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emerging in vivo electrophysiology methods in neuroscience research
Page 10 august/sePtember 2016 volume 20, number 3
R&D News ......................... 1 Appointments .................... 6 Pharma Notes.................... 7 New Products .................. 16 Calendar .......................... 17 App Reviews..................... 18
canada invests in Poultry anti-microbial develoPment
MISSISSAUGA, ON – A Canadian biotechnology company has been awarded a $3.4 million government investment to help develop a new line of anti-microbial feed additives to help control disease outbreaks in poultry flocks
AbCelex, which focuses on developing livestock food additives that help improve animal health and food safety, is developing a line of innovative non-antibiotic, non-hormonal additives that are specifically targeted at Campylobacter and Salmonella, two of the most common food-borne bacteria that infect poultry.
healthier Poultry
The new anti-microbials – called ‘nanobodies’ – will result in healthier poultry and improve food safety. The project will be conducted in collaboration with the International Vaccine Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Toronto and Colorado Quality Research Inc.
Funding for the project comes from the AgriInnovation Program (Research and Development Stream) as part of the Growing Forward 2 agricultural policy framework.
reducing the use of antibiotics
“These innovations will reduce the use of antibiotics and result in safer food, a healthier population and a more productive agricultural economy,” stated Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.
Dr. Saeid Babaei, president and CEO of AbCelex Technologies added his company is appreciative of the funding.
“With this visionary contribution and other strategic investments, AbCelex Technologies is well positioned to advance its platform technology and develop nextgeneration biological products needed for improved human health and a reduction in healthcare costs as a result of food contamination,” he said.
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vaccine develoPed for devastating Pig virus
SASKATOON, SK – In less than a year, University of Saskatchewan (U of S) scientists have developed and tested a prototype vaccine that could protect the North American swine industry from a virus that has killed more than eight million pigs and cost more than $400 million in lost income since 2013.
The Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV) hit the U.S. in 2013 and spread to Canada in 2014. It was first discovered in Europe, and has become increasingly problematic in Asian countries. Occurring only in pigs, PEDV can kill up to 100 per cent of infected piglets. PEDV is a coronavirus, a virus group which
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includes important emerging human diseases such as SARS and MERS.
Using its new containment Level 3 facility, the U of S Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre (VIDO-InterVac) quickly launched a vaccine development project.
“Our new facility, InterVac, provided us with the containment infrastructure to develop a vaccine and demonstrate it protected up to 100 per cent of the piglets,” said Dr. Volker Gerdts, VIDOInterVac’s research director.
The successful vaccine results triggered the interest of several animal health companies, including Huvepharma, which has partnered with VIDOInterVac to develop the technology for commercial production in North America.
With the support of the swine industry, the vaccine is now undergoing field testing in Saskatchewan, as well as in Manitoba where it is being used
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to help protect piglets from a recent PEDV outbreak. “This is a perfect example of why InterVac was constructed – it is one of the only facilities available internationally with the capacity to conduct vaccine development and testing on this scale for emerging infectious diseases,” said VIDO-InterVac director Andrew Potter. “It helps Canada remain prepared to quickly respond to outbreaks like this.”
The PEDV vaccine development project has been supported by a variety of funders including the Government of Saskatchewan (ADF), Sask Pork, and the Canadian Swine Health Network.
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NaNorobots that target caNcerous tumours with precisioN – admiNisteriNg aNti-caNcer drugs redefiNed
MONTRÉAL, QC – Researchers from Polytechnique Montréal, Université de Montréal and McGill University have just achieved a spectacular breakthrough in cancer research by developing new nanorobotic agents capable of navigating through the bloodstream to administer a drug specifically targeting the active cancerous cells of tumours. This scientific breakthrough has just been published in the prestigious journal Nature Nanotechnology in an article titled “Magneto-aerotactic bacteria deliver drug-containing nanoliposomes to tumour hypoxic regions.” The article notes the results of the research done on mice, which were successfully administered nanorobotic agents into colorectal tumours. This way of injecting medication ensures the optimal targeting of a tumour and avoids jeopardizing the integrity of organs and surrounding healthy tissues. As a result, the drug dosage that is highly toxic for the human organism could be significantly reduced.
