Health Innovation Hub

Black Founders Network

Dentistry

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

HDAX Therapeutics is focused on developing treatments for peripheral nerve damage, which can result from chemotherapy or radiation

Pain, numbness, sore muscles and even paralysis. These are some of the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy, an often-debilitating condition associated with chemotherapy, radiation and other cancer treatments.

Such peripheral nerve damage can be temporary, but for some, it never goes away.

“There’s often really nothing for these patients except just symptom management and putting fingers and toes in a bucket of ice,” says Nabanita Nawar, who holds a PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Toronto.

Nawar is the CEO and a co-founder of HDAX Therapeutics, a startup that grew out of technology developed in U of T Mississauga’s department of chemical and physical sciences. The company is currently working on treatments that focus on HDAC 6, a protein that has been implicated in cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative disorders – including the peripheral nerve damage experienced by many cancer patients.

“We are essentially developing new medicine for diseases that have a transport problem in the body,” Nawar says, referring to the protein’s key role in multiple cellular processes.

HDAX’s patented mechanism targets HDAC 6 to return damaged neurons to health.

“Our target, HDAC6, plays a key role in regulating microtubule stability and thus, affects axonal transport,” explained Pimyupa Manaswiyoungkul, who also earned a PhD at U of T and is now chief operations officer at HDAX. “In diseased states for indications that we are targeting, these axonal transports are impaired resulting in nerve degeneration, which results in symptoms in patients.”

By using a “two-site binding modality,” the startup’s technology essentially holds the target with two figurative hands instead of one – like many of its competitors – providing a tighter grip on the protein and a key competitive advantage.

The treatment, still in pre-clinical testing, would be delivered in the form of an oral pill.

(photo by Matthew Volpe)

The HDAX team also plans to apply the startup’s technology to target transport mechanisms in cardio-metabolic diseases, including heart failure.

Manaswiyoungkul met Nawar in the lab when they were pursing doctoral studies. She says Nawar, who was on the medicinal chemistry side, would give her compounds to evaluate.

“The flow of how we worked in the lab helped us connect,” Manaswiyoungkul says.

Working with fellow researchers Elvin de Araujo and Olasunkanmi Olaoye, it wasn’t long before Nawar and Manaswiyoungkul shifted their focus to the challenges of translating their promising research into a viable business.

The team established HDAX in 2021 and received its first big funding injection – and a confidence boost – a few months later when it won a bio-venture pitch competition hosted by Medicine by Design, a U of T institutional strategic initiative focused on regenerative medicine and cell therapy.

“That was the first thing that made us think, ‘OK, this may be a real company – this could really be something.’ It wasn’t just in our heads,” Nawar says.

HDAX has since attracted a total of $1.3 million in funding, Manaswiyoungkul says, noting the company and its five full-time employees is now preparing for its first seed round funding.

The work of Nawar, Manaswiyoungkul and their teammates hasn’t gone unnoticed. The two founders recently earned an unexpected individual accolade: inclusion in the Forbes list of 30 under 30 Torontonians. When the Forbes email landed in Nawar’s inbox, she says she was so surprised she wondered if it was spam.

As it turns out, the duo were nominated by one of their early U of T mentors, Paul Santerre, a professor in the Faculty of Dentistry and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

“The [HDAX] technology circumvents toxicity in neuro and cardiac drugs, with amazing efficacy demonstrated in their neuro models,” Santerre says, adding that Nawar and Manaswiyoungkul “not only accomplished novel, impactful findings during their PhD/post doc training, but did the work to accelerate their evolution to becoming serious entrepreneurs.”

Along the way, the startup received extensive support from the U of T entrepreneurship community, which ranks first in Canada for research-based startups and among the top five globally for university startup accelerators. In particular, HDAX worked with UTEST, the Health Innovation Hub (H2i) and the Black Founders Network.

Santerre says one of the keys to U of T’s successful entrepreneurial support network is its “no wrong door” policy.

“This means, regardless of where you come from at U of T, you will be supported by the incubators that best fit your venture,” he says.

Manaswiyoungkul’s advice for students thinking about making the leap into entrepreneurship? Just go for it.

“U of T is a very accepting community and there’s always someone who has more experience and the willingness to help take your ideas forward.”

U of T grads develop Mind-Easy therapy platform with a focus on equity

siddiq22 — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:44:26 +0000

U of T grads develop Mind-Easy therapy platform with a focus on equity

siddiq22 Mon, 03/13/2023 - 10:44

Cutline

Alexandra Assouad and Akanksha Shelat created Mind-Easy, an adaptive mental health platform that provides knowledge and tools in more than 100 languages, dialects and accents (supplied images)

David Goldberg

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Mental Health

Rotman Commerce

Startups

A new app launched by University of Toronto alumnae aims to make cultural competence a minimum standard in mental health – including innovative ways to deliver identity-centric preventive care.

“Available to anyone around the world, the Mind-Easy app is an adaptive health platform that uses avatars with human-like characteristics that help guide users through their therapeutic journey,” explains Mind-Easy co-founder and chief technology officer Akanksha Shelat, who graduated in 2018 with an honours bachelor of science from the Faculty of Arts & Science as a member of New College, majoring in computer science and cognitive science.

