BACKGROUNDER
June 23, 2009
PROJECTS FUNDED IN TORONTO
Ontario is providing more than $42 million to support 15 world-class projects and over 100 researchers at five research institutions in Toronto.
Ontario Cancer Biomarker Network
Ontario Cancer Biomarker Network Funding
Lead Institution: Ontario Cancer Biomarker Network (OCBN)
Lead Researcher: Dr. Ken Evans
Provincial Funding: $505,946
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
The Ontario Cancer Biomarker Network is a not-for-profit corporation that
was established in 2005 with investments from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
for the purpose of advancing biomarker research. The OCBN is a platform for enabling translational research teams from across the province and beyond. The network’s infrastructure and support ensures the many required disciplines, technologies and types of expertise operate in a seamless fashion and are afforded the tools they need to achieve their research goals.
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Medicinal Chemistry Platform
Lead Institution: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
Lead Researcher: Dr. Rima Al-awar
Provincial Funding: $486,176.62
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
The OICR’s Medicinal Chemistry Platform will work on the discovery and development of compounds that can effectively destroy cancer cells while minimizing adverse reactions in cancer patients. It will focus in part on novel targets identified by Ontario-based research programs.
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Informatics and Bio-computing Platform
Lead Institution: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
Lead Researcher: Dr. Lincoln Stein
Provincial Funding: $684,805
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
The platform is developing algorithms, software and databases for OICR programs. Computational and statistical research is intrinsic to all OICR programs. New methods are needed to handle the large and complex datasets (clinical, genomics, imaging, pathology, chemical, etc.) that will be generated. New challenges arise as these datasets are integrated and interpreted. Visualization tools need to be developed to provide global views of the data, not only for the computer scientist, but also for biologists, clinicians, and trainees.
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Genomics and High-Throughput Screening Platform
Lead Institution: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
Lead Researcher: Dr. John McPherson
Provincial Funding: $1,613,391
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
The Cancer Genomics Platform is primarily using next-generation sequencing platforms to detect structural variants, copy number variation and single nucleotide polymorphisms within all known coding sequences and transcriptome analyses including digital gene expression, allele-specific expression differences, differential splicing and small RNA profiling. All tumour studies will be complemented by similar studies of normal tissues derived from the same patient, to differentiate somatic from inherited variants, or compare disease states versus normal states.
OICR will initially focus its genomic program on pancreatic cancer, which is a less common cancer but has a nearly 100 per cent fatality rate. It is estimated that in 2009 there will be ~3,900 new cases in Canada.
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
1MM Cancer ChallengeHealth Science Centre
Lead Institution: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Lead Researcher: Dr. Martin Yaffe
Provincial Funding: $1,645,070
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
Tumours are usually found when they are more than one centimetre in size and contain more than 200 million cancer cells. Early detection and diagnosis of a tumour before it grows and spreads is critical to surviving cancer. The program is developing more sophisticated imaging tools including molecular probes. These include microbubbles, nano droplets and other agents that can detect new blood vessels or cancer-related changes in body temperature.
Ontario Preclinical Imaging Consortium
Lead Institution: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Lead Researcher: Dr. Stuart Foster
Number of Researchers Affected: 24
Provincial Funding: $7,381,985
Funding Program: Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence Program
Scientists, drug companies, and clinical researchers are struggling to better understand how changes in the genes make people more or less susceptible to disease. The Ontario Preclinical Imaging Consortium (OPIC) at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre ties together the research activities of a large and successful group of imaging researchers from across Ontario. All are concentrating on developing non-invasive imaging tools to quantify development and disease in small animal models of human disorders (e.g., cancer, arthritis, cardiovascular disease). The OPIC’s vision is a pre-clinical pipeline — from basic investigations of genes to assessing experimental treatments. It will push candidate treatments and therapies to the next level of human clinical trials to benefit patients everywhere.
