Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Convocation 2024

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

St. Michael's College

Subheadline

At age 21, Theodora Udounwa is graduating with a Doctor of Pharmacy degree

Theodora Udounwa was 15 years old when she left her family in Nigeria and traveled to Canada to begin a bachelor of science at the University of Toronto.

Born and raised in Abuja, Udounwa graduated from high school at an unusually young age due to a combination of an early start to kindergarten and skipping a grade due to outstanding academic performance.

It was a trend that would continue at ��˾��ֱ��. After only two years as an undergraduate, specializing in pharmacology and biomedical toxicology with a minor in physiology, Udounwa began her doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) program at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.

“Pharmacy was always the plan. I enjoyed pharmacology greatly, but I was also interested in patient care, and I saw pharmacy as a bridge between applying those theoretical principles to patient care,” says Udounwa, who graduated with her PharmD last week at only 21 years old. “There are also a lot of career options in addition to patient care, like academic and research, that I thought would be a good fit for me.”

Like many youths in Nigeria, Udouwna attended boarding school during middle school and high school – an experience that stood her in good stead when she moved into St. Michael’s College residence, where she was younger than her peers. The proximity to her older sister – who attended university in nearby Hamilton – and an aunt in Ajax meant she was able to spend holidays with family members in the area.

Udouwna also took it upon herself to get involved with student groups such as the Nigerian Students’ Association, where she was able to meet students from her home country and share her culture.

Starting the PharmD program during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Udounwa grasped the opportunity to contribute to the public health response and strengthen her training, delivering more than 1,600 COVID-19 vaccinations as well as numerous flu shots at Discovery Pharmacy pop-up clinics.

She also completed rotations at Shoppers Drug Mart, the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto General Hospital, St. Michael’s Hospital (Unity Health Toronto), the outpatient pharmacy at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Canadian Armed Forces.

All along, she stayed involved with student groups, holding several positions with the Black Pharmacy Students’ Association and the ��˾��ֱ�� chapter of the Canadian Association of Pharmacy Students and Interns (CAPSI).

She says one of the highlights of her time at ��˾��ֱ�� was attending CAPSI’s 2023 professional development week in Saskatoon, where she supported 16 ��˾��ֱ�� delegates and took advantage of several educational and networking opportunities. “It was great to connect with students from other pharmacy schools, and I appreciated the opportunity to expand my professional skills and clinical knowledge,” she says. “We also had the chance to visit an Indigenous heritage site, Wanuskewin, and learn about Indigenous history and culture, which was very enriching.”

Udounwa’s involvement in extracurricular activities earned her numerous accolades including a ��˾��ֱ�� Student Leadership Award and a Canadian Pharmacists’ Association Centennial Leadership Award. “Devoting time to volunteering and participating in student groups has enabled me to facilitate macro-level changes that directly impact the pharmacy student community. It has also fostered my personal and professional growth through forming connections with and learning from students and practice leaders," Udounwa said upon receiving her Student Leadership Award earlier this year.

Looking ahead, Udounwa says she’s keeping her options open but envisions working directly with patients in some capacity. Her next step: an industry residency at pharma giant Novo Nordisk's medical affairs and strategic operations department.

Having navigated the challenges of moving to a new country for university and experiencing a new culture, Udounwa says she would advise incoming university students to be kind to themselves as they forge their journey.

“This is a pivotal moment in our careers; be patient and give yourself grace as you go through the process and navigate through that uncertainty to the next great opportunity.”

��˾��ֱ�� researchers' approach to producing neural cells could yield new treatments for Parkinson’s

rahul.kalvapalle — Mon, 13 May 2024 13:03:19 +0000

��˾��ֱ�� researchers' approach to producing neural cells could yield new treatments for Parkinson’s

rahul.kalvapalle Mon, 05/13/2024 - 09:03

Cutline

PhD Student Andy Yang, left, and Professor Stephane Angers, right, at the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology are advancing a novel approach to developing dopaminergic neurons (supplied images)

Anika Hazra

Topic

Breaking Research

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Graduate Students

Medicine by Design

Parkinson's

Subheadline

An antibody was used to selectively activate a receptor in a molecular signalling pathway to develop dopaminergic neurons

Researchers at the University of Toronto believe they’ve found a way to better control the generation of key neurons depleted in Parkinson’s disease – suggesting a potentially new approach to addressing a disease with no cure and few effective treatments.

In preclinical studies, the researchers used an antibody to selectively activate a receptor in a molecular signalling pathway to develop dopaminergic neurons. These neurons produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter critical to brain health.

While researchers around the world have been working to coax stem cells to differentiate into dopaminergic neurons to replace those lost in patients living with Parkinson’s disease, the efforts have so far been hindered in part by an inability to target specific receptors and areas of the brain.

“We used synthetic antibodies that we had previously developed to target the Wnt signaling pathway,” said principal investigator Stephane Angers, who is director of ��˾��ֱ��’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and a professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

“We can selectively activate this pathway to direct stem cells in the midbrain to develop into neurons by targeting specific receptors in the pathway. This activation method has not been explored before.”

Parkinson’s disease is the second-most common neurological disorder after Alzheimer’s, affecting over 100,000 Canadians. It particularly impacts older men, progressively impairing movement and causing pain as well as sleep and mental health issues.

Most previous research efforts to activate the Wnt signaling pathway relied on a GSK3 enzyme inhibitor. This method involves multiple signaling pathways for stem cell proliferation and differentiation, which can have an unintended effect on the newly produced neurons and activate off-target cells.

“We developed an efficient method for stimulating stem cell differentiation to produce neural cells in the midbrain,” said Andy Yang, first author on the study and a PhD student at the Donnelly Centre. “Moreover, cells activated via the FZD5 receptor closely resemble dopaminergic neurons of natural origin.”

