge of something that has the potential to impact millions – maybe even billions – of people around the world.

U of T President Meric Gertler (left) and I.P. Park, the president and CTO of LG Electronics, sign a five-year collaborative AI research agreement in 2018 (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

What is the value of these partnerships to U of T?

Mihailidis: They obviously bring funding to the university to support the work that is happening here. But it also brings our faculty, researchers and students together with cutting-edge, world-leading companies to help them accelerate the development of their research and move their findings into the real world, where they can have maximum impact.

Of course, there are always questions around protection of intellectual property and appropriate handling of confidentiality. These considerations are handled in an up-front and transparent way through contractual agreements, each of which takes into account our partner’s motivations as well as the motivations and expectations of the professors who may get involved in the partnership. That way, professors and their research teams can still benefit from groundbreaking innovations, while our partners can improve upon their own products and services. Ultimately, these partnerships give us access to other experts around the world and help grow the reputation of the University of Toronto and our community.

Kramer: There's no shortage of ambition among U of T's research community. Our researchers are world-class – they do work that is excellent and excellence doesn’t come for free. If we want to do big things, we need to have world-class facilities; we have to attract the best professors, postdocs and graduate students – in general, we need to be able to outfit our labs with the right equipment and expertise in order to do that research.

Bringing industry on board helps ensure U of T remains a cutting-edge institution. I’ve seen professors’ labs transform with a key industry partner where they went from, “Hey, this is kind of neat work that our academic peers are paying attention to,” to “Oh my God, I'm literally impacting millions of people now.” That’s incredibly exciting.

Vice-President, Operations and Real Estate Partnerships, Office of the

mark.teo — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 13:38:51 +0000

Vice-President, Operations and Real Estate Partnerships, Office of the mark.teo Thu, 10/01/2020 - 09:38

URL

https://vporep.utoronto.ca

partnerships

Blue Door (Partner with U of T)

Tags

Researchers partner with Moderna to develop new mRNA-based therapies for HIV and other diseases

U of T Mississauga launches SpinUp, a wet lab incubator for life science startups

Novel treatment for recurrent glioblastoma shows promising results

Read the original story at the UHN website

'Breaking down barriers': U of T opens Blue Door to external partnership opportunities

Vice-President, Operations and Real Estate Partnerships, Office of the

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