AVIVO

Enhancing Blood Transfusion And Organ Transplant Practices

Enzyme-based technology changing the medical world, one blood type at a time

BY SEAN TARRY

Whenit comes to breakthroughs and innovations that present the potential to completely transform the way healthcare professionals work and administer their services, there are few companies that can boast more significantly than Avivo Biomedical. The B.C.-based preclinical stage company is currently revolutionizing blood transfusion and organ transplant practices through the development of its uniquely innovative technology that enables the conversion of blood types, creating universal donors. According to John Coleman, the company’s President and CEO, it’s technology that is not only set to transform healthcare, but is set to transform lives as well.

“Blood transfusions and organ transplants are often lifesaving procedures,” he said. “And anyone who receives this type of care have their lives transformed as well, especially for people who are on chronic dialysis for kidney failure. Many people essentially end up getting their lives back. We believe that by making sure that there are more O [blood type] organs available increases their usability given the fact they are universal type organs. Currently, there are an inordinate amount of organs that are not utilized to their full potential because they are the wrong blood type for transplant. In fact, because of this, many of them aren’t even harvested. Our technology alleviates this issue and enables the transplant of more life-saving and transforming organs.”

Advanced research

Avivo’s technology, which can convert whole human blood and organs from Type A to Type O, represents a massive breakthrough and the emergence of a number of different opportunities when considering the ways in which it can help the purveyors of healthcare all over the world. And, as Coleman explains, it’s technology that was borne from the years of research that’s come before it. It had been observed by Dr. Peter Rahfeld, Professor Stephen G. Withers and Professor Jayachandran Kizzhakedathu of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British

Columbiathat Type A patients who had sepsis would display what’s called acquired B syndrome, which simply means that their blood type seemed to somehow be changing as a result of the sepsis.

“It led many to believe that if this was the case, then there must be some enzymes in the human microbiome that are leaking into the gut and causing this transformation,” he says. “So, researchers went looking for the enzymes, and through a glycomic and metagenomic approach, they were able to identify an enzyme pair that’s able to selectively cleave the terminal sugar off of the A antigen and convert it into an H antigen which represents the O type of blood.”

Alleviating incompatible transplantation

As Coleman points out, a substantial proportion of organs are not utilized because there is a mismatch concerning the blood types between organ and recipient. It represents another bottleneck in the process that he suggests is eliminated through the development and leveraging of Avivo Biomedical’s technology and platform.

“Our technology addresses the issues related to incompatible transplantation, transplants across the blood barrier, enabling and facilitating the transplant of deceased donor organs,” he says. “Currently, these types of transplants are really only performed using living donor organs in which patients are pretreated for several weeks to desensitize them in order to get them ready for the transplant. With our technology, we’re essentially converting and desensitizing the organ to allow it to go into the patient, signifying a real step change in how organ transplants occur going forward.”

Filling a blood shortage

It’s remarkable work that the company has done to this point, building off of years of scientific research and discovery, to stand on the medical precipice of progress when it comes to the advancement and enhancement of organ donation procedures. Its impact seems just as significant when considering the ways in which it can help change the availability of blood for transfusions.

“We see pieces of news every day related to shortages of blood everywhere,” Coleman says. “It’s a chronic problem. And although we’re not able to create more blood with our technology, we’re able to convert A type blood—the second most abundant blood type—to O type blood, which is the blood type that is most chronically in short supply in relation to the number of people in need of it.”

Seeking investment

Coleman explains that the company is currently undertaking a series A financing, going out to the market actively looking for investments into the technology. He says that they are generating a considerable amount of interest from a number of different parties. In fact, John Barclay, Avivo Biomedical’s CoFounder and Vice-President of Business Development, suggests that interest is coming from a range of different groups, highlighting the significance and importance of the work that the company has been to this point.

“Our technology’s being greeted with enthusiasm by the transplant community, as well as surgeons and physicians of a number of different stripes,” he says. “They’re obviously really interested in the ways our technology can help support and improve what they do. There are also a number of potential corporate partners who are excited by what we’re doing, in addition to patient advocacy groups, like the National Kidney Foundation in the U.S., who are also keenly interested in the potential our technology promises.”