“This platform is designed to provide personalized care to patients, using a proprietary human taxonomy and artificial intelligence to deliver tailored mental health plans.”

Shelat and fellow Faculty of Arts & Science alumna Alexandra Assouad, along with Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) PhD candidate Dalia Ahmed, developed and launched Mind-Easy, drawing from their own experiences as international students.

In consultation with mental health professionals across the country, Mind-Easy provides knowledge and tools in more than 100 languages, dialects and accents. Asynchronous learning makes the resources available on demand. Leveraging the OISE and psychology network at U of T, the team built a database of carefully curated content for Canada’s diverse and often marginalized groups.

From the start, the co-founders' goal was to solve two major problems: the shortage of therapists and the lack of cultural competence. Mind-Easy checks both boxes.

“Cultural competence is essential when providing proper mental health care,” says Assouad, who is Mind-Easy’s CEO and graduated with a bachelor of commerce degree from Rotman Commerce in 2018 as a member of St. Michael’s College.

“Coming to Toronto from Lebanon sparked internal chaos and filled me with an overwhelming sense of loneliness,” she says. “I wanted a therapist who spoke my language – a person who ethnically represents me and allows me to share vulnerable experiences.”

The Mind-Easy system learns from a patient's data to determine which interventions will be most effective. The approach not only improves patient outcomes, but reduces costs by avoiding unnecessary therapy treatments, the founders say.

Shelat and Assouad credit U of T’s abundance of resources for helping them develop and launch Mind-Easy, including support from the Health Innovation Hub (H2i) accelerator at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

“It is very exciting to be part of the innovation economy in Canada, especially when it involves working with passionate entrepreneurs who are dedicated to commercializing their technology and intellectual property,” says Andris Lauris, H2i's associate director.

“It’s also extremely rewarding to help these companies raise non-dilutive funding and equity investments in an ever-challenging struggle to bridge the funding gap in Canada. H2i focuses on one-on-one mentorship for companies in health and life sciences in software, medical devices, and diagnostics and therapeutics.”

In part, H2i’s in-house mentors guided Mind-Easy's co-founders with practice pitch sessions, helping the aspiring entrepreneurs develop their product and business plans.

“Mind-Easy has built a great team and are poised for success,” Lauris says.

Assouad also credits Arts & Science faculty members for their support – including the mentorship of Craig Geoffrey, an assistant professor, teaching stream, at Rotman.

“Alexandra had a really entrepreneurial view of how she’d run her life,” Geoffrey recalls. “She was always interested in taking on new challenges, learning new things and working to develop a full skill set she could apply to any career she’d eventually take on.”

Assouad and Shelat advise aspiring entrepreneurs to “network, network, network” while at school to build important connections they can tap into down the line for professional, financial and even emotional support.

“Being surrounded by other entrepreneurs and world-class experts is inspiring,” Shelat says. “And amazingly, it all takes place on this campus with its rich legacy of boundary-breaking innovation.”

U of T among top five university business incubators in the world: UBI Global

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 16:20:53 +0000

U of T among top five university business incubators in the world: UBI Global

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 02/06/2023 - 11:20

Cutline

The BRIDGE at U of T Scarborough is one of several entrepreneurship and innovation hubs on U of T's three campuses (photo by Matthew Dochstader)

Topic

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Global

The University of Toronto has been recognized as one of the top five university business incubators in the world by UBI Global in its latest world benchmark study.

In its 2021-2022 study, UBI Global – a Swedish-based innovation intelligence company with more than 1,000 member organizations – assessed 1895 organizations from 90 countries.

The top organizations were benchmarked across 21 key performance indicators against their global peers based on the value they provide to their innovation ecosystems and client startups.

“The UBI ranking is a reinforcement of all the great work that so many U of T students, faculty and alumni entrepreneurs have been doing,” says Jon French, director of University of Toronto Entrepreneurship, the umbrella organization for the incubators, accelerators and entrepreneurship programs across U of T’s three campuses. “It’s a recognition of how we fare against the best in the world.”

The ranking is particularly notable, French adds, since UBI is one of the only organizations examining both economic and social impact in its global assessment of the post-secondary entrepreneurship space.

“The approach that UBI takes is quite holistic – they measure hard metrics, including funding raised and jobs created, but they also take a look at criteria such as where the mentor network is coming from and how engaged the university’s alumni are,” French says, noting that U of T scored high on all such indicators in the UBI report and takes pride in supporting innovators at all stages of their journey – everyone from idea-stage student entrepreneurs to faculty members and PhD researchers seeking to commercialize their work.

Over the past decade, U of T entrepreneurs have created more than 600 venture-backed companies and secured more than $2.5 billion in investment. U of T Entrepreneurship, for its part, supports current and aspiring entrepreneurs by providing: co-working, meeting and event spaces; mentorship and advisory supports; pitch competitions and prizes; and access to investor networks to secure funding.

U of T’s network of campus acccelerators and incubators in the Greater Toronto Area are currently supporting more than 500 teams working on potential startups.

