Nina Ambros

From building bone to children’s literacy: 36 U of T researchers awarded Canada Research Chairs

lanthierj — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 17:51:06 +0000

From building bone to children’s literacy: 36 U of T researchers awarded Canada Research Chairs

lanthierj Tue, 08/29/2023 - 13:51

Cutline

Karina Carneiro, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Dentistry, is one of 36 researchers at U of T and its partner hospitals to receive a new or renewed Canada research chair (photo by Jeff Comber)

Topic

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Canada Research Chairs

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Computer Science

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Economics

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Dentistry

Geography and Planning

Hospital for Sick Children

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Research & Innovation

U of T Scarborough

University Health Network

Subheadline

The new and renewed chairs at U of T and its hospital partners were part of a broader research funding announcement by the federal government

At the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry, Karina Carneiro and her team are working on developing new treatments to regenerate bone with DNA-based biomaterials.

Karina Carneiro (photo by Jeff Comber)

The researchers are exploring ways to use synthetic materials, created using DNA nanotechnology, to help bones regenerate and support the body’s efforts to heal them naturally.

That’s in contrast to current bone repair treatments, which involve taking bone tissue from another part of the body and breaking it into little pieces that can be inserted into the defect.

“Using a DNA-gel for this purpose could be an effective treatment option as it can be injected to fill the defect size fully,” says Carneiro, an assistant professor in the faculty.

“What we believe to be the difference between our DNA gel and other materials being developed is that over time, the DNA can degrade into molecules that promote our own body’s healing mechanism to further regenerate the bone.”

Carneiro is one of three researchers at the Faculty of Dentistry to be awarded a new or renewed Canada Research Chair in the latest round – and one of 36 across U of T’s three campuses and hospital partners (see list below).

Established in 2000, the prestigious federal program aims to recruit and retain top researchers and scholars in the country. It invests more than $300 million annually to enable world-class researchers to reach new heights in disciplines spanning engineering, health sciences, humanities and social sciences.

“Congratulations to all the researchers at the University of Toronto who received new or renewed Canada Research Chairs in the latest round,” says Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“From using AI to improve medicine and health care to better understanding Indigenous geographies and environmental dispossession, the work by U of T investigators supported by this important federal program is pushing the boundaries of research and innovation – and promises to have a big impact in Canada and around the world.”

Anil Kishen (photo by Jeff Comber)

Professor Anil Kishen, who is also at the Faculty of Dentistry, will use the funding associated with his Tier 1 Canada Research to advance his work in oral health nanomedicine.

He and his colleagues in the Kishen Lab are using multifunctional bioactive nanoparticles to study how cells communicate with each other and how wounds heal – in particular, how nanoparticles can be used to help save infected natural teeth and treat wounds and ulcers in individuals with diabetes.

Kishen says one of the reasons chitosan-based nanoparticles, which are optimized for different therapeutic applications, are so promising is because they’re derived from a naturally occurring molecule that is readily available.

“Affordability is important when developing a treatment to reach the masses,” Kishen says.

Massieh Moayedi (photo by Jeff Comber)

Massieh Moayedi, an associate professor in the Faculty of Dentistry, is receiving funding to pursue research in pain neuroimaging as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair.

“There’s tenuous evidence that body image might be involved in some types of chronic pain,” Moayedi says, adding that his end goal is to understand how pain works so he can improve patient outcomes.

He’s already shown that people with arthritic hands who see the limb looking healthier through a special device experience improvements in pain, so he’s now trying to understand which brain regions are involved.

“This chair will give me funding and the capacity to allow me to investigate these questions, and to really understand the relationship between pain and body image.”

Randy Boissonnault, minister of employment, workforce development and official languages, announced the CRCs at a press conference on Aug. 29 on behalf of François-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry, and Mark Holland, minister of health.