The power of technology

In order to arrive at discoveries and medical breakthroughs of this magnitude, Coleman says that, in addition to incredible human brainpower, technology and its evolution is critical. He says that the ways in which technological advancement has helped to support the company’s tremendous research, trial and study is incalculable. And, he suggests that the capabilities presented by technology are showing up even faster as we move further into the future.

“Going back to the work that researchers had done around the metagenomic analysis of the microbiome, there are millions, if not billions, of different bacteria in the gut microflora,” he says. “They were able to use these incredibly sophisticated genomic technologies in order to tease that apart and identify the specific bacteria that are producing these enzymes. And then, once they were identified, they were able to get the DNA from those enzymes, get them into a production system and transposed into E. coli. These are technologies and resulting abilities that a decade ago would have been unthinkable. But today it’s almost becoming routine. The genesis of our company is really based on these technologies and those who have come before, pushing them forward.”

The revolution is coming

Given the fact that the company is still at the preclinical stage of development of its technology, there is still some work to do in order for Avivo Biomedical to realize the full potential of its breakthrough and the meaningful ways in which it can help to transform blood transfusion and organ transplant procedures. However, as Coleman points out, it seems to be on the verge, with plans to be in human clinical trials soon, followed of course by the technology’s resulting revolution.

“Within the next three years, we should be in the position in which we’ve completed in human clinical trial organ transplants. We’re working diligently right now to raise the capital that will allow us to manufacture the enzymes needed to complete our preclinical requirements to enter the clinic. So, we’re really approaching the proof-of-concept phase of development when it comes to organ transplants. And, on the blood side, we continue to work with our academic founders to continue moving this project along in order to prepare it for future studies and use. We’re all extremely excited to be in this position, and are really looking forward to experiencing the ways in which our work helps to positively change the way organ transplants and blood transfusions are administered going forward, resulting in tremendous outcomes for patients and their healthcare practitioners all over the world.”

In Prince Edward Island, researchers are using machine learning and advanced sensor technologies to improve crop productivity and reduce agricultural waste—all with the goal of helping farmers and fighting climate change

BY ROBERT PRICE

Asthe cost of fertilizer skyrockets and warnings of drought and famine continue to sound, the agricultural industry looks for new ways to squeeze greater productivity from fewer inputs, all while minimizing agriculture’s drag on the environment.

It seems like an impossible task, but farmers and agricultural engineers are finding new uses for off-theshelf technologies and deploying custom technologies and machine learning to optimize the farmer’s shrinking resources, reduce waste and chemical pollution caused through farming, and maximize crop yields in creative ways.

One of the people connecting technology to agriculture is Dr. Farooque, an Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Climate Change and Adaptation at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Raised on a farm in Pakistan, Farooque watched his father farm three crops a year of beet, sugarcane, rice, soybean, and the occasional quick corn. It was his experience on the farm that sparked an interest in technological interventions into agriculture.

He completed an MSc and PhD at Dalhousie before joining UPEI in 2015. His graduate research focused on blueberries. When he settled in P.E.I., he switched to studying potatoes.

“That was a natural fit,” he says.

Today, the agricultural engineer receives significant funding from provincial and federal sources to develop, test, and evaluate technologies to help farmers deal with variability in crop characteristics, soil, yield, weather, geography, topography, and more.

It’s work that he says helps farmers “to optimize operations, to be efficient, and to develop the new operations and systems which save the inputs and resources and, at the same time, protect the environment.”

All the technology

Farooque accomplishes this work by networking a range of technologies to show farmers what’s happening under the farm’s surface. Many of these technologies, like drones, are off-the-shelf tech.

Farooque uses drones to take images that capture the crop growth parameters. These images show erosion paths and potential paths that snow meltoff might take in the spring. After the spring, researchers can collect soil samples from those areas and see how much of the topsoil was lost. That information feeds into the prediction models to help farmers know where and how to seed fields. The drones also image the crops to investigate its overall health. Is the crop green enough, is it yellow, is it water stressed?