“It is important that our entrepreneurs have a sense of community – they are surrounded by like-minded people who are excited about innovation and turning ideas and opportunities into companies,” French says. “Across the 10-plus campus accelerators on our three campuses, we currently have over 500 teams that are working on projects that could become companies.”

UBI’s world benchmark study is a third-party assessment, based on a comprehensive survey, that analyzes the impact and performance of business incubators and accelerators from four sectors: university, public, private and corporate. Its framework for analysis was developed in collaboration with an advisory board comprising innovation thought leaders and industry experts.

Other Canadian universities also ranked highly in their categories in the UBI report, including incubators from McGill University, York University, Memorial University and École de technologie supérieure.

Many of the U of T-backed success stories flagged for the UBI survey stemmed from the university’s strength in leading-edge research fields such as quantum computing, biotech, clean tech, advanced manufacturing and machine learning. In particular, French points to the recent announcement of $40 million in federal funding for U of T startup Xanadu Quantum Technologies – an alumnus of the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) at the Rotman School of Management that was founded by former U of T post-doctoral physics researcher Christian Weedbrook – and the more than 150 ventures supported annually by the Health Innovation Hub (H2i).

French noted that U of T’s commitment to entrepreneurship is longstanding, with several incubators and accelerators recently celebrating their 10-year anniversaries. They include CDL, The Hatchery at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the UTEST accelerator.

“And now when we look at the new Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus close to opening on the St. George campus, that’s again an example of U of T doubling down on how important innovation and entrepreneurship are to the university,” he says.

U of T’s world-leading innovation network – which includes U of T Scarborough’s The Hub and The BRIDGE, as well as U of T Mississauga’s ICUBE – will be showcased during Entrepreneurship Week from March 6 to 9, featuring more than 15 free in-person, hybrid and virtual public events to teach, inspire and celebrate entrepreneurship on campus.

One flagship event returning in-person for the first time in three years is the True Blue Expo on March 9, where more than 40 U of T startups, accelerators and community partners will be sharing information on their products and services.

“We’ll be highlighting groundbreaking companies during Entrepreneurship Week, including those led by women founders and startups connected to our Black Founders Network,” French says. “All three campuses are represented – it’s really a snapshot of what makes U of T entrepreneurship so special.”

U of T drug discovery startup BenchSci ‘changing the tech world’: The Globe and Mail

lanthierj — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 18:02:20 +0000

U of T drug discovery startup BenchSci ‘changing the tech world’: The Globe and Mail

lanthierj Mon, 12/19/2022 - 13:02

Cutline

Benchsci's co-founders (left to right), Elvis Wianda, Tom Leung and Liran Belenzon (Amara Studios/BenchSci)

Topic

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Rotman School of Management

Startup

BenchSci, a University of Toronto startup that uses artificial intelligence to accelerate the process of drug development, is “changing the tech world” according to Report on Business Magazine.

Founded in 2015 by Liran Belenzon, who studied business at the Rotman School of Management, Thomas Leung, who was working on his PhD at U of T in epigenetics, and Elvis Wianda, the startup received early support from the Creative Destruction Lab, the Entrepreneurship Hatchery and Health Innovation Hub (H2i). Today, it has raised nearly $100 million from investors and employs 400 people.

BenchSci’s platform can filter through more than 14 million scientific papers and 64 million products, allowing scientists to assembling a “knowledge graph of who’s done what and with what level of success,” the magazine says – and now helps some 50,000 researchers worldwide.

“While the pharmaceutical companies pay to use the software,” Belenzon tells the magazine, “scientists and students use the platform for free.”

Toronto hosts Collision tech conference amid growing global acclaim for U of T startups

rahul.kalvapalle — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 18:12:38 +0000

Toronto hosts Collision tech conference amid growing global acclaim for U of T startups

rahul.kalvapalle Mon, 06/20/2022 - 14:12

Cutline

More than 35,000 are expected to attend the Collision tech conference in Toronto, which is being held in-person for the first time since 2019 and will include a sizeable U of T presence (photo by David Lee)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Rotman School of Management

Startups

UTEST

A biomedical firm whose drug discovery platform is used by 16 of top 20 pharmaceutical companies. A quantum computing startup whose machine recently outperformed the world’s most powerful supercomputers. A genomics company whose cloud-based software enabled better data-sharing and analysis during the pandemic – and earned plaudits from the World Economic Forum.

BenchSci, Xanadu Quantum Technologies and DNAstack are just three local tech companies that have helped solidify the University of Toronto’s reputation as Canada’s top engine for research-based startups while contributing to a tech boom that has attracted talent and investment to the Toronto region.

The spotlight on Toronto’s tech scene will shine especially brightly this week as the city hosts Collision, North America’s fastest-growing tech conference. More than 35,000 attendees – including startup founders, business leaders, investors, scientists, journalists and celebrities – are expected to participate in the in-person gathering, which was held virtually for the past two years due to COVID-19. That’s up 40 per cent from the last time the event was held in-person in Toronto.

“There is more than two years of pent-up energy for Collision, and we are seeing strong interest across the entire U of T community as well as international delegations that are keen to re-engage with our city and our university in person,” says Jon French, director of U of T Entrepreneurship.