He also revealed the researchers and projects receiving funding through a diverse array of programs administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

They include the recipients of the SSHRC’s Partnership Grants, Partnership Development Grants and Insight Grants, as well as the recipients of the CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF), which helps institutions to recruit and retain outstanding researchers, and provide them with the necessary tools and technology to perform their work. Named after a former U of T president, JELF supports projects that deal with a range of pressing issues. This year’s recipients include 35 researchers at U of T and its hospital partners sharing a total of more than $11 million for projects ranging from an assessment of plant responses to environmental change to the development of an ultra-sensitive cryogenic detector for dark matter and neutrino experiments.

“The federal government’s ongoing support for research through all of these programs – from the John R. Evans Leaders Fund, to the NSERC and CFI grants and the Canada Research Chairs – is critical to supporting the kind of research that ultimately improves lives through new knowledge and innovations,” Cowen said.

Here is the full list of new and renewed Canada Research Chairs at U of T:

New Canada Research Chairs

Stephanie Ameis at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and in the department of psychiatry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in neuroimaging of autism and mental health in youth
Yvonne Bombard at Unity Health and in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Tier 2 in genomics health services and policy
Karina Carneiro in the Faculty of Dentistry, Tier 2 in DNA-based biomaterials
Jesse Chao at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in precision cancer diagnostics and artificial intelligence
Xi (Becky) Chen-Bumgardner in the department of applied psychology and human development in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Tier 1 in literacy development of bilingual and multilingual children
Mark Chiew at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in computational biomedical imaging
Sarah Crome at University Health Network and in the department of immunology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in tissue-specific immune tolerance
Michelle Daigle in the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tier 2 in Indigenous geographies and environmental dispossession
Karen Davis at University Health Network and in the department of surgery in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in acute and chronic pain research
Rahul Gopalkrishnan in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in computational medicine
Housheng (Hansen) He at University Health Network and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in RNA medicine
Margaret Herridge at University Health Network and in the department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in critical illness outcomes and the recovery continuum
Anil Kishen in the Faculty of Dentistry, Tier 1 in oral health nanomedicine
Bowen Li in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, Tier 2 in RNA vaccines and therapeutics
Iacovos Michael at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in tumor biology and precision oncology
Massieh Moayedi in the Faculty of Dentistry, Tier 2 in pain neuroimaging
Faiyaz Notta at the University Health Network and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in pancreatic cancer and cancer evolution
Valeria Rac at the University Health Network and in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Tier 2 in health system and technology evaluation
Fahad Razak at Unity Health Toronto and in the department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in health-care data and analytics
Clinton Robbins at the University Health Network and in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in cardiovascular immunology
Lena Serghides at the University Health Network and in the department of immunology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in maternal-child health and HIV
Catriona Steele at the University Health Network and in the department of speech language pathology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in swallowing and food oral processing
Bo Wang in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, tier 2 in artificial intelligence for medicine

Renewed Canada Research Chairs

Angela Cheung at University Health Network and in the department of medicine at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in musculoskeletal and postmenopausal health
Xi Huang at the Hospital for Sick Children and in the department of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in cancer biophysics
Cendri Hutcherson in the department of psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Tier 2 in decision neuroscience
Joanne Kotsopoulos at Women’s College Hospital and at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Tier 2 in hereditary breast and ovarian cancer prevention
Arthur Mortha in the department of immunology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in mucosal immunology
Kelly O’Brien in the department of physical therapy in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in episodic disability and rehabilitation
Trevor Pugh at the University Health Network and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in translational genomics
Diego Restuccia in the department of economics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tier 1 in macroeconomics and productivity
David Sinton in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Tier 1 in energy and fluids
Olivier Trescases in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Tier 2 in power electronic converters
Joel Watts in the Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in protein misfolding disorders
Michael Widener in the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tier 2 in transportation and health
Stephen Wright in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tier 1 in population genomics

Researchers discover molecule in the mouth that could help eliminate pathogens

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 31 May 2023 14:09:42 +0000

Researchers discover molecule in the mouth that could help eliminate pathogens

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 05/31/2023 - 10:09

Cutline

Researchers Michael Glogauer, right, and Abdelahhad Barbour, left, work in a dry area of a lab that's reserved for data analysis (photo by Jeff Comber)

Subheadline

Streptococcus salivarius SALI-10 could open the door to an alternative to conventional antibiotic treatment

Researchers at the University Health Network and University of Toronto have discovered a new biotherapeutic molecule – produced by a strain of oral probiotic bacteria – that kills infectious pathogens while promoting a healthy microbiome.