“These legions of nanorobotic agents were actually composed of more than 100 million flagellated bacteria – and therefore self-propelled – and loaded with drugs that moved by taking the most direct path between the drug’s injection point and the area of the body to cure,” explains professor Sylvain Martel, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Medical Nanorobotics and director of the Polytechnique Montréal Nanorobotics Laboratory, who heads the research team’s work. “The drug’s propelling force was enough to travel efficiently and enter deep inside the tumours.”
When they enter a tumour, the nanorobotic agents can detect in a wholly autonomous fashion the oxygen-depleted tumour areas, known as hypoxic zones, and deliver the drug to them. This hypoxic zone is created by the substantial consumption of oxygen by rapidly proliferative tumour cells. Hypoxic zones are known to be resistant to most therapies, including radiotherapy.
But gaining access to tumours by taking paths as minute as a red blood cell and crossing complex physiological micro-environments does not come without challenges. So Professor Martel and his team used nanotechnology to do it.
bacteria With comPass
To move around, bacteria used by Professor Martel’s team rely on two natural systems. A kind of compass created by the synthesis of a chain of magnetic nanoparticles allows them to move in the direction of a magnetic field, while a sensor measuring oxygen concentration enables them to reach and remain in the tumour’s active regions. By harnessing these two transportation systems and by exposing the bacteria to a computer-controlled magnetic field, researchers showed that these bacteria could perfectly replicate artificial nanorobots of the future designed for this kind of task.
“This innovative use of nanotransporters will have an impact not only on creating more advanced engineering concepts and original intervention methods, but it also throws the door wide open to the synthesis of new vehicles for therapeutic, imaging and diagnostic agents,” professor Martel adds. “Chemotherapy, which is so toxic for the entire human body, could make use of these natural nanorobots to move drugs directly to the targeted area, eliminating the harmful side effects while also boosting its therapeutic effectiveness.”
The work by professor Martel was supported by the Québec consortium for drug discovery (CQDM), the Canada Research Chairs, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Research Chair in Nanorobotics of Polytechnique Montréal, Mitacs, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Montréal’s Jewish General Hospital, the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC), and the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre also took part in this research work.
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neWs mcmaster researchers overcome obstacle holding back a technological revolution
HAMILTON, ON – Imagine an electronic newspaper that you could roll up and spill your coffee on, even as it updates itself before your eyes.
It’s an example of the technological revolution that has been waiting to happen, except for one major problem that, until now, scientists have not been able to resolve. Researchers at McMaster University have cleared that obstacle by developing a new way to purify carbon nanotubes – the smaller, nimbler semiconductors that are expected to replace silicon within computer chips and a wide array of electronics.
“Once we have a reliable source of pure nanotubes that are not very expensive, a lot can happen very quickly,” says Alex Adronov, a professor of Chemistry at McMaster whose research team has developed a new and potentially cost-efficient way to purify carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes – hair-like structures that are one billionth of a metre in diameter but thousands of times longer – are tiny, flexible conductive nano-scale materials, expected to revolutionize computers and electronics by replacing much larger siliconbased chips.
A major problem standing in the way of the new technology, however, has been untangling metallic and semiconducting carbon nanotubes, since both are created simultaneously in the process of producing the microscopic structures, which typically involves heating carbon-based gases to a point where mixed clusters of nanotubes form spontaneously as black soot. Only pure semiconducting or metallic carbon nanotubes are effective in device applications, but efficiently isolating them has proven to be a challenging problem to overcome. Even when the nanotube soot is ground down, semiconducting and metallic nanotubes are knotted together within each grain of powder. Both components are valuable, but only when separated and researchers around the world have spent years trying to find effective and efficient ways to isolate carbon nanotubes and unleash their value.
