Nanotechnology

U of T researcher explores use of DNA nanotechnology to regenerate teeth

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 13:19:34 +0000

U of T researcher explores use of DNA nanotechnology to regenerate teeth

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 03/25/2024 - 09:19

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Mercedes Ing, who is in her first year of U of T’s pediatric graduate dentistry program, talks about her research into using DNA nanotechnology to regenerate teeth during a recent Three Minute Thesis competition (photo by Jeff Comber)

Rachel Boutet

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Dentistry

Nanotechnology

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

"Most treatments currently in dentistry involve filling the tooth with materials that don’t make the tooth stronger – in fact, they actually weaken them”

Researchers in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry are exploring the use of DNA nanotechnology to regenerate biologic materials – including teeth.

Mercedes Ing, who is currently in her first year of the faculty’s pediatric graduate dentistry program, is taking research related to bone regeneration that’s being conducted by a PhD student in the faculty and applying it in a way that could one day reduce the need for cavity fillings.

She says the bone regeneration research has already shown promise in pre-clinical studies.

“Two different solutions of DNA are mixed together to make a gel where the DNA forms a structure that acts like scaffolding, attracting minerals to help regenerate the bone,” says Ing, who is working in the lab of Assistant Professor Karina Carneiro.

She adds that injecting DNA gel has aided with bone healing and that by applying the bone results to teeth, “we want to see how the gel performs in the environment of human saliva and human cells, and how it can help remineralize dentin in teeth.”

Ing says the developing field of nanotechnology has a lot of potential, which she can already see with this research – even in its preliminary stages.

“The cool thing about this is most treatments currently in dentistry involve filling the tooth with materials that don’t make the tooth stronger – in fact, they actually weaken them,” says Ing, who chose her area of research, in part, because of Carneiro, who taught her biomaterials during her dentistry degree. “This could be extremely promising if we’re able to use the DNA gel to rebuild the dentin of the tooth.”

Using DNA as a tool for regeneration could also yield other benefits for patients, including preventing root canals and additional invasive dental visits, she says.

“Nowadays, in pediatric dentistry especially, we are trying to move towards minimally invasive dentistry and fewer visits,” says Ing. “The ultimate goal is to be able to apply this gel to help promote more healing.”

Morris Manolson, the Faculty of Dentistry’s vice-dean, research, and Mercedes Ing at the faculty's 2024 Three Minute Thesis award presentation (Jeff Comber)

Ing presented her research at the Faculty of Dentistry’s Three-Minute-Thesis competition earlier this year and was chosen as the winner, moving on to the larger, U of T-wide competition.

“I was happy to win for my supervisors – they were really encouraging and supportive,” says Ing, referring to Carneiro and Anuradha Prakki, associate dean, undergraduate education. “I’m excited to represent the faculty in the next round and also to see the breadth of research from around the entire university.”

Nanoparticles show promise in defeating antibiotic-resistant bacteria, U of T researchers find

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 16:03:10 +0000

Nanoparticles show promise in defeating antibiotic-resistant bacteria, U of T researchers find

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 08/24/2020 - 12:03

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Ruby Sullan, an assistant professor at U of T Scarborough, says her team has designed an approach that can curb the onset of drug resistance in bacteria (photo by Ken Jones)

Topic

Research & Innovation

U of T Scarborough

A new therapy developed by researchers at the University of Toronto may bring us one step closer to effectively killing deadly drug-resistant superbugs.

“The threat posed by pathogens that are increasingly becoming resistant to all known antibiotics is an alarming and pressing health care problem,” says Ruby Sullan, assistant professor in the department of physical and environmental sciences at U of T Scarborough.

“It’s resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in health-care costs annually, so there’s an urgent need to seek alternatives to antibiotic-only therapies.”

The therapy developed by Sullan and post-doctoral researcher Nesha Andoy uses nanoparticles made from polydopamine, a naturally occurring hormone and neurotransmitter that makes it highly compatible with the human body.