The findings by Michael Glogauer, dentist-in-chief at the University Health Network and a professor in U of T’s Faculty of Dentistry, and Abdelahhad Barbour, a molecular microbiologist and former U of T post-doctoral researcher, were recently published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Science.

Patented as Salivaricin 10 (Sali10), Streptococcus salivarius SALI-10 promises to open the door to an alternative to conventional antibiotic treatments and is a novel solution to prevent infectious diseases.

While conventional antibiotics, mainly isolated from soil-derived microorganisms, generally have a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity that kills good and bad bacteria alike, Sali10 effectively targets infectious pathogens while also maintaining important oral microbiota.

“Sali10 kills oral pathogens that cause periodontal diseases as well as many multi-drug resistant respiratory pathogens that cause pneumonia,” Glogauer says. “Unfortunately, less than three per cent of the human population has [their own] S. salivarius that can produce Sali10 in their mouth. We hope to create biotherapeutics in the form of beneficial bacteria with drug-like properties that eventually people can rinse with, or eat foods with, so that their oral microbiome is tipped to a healthy side.

“The S. salivarius bacteria themselves are a drug delivery device due to their probiotics properties which enable them to colonize the mouth and produce and release Salivaricin 10 peptides.”

The search for beneficial bacteria

The human microbiome influences our immune system and overall health. Our mouths have the second-largest and most diverse microbiota after the gut, harboring over 700 species of bacteria. With this abundance of microbes within us, there is a rising interest in exploring their health-promoting properties.

As part of their effort to find beneficial bacteria in the mouth, Glogauer and Barbour co-founded a U of T-affiliated startup called Ostia Sciences Inc. in 2020.

“We look for beneficial bacteria in the mouth called commensals with probiotic properties,” Glogauer says. “They are the opposite of pathogens and keep us healthy.”

This project began by isolating Streptococcus salivarius from healthy people’s mouths and observing how these microbes were affecting bacterial pathogens and the innate immune responses. “S. salivarius is [found in] the human oral cavity and the gut, and it co-evolved within the human body over hundreds of thousands of years,” Barbour says.

Some specific strains of commensals can produce peptides called lantibiotics (antibiotics that have lanthionine) that can impair pathogens’ colonization and promote healthy microbiomes. Lantibiotics produced by S. salivarius are called salivaricins.

"We observed that this previously unidentified structural class of lantibiotics is responsible for many immunomodulatory activities beyond the antimicrobial capacity,” Barbour says.

A breakthrough molecule

In fact, the researchers observed that Sali10 molecules were a chemoattractant to neutrophils, which means that they recruited more immune cells to help fight off infections. Sali10 enhanced phagocytosis, the process by which specialized immune cells like neutrophils engulf and break down harmful substances like bacteria and viruses. It was also observed that Sali10 reduced inflammation through the promotion of anti-inflammatory macrophages.

“We wanted to know structurally why these lantibiotic peptides had this incredible multi-functionality. Why was this molecule able to do what it was doing making it superior to other lantibiotics?” Barbour says.

The research team applied structural biology analysis and discovered that Sali10 molecules had a phosphorylation site on the N-terminal region of the peptides. “Sali10 is the first phosphorylated lantibiotic ever discovered. This novel structural feature is responsible for the immunoregulatory function,” says Barbour.

He adds that the discovery raises questions about phosphorylated lantibiotics in other human microbiomes and their role in promoting health.

“Having demonstrated the efficacy of Salivaricin 10 in both in vitro and in vivo models, we plan to commence human clinical trials in the near future to establish its safety and efficacy clinically.”