“Our innovation ecosystem continues to enjoy incredible growth, and Collision is an excellent opportunity to shine a light on this momentum and the impact our entrepreneurial ecosystem is having globally.”

Several U of T founders are scheduled to speak at the conference. They include Liran Belenzon, CEO of BenchSci, which Belenzon and three U of T alumni co-founded in 2015 with support from U of T’s Entrepreneurship Hatchery, Health Innovation Hub (H2i) and the Creative Destruction Lab at Rotman.

The topic of his presentation? The importance of culture in hyper-growth startups – a subject Belenzon knows intimately. BenchSci raised $123 million in funding from a who’s who of investors and expanded its team from 50 to 285 in the last three years (with plans to keep growing).

“When you navigate a completely white space with no blueprint, and you’re doing something that no one has ever done in the past, culture is crucial,” says Belenzon, who earned an MBA from U of T’s Rotman School of Management.

He adds that BenchSci sought to nail down its culture early on by integrating it into every aspect of its operations – a task that is now being bolstered by Jessica Neal, former chief of talent at Netflix who recently joined BenchSci’s advisory board.

The company even has a 55-page “culture deck” that lays out its values, rules of engagement and leadership manifesto. It includes innovative ideas such as paying a recent hire an extra month’s salary if they quit within the first three months – a policy aimed at ensuring that employees who stay on feel that the job is right for them.

“Culture is how we do things around here,” says Belenzon. “For us, success is not only what we accomplish but how we accomplish it – how you do things, how you communicate, how you make decisions, how you treat each other and how you move forward together.”

Liran Belenzon, CEO of BenchSci, plans to talk about importance of culture at hyper-growth startups like the one he co-founded in 2015 with three other U of T alumni (photo courtesy of BenchSci)

Belenzon will be joined at the conference by other founders with strong U of T links. Christian Weedbrook, CEO of Xanadu, will talk about emerging applications of quantum computing, while Nick Frosst, chief technology officer of AI language processing startup Cohere, will discuss how to take action in times of chaos and uncertainty. Toronto Mayor John Tory and celebrated author Margaret Atwood, both U of T alumni, are also scheduled to speak (see U of T's schedule at Collision 2022 here).

This year’s in-person conference will also feature a large U of T booth that will feature representatives of several campus-linked accelerators and entrepreneurship groups, including the Creative Destruction Lab, UTEST (U of T Early-Stage Technology) incubator, H2i and the Black Founders Network. Other U of T bodies that plan to have a presence at Collision include: U of T’s Innovations and Partnerships Office, Climate Positive Energy institutional strategic initiative (ISI) and the Faculty of Arts & Science.

U of T Entrepreneurship, meanwhile, plans to host presentations in the ONRamp co-working and event space, and will offer tours of the St. George campus in a bid to familiarize Collision attendees with U of T’s thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem, which has spawned over 600 companies, created more than 9,000 jobs and generated more than $2 billion in investment over the past decade.

The return of the Collision conference to Toronto as an in-person event comes at a time when U of T startups and their founders are garnering acclaim around the world.

In April, the Silicon Valley-based C100 network for Canadian tech entrepreneurs named the 20 startup founders admitted to its annual C100 Fellows program – 40 per cent of whom are either U of T alumni or lead startups that graduated from the Creative Destruction Lab. They include several women: New College alumna Christina Cai, chief operations officer of AI health insurance tech firm Lydia.ai; U of T Scarborough alumna Kathleen Chan, CEO of fashion supply chain platform Calico; and Faculty of Law graduate Laura Zizzo, CEO of climate intelligence platform Manifest Climate.

And, last month, DNAstack, a startup that develops software and standards to help scientists and health leaders access and analyze genomics data, was named one of the World Economic Forum’s 100 Technology Pioneers of 2022 for its work in establishing federated data networks and powering insights in COVID-19 pandemic surveillance, neuroscience, rare disease and oncology.

Marc Fiume, DNAstack’s co-founder and CEO, says he hopes to leverage the recognition to promote promotion of equitable data sharing through Viral AI, its federated network for genomic variant surveillance and infectious disease research.

“Viral AI can help by setting up a real-time data sharing network so that as soon as a new variant of concern is identified, for example, we get alerted,” said Fiume, who earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science at U of T. “So, what we’re doing with the World Economic Forum and other partners is finding a way to get this in the hands of as many countries as possible so that we can support them in setting up genomic surveillance infrastructure.

“We’re excited about the opportunity to bring made-in-Canada technology to the global stage, and to really have an active role in shaping the future of how genetics and precision medicine pan out for really important global issues.”

The company is also a member of CanDETECT, a project that aims to use AI to develop precision oncology software. Other members include University Health Network (UHN) and Microsoft.

Fiume describes DNAstack’s role in CanDETECT as “the data integrator” since it works to examine how genomics interfaces with other data and leverages AI to learn which individuals, on a genetic basis, would respond best to therapies.

“So, it’s sort of the same approach we’re applying to COVID, but in the context of cancer,” Fiume says.

Fiume says DNAstack’s growing contributions on the national and international stage wouldn’t have been possible without the resources, supports and expertise on offer at U of T and in Toronto more generally.