While previous researchers had created polymers that could allow semiconducting carbon nanotubes to be dissolved and washed away, leaving metallic nanotubes behind, there was no such process for doing the opposite: dispersing the metallic nanotubes and leaving behind the semiconducting structures.
Now, Adronov’s research group has managed to reverse the electronic characteristics of a polymer known to disperse semiconducting nanotubes – while leaving the rest of the polymer’s structure intact. By so doing, they have reversed the process, leaving the semiconducting nanotubes behind while making it possible to disperse the metallic nanotubes.
The researchers worked closely with experts and equipment from McMaster’s Faculty of Engineering and the Canada Centre for Electron Microscopy, located on the university’s campus.
“There aren’t many places in the world where you can do this type of interdisciplinary work,” Adronov says.
The next step, he explains, is for his team or other researchers to exploit the discovery by finding a way to develop even more efficient polymers
Artistic rendition of a metallic carbon nanotube being pulled into solution, in analogy to the work described by the Adronov group. (photo by Alex Adronov)
L-R- BEAM Directors, Drs. John Brennan, Christopher Oelkrug & Jonathan Bramson Photo by Ron Scheffler for McMaster University. and scale up the process for commercial production.
The research is described in the cover story of Chemistry – A European Journal.
feddev oNtario iNvests iN beam
HAMILTON, ON – The federal government is investing almost $12-million to develop McMaster’s new Biomedical Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing centre. tions and private sector partners. The project is expected to create at least 74 full-time jobs, produce 35 new industrial collaborations and bring together several partners, including small businesses and multi-national enterprises, university-based researchers, and the German-based Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI.
The Centre will also help commercialize new products, accelerate the growth of small businesses by providing them with access to facilities, expertise and global value chains. It could also attract other businesses and talent to the region, diversifying Hamilton’s economy.
The 20,000 square foot state-ofthe-art facility is slated to open late next year.Navdeep Bains, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development made the announcement at the site of the new Centre, joined by McMaster leaders and other officials.
The state-state-of-the-art Fraunhofer Project Centre for Biomedical Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing (BEAM) research facility, located at McMaster Innovation Park, will be home to several of McMaster’s leading researchers working on the development of novel technologies for eye care, point-of-care medical devices and cancer treatments.
The overall value of McMaster’s BEAM project is more than $33-million with significant investments from the University, Fraunhofer IZI, the Government of Ontario and the City of Hamilton, as well as other organiza-
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study examiNiNg tailored aNti-platelet heart medicatioN after coroNary steNt laNds graNt
TORONTO, ON – Researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, with expertise running large clinical trials, and at Mayo Clinic, are leading the Tailored Antiplatelet Therapy to Lessen Outcomes after Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (TAILOR-PCI) study.
The study has received $7 million in additional funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“The significance and potential farreaching impact of a clinical trial of this scope will push the boundaries about the benefits that personalized medicine for patients who undergo a coronary stent procedure can provide,” says Dr. Barry Rubin, medical director, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, University Health Network (UHN). “This is the largest trial to evaluate a personalized molecular medicine approach to patients with heart disease that has even been carried out.”
When it began in 2013, TAILOR-PCI included study teams at 15 hospitals from Canada, the U.S, and South Korea, with a goal of enrolling 5,270 patients. Now, some 29 medical centres are participating, with more expected. Launched by Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine and the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases at Mayo Clinic, in collaboration with the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, the
the University of Alberta dissected thousands of the plant’s stem under a microscope in order to identify which genes in the plant’s make up were responsible for the growth of the stem, and which weren’t.
Due to the length of the Canadian prairie’s growing season, where flax is grown, farmers typically burn the stems, known as flax straw, as opposed to harvesting the material. In many European countries, flax straw is used as an additive in paper, plastics and other advanced materials such as those used in the production of automobiles.
Currently, Canadian flax is used only for the value of its seeds, which can be eaten or broken down into flaxseed oil. Flaxseed oil is used in the manufacturing of paints, linoleum, and as a key element in the manufacturing of packaging materials and plastics.