Ultrasonic sensors deliver researchers another important data point. When mounted on a harvester boom or on a sprayer boom, ultrasonic sensors allow researchers to map the height of plants. As the height of the plant varies, so does the root zone. If the fruit is on the top 10 cm of the plant, as it is with blueberries, farmers will need to adjust the harvester to avoid causing damage to the plant. These sensors automate a precision operation, complementing various others sensors and technologies that measure soil quality. Soil moisture sensors, for example, record the soil moisture continuously. If a farm goes seven days without rain, what is the moisture level? How will the moisture levels impact plant growth? Together, these sensors deliver granular detail that allow farmers to fine-tune adjustments to their operations.

Yet another complementary technology is the yield monitor. Yield monitors measure the yield of a crop and geo-reference it to produce a map showing the high-performing areas of the acreage. The farmers and researchers can then focus on the low-yield areas and find ways to improve the yield, and with greater precision than simply eyeballing a field and listening to intuition—which is important to newer farmers who may not have developed an eye and don’t trust their intuitions.

Farooque uses drones to take images |that capture the crop growth parameters. The drones also image the crops to investigate its overall health. Is the crop green enough, is it yellow, is it water stressed?

Machine vision, machine learning

Farooque and his team are developing prototype technologies to help farmers understand their land better. One of these prototypes is a machine vision product. This machine surveys crops and uses machine learning to characterize individual plants to determine whether it is weed, a diseased plant, or a healthy plant. When the machine identifies a weed, a message is sent to the solenoid valves that then open and spray herbicide on the targeted weed. If the machine identifies fungus, the sprayer shoots a fungicide on the offending mushroom.

The machine integrates with the deep learning and artificial intelligence programs Farooque has been developing. Each decision the machine makes adds to the machine’s experience.

“The systems not only measure, but they also act on decisions in the real time,” says Farooque.

Off-the-shelf technology needs tweaking for Canadian topographies, and that’s what Farooque does. Conductivitybased sensors scan fields to measure the depth and strength of a soil. These work fine in Europe. But in P.E.I., where farmers deal with a different climate and topographies—P.E.I. potato farms are not flat—the sensors do not work easily, and so they are underused.

Over the past several years, Farooque has tested conductivity in the slopes in P.E.I., characterized and quantified the measurements, and evaluated the environmental benefit and crop productivity. Now there is significant acreage throughout the province that’s currently mapped with that technology.

“The technology was already commercially available, it just needed a bit of a tweak to make it work for us,” says Farooque.

Reducing waste

Combined, these technologies optimize resources, especially when it comes to fertilizers. Take the resource optimization available through variable rate seeding as an example. P.E.I. has an uneven surface, with hilltops and depressions that cause topsoil erosion. By gathering so much detail about individual portions of the acreage, farmers can seed differently. Rather than seeding uniformly across the field, they can space out seeds in areas where topsoil is thin and allow a smaller number of plants to thrive and produce more. They can ration fertilizer according to soil and crop needs, rather than blanketing the field with fertilizer, which in some areas of the field might be too much and in other areas too little. This informed change to seeding saves on seeds and it also reduces emissions. If you put less nitrogen into the field because you’ve planted fewer seeds, there will be fewer emissions, less phosphorus runoff in the water, and fewer fungicides and pesticides sprayed into the air.

“Yes, it’s going to cost you more labour, but at the end of the day, if it is profitable, and covers that expense for itself, and it’s good for your crop, it’s where you want to go,” says Farooque.

“Seeing is believing”

The adaptability of many of these technologies remains an issue. Like the adoption of any new technology, it will take time before adoption is widespread, unless or until academics like Farooque evaluate the technology and show the operational and financial benefits of investing in advancements.

And that’s one of the personal strengths people with farming backgrounds like Farooque brings to the ag-tech sector. Farmers are practical, by necessity.

“Farmers like to see the numbers,” says Farooque. “Seeing is believing. Once you can prove to them that this is going to be profitable for them, then they will jump on it.”

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Philadelphia, PA, USA | March 18-22, 2023