“This is a very collaborative field,” he says. “If you’re not working with a policy adviser, a cloud provider, a pharma company, an AI expert and a genome scientist, you don’t have all the ingredients you need.

“That’s what’s been really great about Toronto’s ecosystem. A lot of other startups and collaborators are growing with us, and that network effect has been really powerful for us to forge. The network of the ecosystem around U of T and Toronto has been a real catalyst for our growth.”

'We took it to the real world and it worked': Rapid Zika testing platform clears hurdle with Brazil trial

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 16:01:44 +0000

'We took it to the real world and it worked': Rapid Zika testing platform clears hurdle with Brazil trial

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 03/16/2022 - 12:01

Cutline

U of T experts have led one of the first field trials for a synthetic biology-based diagnostic platform that could provide rapid, low-cost patient testing for Zika and other infectious diseases (photo courtesy of Livia Guo, LSK Technologies)

Topic

Brazil

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Research & Innovation

UTEST

An international team of researchers, led by experts from the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, has conducted one of the first field trials for a synthetic biology-based diagnostic platform that could provide rapid, de-centralized and low-cost patient testing for infectious diseases such as the Zika virus.

The work, conducted on-site in Latin America, revealed the potential for the cell-free synthetic biology tools and companion hardware. Published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the study’s results show that the novel diagnostic platform has analytical specificity and sensitivity equivalent to a U.S. Centres for Disease Control (CDC) PCR test for Zika and a diagnostic accuracy of 98.5 per cent with 268 patient samples collected in Recife, Brazil.

The platform is also programmable and can be similarly applied to detect any pathogen sequence. In addition to validating highly accurate diagnostic results for Zika, the team also achieved similar diagnostic performance for chikungunya virus, another mosquito-borne arbovirus.

“We see emerging diagnostics, like the paper-based tests we’ve developed, as having tremendous near-term potential to augment existing PCR capacity, improve equity in access to health care and aid in the responses to public health crises,” said Keith Pardee, assistant professor in the department of pharmaceutical sciences in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.

The portable diagnostic platform is a combination of a cell-free, paper-based test and a field-ready companion device that allows data to be collected using image-based colour analysis – purple for positive and yellow for negative. Called “PLUM” (Portable, Low-cost, User-friendly, Multimode), the toaster-size reader presents results from up to 384 samples and displays them in a single image capture.

Prior to the current global COVID-19 pandemic, the 2015-2016 outbreak of Zika virus in Latin America emphasized the urgent need for rapid and low-cost testing that can be deployed beyond the reach of centralized diagnostic labs, according to Pardee, a Canada Research Chair in Synthetic Biology and Human Health.

“We were investigating and developing this technology well before the COVID-19 pandemic brought these issues to light at the global level,” he said. “We’ve now been able to apply it and validate it in a region of endemic disease, which is really promising because these tools are meant to enable health systems to better respond to future outbreaks of infectious disease, particularly in low-resource settings.”

From left: Margot Karlikow, Seray Çiçek, Livia Guo and Keith Pardee (photo courtesy of Livia Guo, LSK Technologies)

Lindomar Pena, of the department of virology at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Rio de Janeiro, led the Brazilian team that collaborated on the project.

“This robust diagnostic platform displayed desirable features to be used in developing countries such as Brazil and in laboratories with basic infrastructure,” Pena said. “We hope it can be further developed and deployed in the Brazilian network of public health laboratories to diagnose Zika patients, trace contacts and identify hot-spot areas with active community transmission.”

The hardware and software that make up PLUM were originally developed by co-authors Livia Guo and Seray Çiçek as part of their graduate work in the Pardee lab. To keep production costs low, Guo and Çiçek – who are co-founders of LSK Technologies, a startup that aims to commercialize PLUM – used customizable software programs and off-the shelf electronics, enabling the device to be built for approximately US$500 per unit.

On the molecular side, the cell-free tests can be freeze-dried, allowing for distribution without refrigeration and, significantly, all of the molecular components of the test are independent of the PCR-supply chain.

“Here we have demonstrated that these two technologies combined create a low-cost, highly accurate diagnostic tool,” said study lead author Margot Karlikow, a post-doctoral researcher in the Pardee lab from 2016 to 2021 and now co-founder of En Carta Diagnostics.

“We also demonstrated that it is feasible to transport the platform across a significant distance and implement it effectively in another country. In many low- and middle-income countries, there is no PCR testing available outside of main cities, so the ultimate goal is that this platform be used as a high-quality alternative to PCR in more regional settings.”

As part of their publication, the team shared a roadmap of how they were able to transport the diagnostic technology from Canada to Latin America so that other teams might benefit from their experiences.

Guo, Çiçek and Karlikow successfully moved their work with the Pardee lab to establish health tech startups, LSK Technologies and En Carta Diagnostics, respectively. The entrepreneurship and incubator community at U of T was instrumental in the process.

In particular, Guo and Çiçek collaborated closely with the H2i and UTEST incubators.

“Both H2i and UTEST were great in terms of making introductions and helping to expand our network,” said Çiçek, explaining that H2i helped the team figure out a road map from the regulatory and product design standpoint while UTEST helped with customer discovery so they could better understand and mitigate customer pain points.