According to the Flax Council of Canada, Canada is one of the largest flax producers in the world with the nation’s prairie provinces cultivating 816,000 tonnes of the plant in 2014/15 on 1.6 million acres of land.
Deyholos’ research was recently published in the journal Frontiers of Plant Science. Applied Health Research Centre at the University of Toronto, and Spartan Bioscience, the study involves the randomized comparison of Plavix (clopidogrel bisulfate) and Brilinta (ticagrelor), based on genetic testing that identifies resistance to ticagrelor in patients undergoing coronary balloon angioplasty.
“This is a multinational collaboration designed to inform clinical practice, in its truest sense,” says Dr. Michael Farkouh, cardiologist, Chair, Peter Munk Centre of Excellence in Multinational Clinical Trials and one of two principal investigators of TAILOR-PCl. The other principal investigator is Dr. Naveen Pereira, cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic. “We are delighted to partner with the Mayo Clinic in this effort,” says Dr. Farkouh.
The study is examining whether prescribing heart medication based on a patient’s CYP2C19 genotype will help prevent heart attack, stroke, unstable angina, and cardiovascular death in patients who undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). A PCI,
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commonly known as an angioplasty, is a non-surgical procedure that opens up narrowed or blocked blood vessels in the heart. Anti-platelet medication has been shown to reduce the risk of heart attack, unstable angina, stroke and cardiovascular death after stent placement by reducing the possibility of blood clots around the site of the surgical incision. The current standard of care after angioplasty is to prescribe clopidogrel for one year.
“Today, we do this regardless of a person’s individual genotype, even though we have known for several years that variation in the CYP2C19 gene may diminish the benefit from the drug,” says Dr. Pereira. “What we don’t know — and why there is such confusion in the cardiovascular community — is whether these genetic differences affect long-term clinical outcomes.”
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ubc research aims to helP canadian flax farmers
UBC researcher Michael Deyholos stands in front of the flax plants he studies. Photo: UBC
OKANAGAN, BC – A University of British Columbia professor’s flax research could one day help Canadian farmers grow a car fender. In a recent study, UBC researcher Michael Deyholos identified the genes responsible for the bane of many Canadian flax farmers’ existence; the fibres in the plant’s stem.
“These findings have allowed us to zero in the genetic profile of the toughest part of this plant and may one day help us engineer some of that toughness out,” says Deyholos, a biology professor at UBC’s Okanagan campus. “With further research, we might one day be able to help farmers make money off a waste material that wreaks havoc on farm equipment and costs hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to deal with.”
As part of his research, Deyholos and his former graduate student at
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ubc takes steps toward examiNiNg the dNa of the world’s wiNe regioNs
VANCOUVER, BC – University of British Columbia researchers are one step closer to identifying the biological personalities of the world’s greatest wines.
In a recent study Dan Durall and Mansak (Ben) Tantikachornkiat developed a technique that combines a process to identify the full spectrum of DNA in yeast and bacteria samples with a technique that distinguishes between live and dead micro-organisms.
“Since only live micro-organisms are relevant in the various stages of fermentation as they relate to the senses, this study provides some of the important tools that will be necessary to determine why different types of wine taste and smell as they do,” says Durall, an associate professor of biology at UBC’s Okanagan campus. “While more research needs to be conducted, these findings could also lead to the identification and elimination of micro-organisms that are responsible for spoilage.”
In undertaking the study, the pair used a number of different kinds of yeast and bacteria specimens, including those typically found in wine fermentations.
Key in the development of the new scientific technique was the use of a light-sensitive dye, propidium monoazide, which binds to dead DNA and prevents it from being detected. This allows scientists to identify and focus on the more relevant aspects of a test sample.
“This technique allows us to quickly and accurately monitor in one experiment what previously could have taken multiple experiments and months of trial and error,” says Tantikachornkiat. “This will inevitably make research in this area faster, cheaper and more efficient.
Durall and Tantikachornkiat’s research was recently published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology.