Private Sector Partners: Advion, ANRAD, Bayer, Bioscan, Biotage, Elan Pharmaceuticals,
Gamma Medica-IdeasGE Healthcare, Genentech, MDS Nordion, Merck Frosst, Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Multi-Magnetics, Pfizer, Philips Healthcare, Cuddy Farms Corporation, Trudell Medical
Health Services Research
Lead Institution: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Lead Researcher: Dr. Craig Earle
Provincial Funding: $679,804
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
The Health Services Research Program, conducted in partnership with Cancer Care Ontario, is using evidence-based methods to evaluate the benefits, risks and costs of new diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. It is also examining the barriers to dissemination of new health services and products.
Partners: Cancer Care Ontario
University Health Network
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Selective Therapies Platform
Lead Institution: University Health Network
Lead Researcher: Dr. Robert Rottapel
Provincial Funding: $1,263,093.00
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
Genetic studies have shown that tumours of the same pathological class usually contain significantly different mutations. Therefore each patient could need a different treatment depending on the specific abnormalities of their tumour. This collaboration between OICR and the Terry Fox Research Institute is focusing on the development of cancer therapies that target cancer cells without harming healthy ones. The program is identifying new compounds and co-developing novel diagnostic tests to identify the best set of agents to treat each cancer patient.
Integrated Molecular Pathology of Targeted Cancer Therapy in Lung Cancer
Lead Institution: University Health Network
Lead Researcher: Dr. Ming Sound Tsao
Number of Researchers Affected: 4
Provincial Funding: $4,675,545
Funding Program: Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence Program
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Ontario. The University Health Network proposes to establish the Integrated Molecular Pathology, Pharmacodynamic, Pharmacogenomic and Proteomics in Lung Cancer (IMP4-Lung Cancer) program in collaboration with several key industrial partners in Ontario and abroad. Instead of the more commonly used cancer “cell line” models, the UHN team will place patient-derived tumour xenograft (from one species to another) models in immunodeficient mice. This will make it possible to closely and directly establish and maintain the clinical disease state. The UHN will build on its long-term relationship with IBM to develop an information-based medicine platform. The research promises advances that will achieve true “personalized medicine”, leading to improved quality and reduced cost of lung cancer diagnosis and more effective treatment. The project will bring significant economic benefits to Ontario through reduced health care costs. It will further strengthen the province’s internationally recognized leadership position in the research and development of personalized- and target-based cancer therapy. The proposed program will also provide a training environment for youth and scientists to train for positions in industry and academia.
Private Sector Partners: Eli Lilly Canada, Hoffman-La Roche, IBM, Med BioGene, Ventana Medical Systems
Cancer Stem Cell Platform
Lead Institution: University Health Network
Lead Researcher: Dr. John Dick
Provincial Funding: $1,570,776
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
There is evidence for several cancer types that a rare subset of cells, called cancer stem cells, are responsible for growth and spread of most malignant tumours. The known properties of cancer stem cells make them resistant to most current forms of chemo- and radio-therapies providing an explanation of the high rate of relapse for many types of cancer. Therapies targeting and killing these critical cells are likely to prove much more effective in preventing cancer relapse.
University of Toronto
High-throughput Core Synthetic Antibody Facility
Lead Institution: University of Toronto
Lead Researcher: Dr. Sachdev Sidhu
Provincial Funding: $1,283,633
Funding Program: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Equipment Grants
Dr. Sachdev Sidhu is an OICR Investigator at the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, University of Toronto. His lab has a high-throughput core Synthetic Antibody Facility available to many OICR Programs.
Nanomaterial-Enabled Products for the Ontario Manufacturing Sector
Lead Institution: University of Toronto
Lead Researcher: Dr. Uwe Erb
Number of Researchers Affected: 9
Provincial Funding: $7,351,517
Funding Program: Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence Program
Nanotechnology (or molecular manufacturing) is a branch of engineering. It deals with the design and manufacture of extremely small electronic circuits and mechanical devices built at the molecular level of matter. This research program will support the formation of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Nanomaterials in Manufacturing Innovation. The proposed research is Canada’s first targeted program in the area of applied nanomaterials (a leading nanotechnology subfield) to create new high-tech products for Ontario’s manufacturing industries. It will produce innovative products unavailable anywhere else in the world. The program is a collaborative effort involving 11 of Ontario’s most successful university researchers in applied nanomaterials from the University of Toronto and McMaster University, with nine participating companies providing cash and in-kind support. The Centre will create a unique interface between the research community and Ontario’s manufacturing industries and investment community.