“The entrepreneurship community at U of T helps foster regular and valuable discussions between entrepreneurs around their challenges,” said Karlikow who is now running En Carta Diagnostics from Paris. “With so much support available, it helps you to make the decision to start your company to push your vision and product forward.”

Showing that the platform could be transported and accurately detect Zika virus in patient samples is a significant step forward in creating more accessible and de-centralized testing, says Pardee.

However, the extraction of RNA from patient samples still requires liquid handling by skilled technicians at this stage. “With performance on patient samples now validated, we are tackling these next challenges, like sample preparation, so that the platform and PCR-like diagnostic capacity can be distributed more broadly into the communities where they are needed.”

The team is hoping the successful field-based patient trial will move the work forward with added momentum.

“This step of translating the technology from the lab and applying it in a real-world setting was so important,” said Karlikow. “This was more than just the science involved – we made it applicable. We took it to the real world and it worked.”

Seven takeaways from U of T Entrepreneurship Week 2022

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 15:46:24 +0000

Seven takeaways from U of T Entrepreneurship Week 2022

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 03/14/2022 - 11:46

Cutline

(photo by Jeff Beardall)

Alyson Bruce

Topic

Black Founders Network

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Dentistry

Faculty of Music

The University of Toronto recently hosted its sixth annual Entrepreneurship Week, a four-day showcase of the university’s vast and vibrant entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem.

Featuring over 15 sessions – startup showcases, pitch competitions, keynote speakers, workshops, panel discussions and more – the event shone a bright light on the breadth and depth of the university’s entrepreneurship community.

Here are some of the top insights for current and prospective entrepreneurs from this year’s U of T Entrepreneurship Week:

Get rich quick? Not likely

In one of the standout moments of the week, sprinting legend and business leader Donovan Bailey shared his insights on the parallels between sport and business.

“I think the greatest misnomer is that you can get rich overnight. You can’t. You also can’t become an Olympic sprinter overnight. The first thing I tell entrepreneurs is the same thing I tell CEOs and young athletes: if you don’t put the work in, you’re not going to get the results.”

Hard work, passion, discipline and focus were among the characteristics that Bailey credits for his success as both an athlete and a businessperson.

In a candid fireside chat with Rita Trichur, a senior business writer for the Globe and Mail, Bailey shared his lessons in overcoming adversity – “win or learn” – and said that failing isn’t a word he likes to use.

Reinforcing the principle of community, Bailey encouraged young entrepreneurs not to be shy and to seek out successful people in their industry to provide mentorship.

“There are such incredible successful people out there who are willing to share the knowledge.”

Toronto is a hotbed for startups

U of T was named the fastest-rising global institution for startup founders in the 2021 PitchBook rankings – jumping six places. And the university remains the number one university in Canada for research-based startups and is among the top 10 university-managed incubators globally.

“I like to think that the U of T and the City of Toronto embody some of Donovan Bailey’s commitment to excellence and, to use a technical term, swagger,” said U of T President Meric Gertler during his introduction of Bailey at the UTE Speaker Series.

In total, entrepreneurs associated with U of T have launched more than 600 venture-backed companies, raised funding in surplus of $2 billion and created more than 9,000 jobs in the last decade.

“The U of T is an anchor of the city’s achievement in creating an innovation ecosystem with 10-plus accelerators and entrepreneurial hubs across the U of T’s three campuses,” said John Tory, Toronto’s mayor, in his opening remarks at the speaker series.

“These talented entrepreneurs are fostering meaningful economic and social impact, and this is one of the reasons why global investors are flocking to Toronto and international conferences like Collision want to be hosted by our inclusive and innovative ecosystem.”

In fact, Toronto-based and U of T-affiliated startups Waabi, Ada, Deep Genomics, Xanadu and Cohere each raised over $100 million in funding from investors last year.

Lifting communities through entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is often thought of as a solo journey. But several of last week’s sessions made it clear that community, support systems and networks are the differentiating factor in the success story for many entrepreneurs.

For Jonathon Redbird, entrepreneurship is all about providing solutions that benefit your entire community – not just the bottom line.

Speaking at the session Two-Eyed Seeing in Entrepreneurship, Redbird and Christina Tachtampa of Redbird Circle Inc. focused on how Indigenous Knowledge applies to the fields of entrepreneurship and business education given the Indigenous Peoples’ long history as innovators and entrepreneurs.

Slowing down, adding value to your community and thinking about entrepreneurship in a way that considers the self, community and our connection to the spirit of the land, were some of the key takeaways from this session which provided a refreshing perspective on startup culture.

Support for Black entrepreneurs grows

Community was a topic raised throughout the week – most notably in relation to the two new programs launched to support Black entrepreneurs, the Nobellum Innovator Program and the Black Founders Network (BFN) Accelerate program.

Built by and for the Black community, BFN was launched in the fall of 2021 to support Black founders, create more Black-led business and celebrate Black Excellence.

At the UTE Speaker Series, Efosa Obano, program manager of the Black Founders Network, announced that applications are now open for the first BFN Accelerate cohort, which will accept eight to 10 Black-led startups to participate in its three-month program this summer.

