June 23, 2009

ONTARIO RESEARCH FUND

RESEARCH EXCELLENCE PROGRAM

Through the Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence program Round Three the McGuinty government is investing $38,319,739 to support 67 world-class researchers at three research institutions in Toronto.

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

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

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

Investing in research and innovation has been a cornerstone of Ontario’s economic planning since 2003 and is captured in Ontario’s Innovation Agenda. The agenda is a $3.2 billion plan to make Ontario one of the best places in the world to turn world-class research into world-class jobs.