Private Sector Partners: Integran Technologies, Morph Technologies, Hitachi High-Technologies Canada, Rohm & Haas, DVS Sciences, Northwest Mettech, Patheon, Nuvo Research, Celestica Canada
Therapeutic Biomaterials for Regenerative Medicine
Lead Institution: University of Toronto
Lead Researcher: Dr. Michael Sefton
Number of Researchers Affected: 8
Provincial Funding: $6,428,432
Funding Program: Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence Program
Imagine a world where transplant patients do not wait for a donor and where a single injection repairs hearts and knees. This University of Toronto project is intended to bring regenerative medicine closer to the clinic and to lead this transformation in medicine. Novel biomaterials, “therapeutic polymers” (Theramers™), unique to Rimon Therapeutics and Ontario can be used to repair and regenerate diseased tissues without using cells, drugs or soluble factors (e.g., repairing non-healing chronic ulcers). These materials potentially have a shorter time to market than devices with cells or drugs. If realized, this would provide Ontario with a significant competitive advantage in realizing the economic benefits of this revolution in medicine. There is a market opportunity of potentially $3 to 5 billion in product sales (with more than $1 billion in revenue to Rimon/Ontario). The first products from the research are expected to generate revenue in 2012.
Private Sector Partners: Rimon Therapeutics
Project ÆGIS – Integrating Accessibility into Emerging ICT
Lead Institution: University of Toronto
Lead Researcher: Dr. Jutta Treviranus
Number of Researchers Affected: 22
Provincial Funding: $2,482,260
Funding Program: Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence Program
The Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 demonstrates Ontario’s strong commitment to equal access. Innovative research and development of inclusive ICT is needed to help meet that commitment. Indeed, there is a growing worldwide demand for ICT products and services that are accessible to people with disabilities, especially given rapidly aging populations. The internationally recognized Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC) at the University of Toronto is an essential participant in a large international research network, ÆGIS. The Centre and its partners will undertake research to support an ÆGIS project to develop an Open Accessibility Framework. The framework is aimed at making desktop and mobile devices and internet applications accessible to people with a range of disabilities. The ATRC and its Ontario partners will play a critical role in establishing, developing and user-testing the framework. An Open Accessibility Everywhere Group will live beyond the project lifetime, bringing together end users and developers to continue ICT accessibility initiatives.
Private Sector Partners: Sun Microsystems, Research in Motion, AOL Canada, SingularLogic, Blue Point IT Solutions, CONNcept Swiss, Femptioprocent Data
Pre-competitive Development of Chemical Probes for Epigenetic Targets
Lead Institution: University of Toronto
Lead Researcher: Dr. Cheryl Arrowsmith
Number of Researchers Affected: 6
Provincial Funding: $4,654,237
Funding Program: Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence Program
A “chemical probe” decodes a protein’s role in a cell’s biology. It is used to assess whether the cell protein is a diagnostics or drug treatment target. Highly effective chemical probes are not widely available. The reason is that industry increasingly depends on academia to identify and validate cell protein targets while academia depends on industry for the chemical probes it needs to do this work. The University of Toronto’s Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) will partner with GlaxoSmithKline in a public-private partnership to solve this paradox. Industry medicinal chemistry expertise will be applied to an important problem in academia (a major paradigm shift). The focus will be the pre-competitive development of chemical probes to study the role of proteins involved in epigenetic (changing gene function without changing DNA) signalling. Epigenetic research is central to cancer and other diseases, and to stem cell biology. The project’s output (15 chemical probes and training highly qualified cross-disciplinary personnel) will put Ontario researchers and companies in an excellent position to discover drugs and develop diagnostics programs.
Private Sector Partners: GlaxoSmithKline
See also:
- News Release: Ontario Investing In Leading-Edge Research
- Backgrounder: Building An Innovation Economy For The 21st Century