Following a classic cohort-based model, BFN Accelerate will help Black-led startups from the U of T community develop solutions to meet customers’ needs, launch a minimum-viable product, generate revenue, secure funding and explore value chain and distribution partnerships.

Moving the needle on gender diversity

More than half the winners of the University of Toronto Entrepreneurship (UTE) Startup Prize pitch competition that took place at Entrepreneurship Week were startups led and co-founded by women entrepreneurs.

In recent years, there’s been a perceivable shift in the startup playing field, which has historically been dominated by men. In part, this can be attributed to the greater emphasis placed on creating new opportunities for women-identifying entrepreneurs.

ICUBE at U of T Mississauga and the Health Innovation Hub (H2i) are two U of T’s accelerators dedicating space to women-identifying entrepreneurs with inspiring speaker series such as Fireside at FemSTEM and a stage to showcase ventures at the Pitch with a Twist business competition and FemSTEM Pitch Competition, which is taking place on March 24.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Pitch with a Twist (part of Entrepreneurship Week), provides a community of strong female founders with a platform to showcase their ventures, network with top companies and win cash prizes.

For, Justine Abigail Yu, the founder of Living Hyphen – taking up space meant creating one.

During the panel discussion at Pitch with a Twist, Yu shared her motivation behind launching her startup. “In 2015, there wasn’t a lot of representation across media including the arts and literature space in Canada,” she said.

Recognizing this, she set out to create a space by and for bi-racialized writers and artists to share their stories and work by launching a magazine and podcast with a mission to “reshape the mainstream.”

In a fireside conversation hosted by H2i, Sandy Skotnicki, a U of T alumna and the founding director of Bay Dermatology Centre, spoke about opportunities to innovate in the field of dermatology and reflected on her successful 20-plus year career advocating for changes to patient care and diagnosis.

Skotnicki’s advice to women entrepreneurs? “If you have something you’re strongly passionate about, think big, start bigger, don’t be afraid to do that.”

Innovation in the arts

What does entrepreneurship look like in the arts?

Similar to the approach taken by the creators of RedBird Circle, entrepreneurship in the arts is about more than generating revenue and raising venture capital.

U of T artist and researcher Adrian Berry explained the approach as follows: “Recognizing a challenge and figuring out how to respond in an innovative way – but also in a thoughtful way. We try to innovate in a way in which we can improve our lives and thrive and keep making art.”

Berry and Hayley Janes took the stage at Entrepreneurship Week in a new session hosted by the Toronto Music Entrepreneurship Exchange. The research duo spoke to their individual research projects – both of which address the same challenge: precariousness in the arts sector.

“Toronto art workers and art organizations were vulnerable prior to the pandemic, during the pandemic, and after – in this post-pandemic world – due to limited resources, years of sector-wide financial precarity, societal inequalities, the list goes on and on,” Berry said.

The panel discussion was moderated by Ely Lyonblum, strategic research development officer in the Faculty of Music at U of T. In addition to Berry and Janes, the session featured Faculty of Music alumni Adam Fainman and Renee Fajardo, who shared their unique perspectives on entrepreneurship and innovation in art and its role in cultural design.

Fainman, whose innovation in beatboxing technology led to new collaborative opportunities across music genres, and Fajardo, whose project aims to cater opera to a 21^st-century audience, exemplify how innovation and an entrepreneurial mindset can make an impact in the arts.

Making time for mental wellness

Mental health is health. And entrepreneurs, like everyone, can benefit from prioritizing self-care and mindfulness to cope with the stress of work and life.

Beginning with a guided meditation led by registered psychotherapist Soroosh Vafapoor, H2i hosted a stress management and mental health session to close of Entrepreneurship Week on a more relaxed note.

The session provided advice for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, featuring a panel of U of T alumni that included: Harold Wodlinger, chief technology officer at ViTAA Medical; Michael Floros, founder and CEO at Cohesys; and Wendy Naimark, chief technology officer at Ripple Therapeutics.

Moderated by Professor Paul Santerre, director of H2i, the intimate session also provided professional insights on mental health best practices from Vafapoor. Entrepreneur or not, the tips offered by the panelists provided actionable tactics to mitigate stress and make time for mental health.

Wodlinger touted mastering the art of delegation to “spread the stress,” rather than carrying it all on our own.

Creating balance between work and home is also key.

“Make rules for yourself, define barriers and stick to them,” said Wodlinger.

One way to do this: add appointments to your calendar. Whether it’s penciling in time to focus on a project distraction-free or reserving a block of time for daily meditation, scheduling appointments with yourself can help you take back control of your day.

Vafapoor, meanwhile, recommends leaning toward self-compassion and kindness to cope with stress. “Be aware of what narratives arrive at your mental doorstep and challenge their authenticity and reality,” he said.

He also suggested that movement could help to decompress the mind – not necessarily “working out” but moving the body in the ways that feel good, whether that’s dancing, yoga or another form of mindful movement.