The therapy can kill bacteria in two ways. The surfaces of the nanoparticles are coated with an antimicrobial peptide (AMP) that targets and kills bacteria by binding to its membranes and destabilizing them. Since the dopamine-based particles are also highly photosensitive, they are able to heat up when exposed to low-powered laser light, killing the bacteria through heat.

The research is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

Sullan says a major benefit of using these nanoparticles is that it allows the bacteria to be killed at a lower temperature using lasers, leaving the surrounding healthy cells unharmed.

“Since the mechanisms that this therapy use are different from most antibiotics, we envision that they can be designed and developed to target other drug-resistant bacteria,” she says.

Antimicrobial resistance happens when bacteria or fungi evolve to become immune to antibiotic drugs. While Sullan and her team tested this therapy on E.coli as part of their research – some strains can cause serious health problems in humans – it may eventually be used to kill a range of drug-resistant pathogens, including the bacteria that result in hospital staph infections.

Sullan says the team drew inspiration from cancer therapies.

“Polydopamine is a well-studied nanomaterial for anti-tumor applications, but our twist is that we used it to target infection caused by bacteria,” she says.

Sullan notes that the therapy doesn’t eliminate bacterial resistance, which is likely impossible. Bacteria were among the first life forms on earth, can be found living in the most extreme environments and will likely survive long after we’re gone.

“The technology we’ve developed is designed to curb the onset in which bacteria resistance develops,” says Sullan, whose research explores bacterial adhesion.

“If we can confuse the bacteria by killing it several different ways, it will have difficulty evolving quickly enough to develop resistance to these different types of mechanisms that can kill it.”

Sullan’s lab is looking at ways to decrease the size of the nanoparticle to make it more suitable for use in living organisms and exploring ways to improve its efficiency. Since the system the team has developed is highly modular, she says it can be modified to change its killing mechanisms, including changing the coating to different antimicrobial agents or loading it with antibiotic drugs.

“That could make a third bacteria-killing mechanism, so it would really enhance it as a multi-functional therapy for drug-resistant pathogens.”

The research received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science, U of T Connaught Fund and the U of T Scarborough Research Competitiveness Fund.

U of T cancer imaging startup raises funding for clinical trials

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 18:56:09 +0000

U of T cancer imaging startup raises funding for clinical trials

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 02/13/2018 - 13:56

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Christine Allen, a professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, co-founded Nanovista with David Jaffray and Jinzi Zheng. The company is developing an imaging agent to assist surgeons removing cancerous tumours (photo by Chris Sorensen)

Topic

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Nanotechnology

Startups

A University of Toronto startup that uses nanotechnology to help surgeons identify and remove cancerous tumours has closed a $2.3 million round of financing – money that will be used to pay for a Phase 1 clinical trial.

The seed funding for Nanovista, which has developed a nanoparticle imaging agent, is being led by Toronto's GreenSky Capital, which invested $750,000 through two of its affiliated venture funds.

“It’s a homegrown, early-stage success story,” says Christine Allen, one of the startup’s three co-founders and a professor in U of T’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. “But we’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us.”

That includes wrapping up preclinical work by this summer and then, with the necessary approvals, proceeding to a Phase 1 clinical trial to test the technology’s effectiveness in head and neck, and lung cancer patients.

Nanovista uses a lipid-based nanotechnology to encapsulate two different imaging agents – one that can be used during computed tomography (CT) scans for pre-operative planning, and another that can be used during surgery.

“It helps identify the margins of the tumour so the surgeon will remove just the malignant tissue, but all of the malignant tissue,” says Allen.

“It also highlights the malignant lymph nodes the cancer has spread to.”

Allen says the technology was developed after discussions with surgeons at Toronto’s research hospitals. The advent of screening programs for individuals at risk of certain types of cancer, including lung cancer, has resulted in ever smaller cancerous lesions being identified. That, in turn, presents a challenge to surgeons who are then charged with removing the malignancy.

“The surgeon goes in, but [the tumour] is difficult to see,” Allen says.