Having lost her dad to a stroke, PhD student launches cardiovascular screening startup

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 20:16:46 +0000

Having lost her dad to a stroke, PhD student launches cardiovascular screening startup

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 03/07/2022 - 15:16

Cutline

Stephanie Buryk-Iggers is the founder of a startup called SPARKED that's developing an inexpensive handheld device to screen for cardiovascular disease risk by using saliva samples (photo courtesy of Stephanie Buryk-Iggers_

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Graduate Students

Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research

ThisIsThePlace

University Health Network

Stephanie Buryk-Iggers is on a personal mission to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The second-year PhD student in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) was 26 years old when she lost her father to an unexpected stroke.

The experience left her devastated.

“My father was young, with no warning signs,” she says. “One night, we were saying goodnight to him and the next morning we woke up to him having a stroke. He died five days later.”

Buryk-Iggers learned that her father’s stroke was related to cardiovascular disease and that almost all such strokes are considered preventable with lifestyle changes, including exercise. So, she decided to leave her job at Right to Play, where she had been working after graduating with a bachelor of arts degree from McMaster University. She says she was determined to develop the scientific and research skills needed to help others learn the benefit of exercise as part of disease prevention.

She also launched a startup company called SPARKED in early 2021, offering a handheld device that screens for cardiovascular disease risk using a saliva sample. The rapid results provide an inexpensive way to screen patients without the need for a traditional laboratory or technical training.

“Clinicians can screen for cardiovascular disease risk and have the results available in minutes, while the patient is sitting in the same room,” says Buryk-Iggers. “They can have an immediate conversation around further tests and interventions, if needed, and alleviate any concerns.”

Stephanie Buryk-Iggers is pictured with her late father (photo courtesy of Stephanie Buryk-Iggers)

SPARKED was accepted by U of T's H2i (Health Innovation Hub) incubator. Shortly after launching her company, Buryk built a team to work on developing the handheld device, including Morteza Jeyhani, a post-doctoral researcher in biomedical engineering at Ryerson University, Michael Glogauer, a professor at U of T’s Faculty of Dentistry and dentist-in-chief at the University Health Network (UHN), and Patrick Lawler, an assistant professor of medicine in U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and a cardiologist at Toronto General Hospital.

“I am immensely honoured to be a part of the H2i incubator and I can honestly say that much of our success is a direct result of their mentorship and education opportunities,” says Buryk-Iggers. “It is a remarkable place.”

Over the past year, her team was able to: secure a lab to build their prototype; place as finalists at four international and national-level pitch competitions; and earn the grand prize at H2i's FemSTEM pitch competition, which celebrates founders who are women.

SPARKED offers a handheld device that screens for cardiovascular disease risk using a sample of the saliva.

They were also accepted as part of the 2021 Entrepreneurship for Cardiovascular Health Opportunities (ECHO) program offered through the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research. The team is this week presenting as finalists for the iCUBE incubator's Pitch with a Twist competition, as well as at U of T's Entrepreneurship Week pitch contest.

“The idea that my father had cardiovascular disease never crossed my mind,” says Buryk-Iggers. “Had there been an accessible, affordable and easy way to screen for it, perhaps my family would have been given a warning sign. That warning may have led to lifestyle change or an intervention that might have saved his life.”

She hopes SPARKED can help fill that gap for other people – in clinical settings and beyond.

“Eventually, we’d like individuals to be able to purchase the device on their own, administer the screening whenever they like and further increase accessibility to rural and remote areas,” she says.

Buryk-Iggers’s interest in working with remote communities stems from her personal experience.

During her work with Right to Play, an international humanitarian organization that uses sport as a tool for positive change, she worked with vulnerable groups in remote and marginalized areas of the world, including Northern Canada and Rwanda.

Living four to five months of each year in the communities, she trained local staff as program leaders based on their community-built objectives. She was introduced to the organization through her teammates on the women’s rugby team in McMaster University. Buryk-Iggers was captain of the team and also played for Team Ontario. In 2019, she was inducted into the Ontario Rugby Hall of Fame with the Toronto Scottish Rugby Football Club.

During her time with Right to Play, Stephanie Buryk-Iggers worked with vulnerable groups in Rwanda (photo courtesy of Stephanie Buryk-Iggers)

Beyond her startup, Buryk-Iggers works with PhD supervisor Daniel Santa Mina, an associate professor of exercise and cancer at KPE, to support the development and evaluation of the GoodHope Exercise and Rehabilitation (GEAR) program, Canada’s first exercise and rehabilitation program for people with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a group of inherited disorders that affect connective tissues – primarily the skin, joints and blood vessel walls. She came to U of T two years ago to study exercise in clinical settings after receiving a bachelor of science degree from Trent University and a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Ryerson University.

“Whether it’s through sport, research or industry, my personal mission is to improve health equity,” says Buryk-Iggers. “I am always trying to work towards improving technology and health programs where they do exist, and creating new ones where they don't exist.”

U of T Entrepreneurship Week 2022: 10 startups to watch

rahul.kalvapalle — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 19:42:37 +0000

U of T Entrepreneurship Week 2022: 10 startups to watch

rahul.kalvapalle Mon, 03/07/2022 - 14:42

Mariam Matti

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Department of Computer Science Innovation Lab

Entrepreneneurship

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science