In addition to Allen, Nanovista’s founders include: Professor David Jaffray, a senior scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and director of the Techna Institute for the Advancement of Technologies for Health, and Jinzi Zheng, who did her PhD at U of T in medical biophysics and was an assistant professor at the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering.

Nanovista was a member of the inaugural cohort at JLABS @ Toronto, the first international location of the life sciences incubator created by health giant Johnson & Johnson. (Allen is also involved with a drug delivery startup in JLABS called Pendant Biosciences.)

Allen said the support from JLABS @ Toronto, created in partnership with U of T, has been invaluable to Nanovista as it seeks to build its business. The same is true of the support provided by GreenSky and the local research hospitals, she said.

“I don’t think you’re going to find a better place to do this in Canada.”

Learn more about U of T Entrepreneurship

Renewable energy research, clean-tech startups from U of T take centre stage

lanthierj — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:16:38 +0000

Renewable energy research, clean-tech startups from U of T take centre stage

lanthierj Mon, 04/17/2017 - 09:16

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Nanoleaf was just one of the U of T startups at the Toronto Sustainability Summit (all photos by Johnny Guatto)

Chris Sorensen

Author legacy

Christopher Sorensen

Topic

Subheadline

Toronto Sustainability Summit

If Silicon Valley is where big minds fixate on small problems – a better way to hail a taxi or swap photos on your smartphone – then the University of Toronto may soon be known as the place where the world’s biggest, most intractable issues are solved.

That was the underlying message at U of T’s recent Toronto Sustainability Summit, held at the MaRS Centre in downtown Toronto.

The sold-out event brought together leading U of T researchers, key government officials and senior industry executives to discuss ways to work together to tackle planet-threatening climate change. Reza Moridi, Ontario’s minister of research, innovation and science, took the opportunity to announce a new, $7 million competition designed to develop breakthrough technologies to help the province’s industrial plants reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

U of T startup QD Solar secures international financing

lanthierj — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 13:17:43 +0000

U of T startup QD Solar secures international financing

lanthierj Tue, 02/14/2017 - 08:17

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Ted Sargent (photo by Roberta Baker, courtesy Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering)

Topic

Global Lens

Research and Innovation

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Nanotechnology

QD Solar, a Canadian startup co-founded by U of T researchers Ted Sargent and Sjoerd Hoogland, has received a big boost in funding and an important international nod to help bring its solar technology to market.

On Monday, the company announced it had closed its first significant round of venture capital financing led by DSM Venturing, based in the Netherlands, with participation from existing investors, KAUST Innovation Fund and MaRS Innovation.

Coupled with the $2.55 million the company received from Sustainable Development Technology Canada last March, QD Solar “has the resources to advance, develop, test and de-risk our solar technology, while concurrently developing the manufacturing processes needed to bring this technology to market,” said Dan Shea, CEO of QD Solar and a former senior executive with Celestica and BlackBerry, in a news release.

QD Solar’s quantum dot-based solar cells use nano-engineered, low-cost materials that can absorb otherwise wasted infrared light. Solar panels with this technology can boost their overall power generation by 20 per cent, the company says.

In the future, QD Solar says, it intends to develop quantum dot-based solar material that can be applied to any flexible surface to generate energy.

The technology was developed in labs at U of T by Sargent, a University Professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at U of T and Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology, and Hoogland, director of research, technology and innovation at the Sargent Group.

“We’re delighted to see QD Solar and this novel technology created at the University of Toronto receive this substantial investment from Canadian and international sources to advance their bold vision for a new clean energy product,” said Derek Newton, U of T’s assistant vice–president of innovation, partnerships and entrepreneurship.

The startup was supported by MaRS Innovation and U of T’s Innovations & Partnership Office, which provided seed funding, patent protection and helped the company meet international industry partners and investors.

Since 2011, U of T researchers have created more than 830 inventions, founded more than 90 research-based startups and generated $49 million from licensing revenues.