Another promising finding of the study, published recently in the journal Development, is that implanting the artificially-produced neurons in a rodent model with Parkinson’s disease led to improvement of the rodent’s locomotive impairment.

“Our next step would be to continue using rodent or other suitable models to compare the outcomes of activating the FZD5 receptor and inhibiting GSK3,” said Yang. “These experiments will confirm which method is more effective in improving symptoms of Parkinson’s disease ahead of clinical trials.”

The research was supported by ��˾��ֱ��’s Medicine by Design program, an institutional strategic initiative that receives funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

��˾��ֱ��, hospitals launch pilot program to boost commercialization of medical innovations

rahul.kalvapalle — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 14:19:19 +0000

��˾��ֱ��, hospitals launch pilot program to boost commercialization of medical innovations

rahul.kalvapalle Wed, 04/24/2024 - 10:19

Cutline

(photo by Daria Perevezentsev)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Acceleration Consortium

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Department of Computer Science

Department of Chemistry

Entrepreneurship

Faculty of Art & Science

Hospital for Sick Children

University Health Network

The University of Toronto is collaborating with the University Health Network, the Hospital for Sick Children and Sunnybrook Research Institute on a new program that aims to leverage the expertise of entrepreneurs and business leaders to advance commercialization of emerging medical technologies and regenerative medicine research.

Funded by the Government of Ontario, the Entrepreneur-In-Residence program will support projects that display high potential for clinical impact and spin-off company formation, spanning areas ranging from regenerative therapies and medical devices to AI-powered clinical tools and apps for patient care.

The one-year pilot program is being launched with the help of a $300,000 grant from Intellectual Property Ontario (IPON), a provincial agency that was established in 2022 to provide IP resources and supports to researchers and businesses.

“The Entrepreneur-in-Residence program will help take medical innovations developed in academic and hospital environments and translate them into the commercial arena, generating economic opportunity for the region and expanding clinical impact globally,” said Leah Cowen, ��˾��ֱ��’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“The University of Toronto is grateful to IPON for its support of this initiative, which stands to strengthen existing networks of knowledge exchange and collaboration between the university and its partner hospitals.”

Jill Dunlop, left,Ontario’s minister of colleges and universities, said post-secondary institutions are critical incubators of innovation and commercialization (photo courtesy of IPON)

The program will see Entrepreneurs-in-Residence – individuals with a track record of launching science-based ventures and shepherding projects from proof-of-concept to incubation, acceleration and seed funding – liaise with ��˾��ֱ��’s Innovations & Partnerships Office and IPON to generate and protect IP. It is designed to add capacity and scope to ��˾��ֱ��’s thriving entrepreneurship and commercialization ecosystem, including existing Entrepreneur-in-Residence initiatives such as those offered by the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Medicine By Design, an institutional strategic initiative (ISI).

“In today’s global knowledge-based economy, Ontario’s post-secondary institutions are critical – not just as centres of learning, but as incubators for innovation and commercialization,” said Jill Dunlop, minister of colleges and universities, in a recent announcement of new IPON-funded initiatives.

“Through the province’s support of IPON, our government is ensuring the social and economic benefits of publicly funded research stay in our province, so that Ontarians and the Ontario economy benefit from these new discoveries and innovations.”

Dunlop also spoke at an April 8 event with Christine Allen, a professor in ��˾��ֱ��’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy who has an extensive track record of translating and commercializing lab discoveries.

Christine Allen, far right, is a professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and the founder and CEO of Intrepid Labs (photo courtesy of IPON)

At the event, Allen highlighted the growth of her startup, Intrepid Labs Inc., which she co-founded with Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a professor in the departments of chemistry and computer science in ��˾��ֱ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science and director of the Acceleration Consortium. The company marries Allen’s prowess in drug formulation and development with Aspuru-Guzik’s expertise in AI and advanced computing in order to accelerate the development of next-generation medicines. In the fall, the company closed a pre-seed round of US$4 million.

“The availability of top-notch talent in AI and life sciences made Toronto a great place to launch our company,” says Allen, who is Intrepid’s CEO, noting all four of the startup’s co-founders are from ��˾��ֱ��.

She added that ��˾��ֱ�� is a powerhouse for entrepreneurship and intellectual property, ranked second in North America for university-based startups, and that companies with founders or co-founders from ��˾��ֱ�� make up a significant percentage of some of the fastest-growing companies in Ontario.

“This is the beauty of being at the University of Toronto and having the MaRS Discovery District across the street and all the hospitals around us. It’s such a rich environment,” she says.

“We can do this in Toronto.”

Allen stressed that a thriving lab-to-market ecosystem is critical to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.

“Students are increasingly seeking out roles in the private sector,” she says. “For them to see other students and faculty members [found startups] helps them realize that it’s possible for them to start companies, too.”

What Now? AI, Episode 3: Innovation for Good

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 20:47:11 +0000

What Now? AI, Episode 3: Innovation for Good Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/18/2024 - 16:47

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

What Now? AI

Faculty of Arts & Science

Computer Science

Faculty of Information

Institute of Biomedical Engineering

��˾��ֱ�� Mississauga

While the news headlines about AI often focus on dangers and risks, the potential for life-saving innovation in fields such as health care is huge.

In the third episode of What Now? AI, co-hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan of the University of Toronto are joined by experts Christine Allen and Andrew Pinto to discuss AI’s potential to advance drug development and dramatically improve primary care.

Listen to episode three on Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, iHeartRadio and Amazon. Watch episode three on YouTube.

Allen, a professor in ��˾��ֱ��’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and an expert in drug formulation and development, co-founded Intrepid Labs Inc. with Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a professor in the departments of chemistry and computer science in ��˾��ֱ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science.

One of the first startups to emerge from the Acceleration Consortium at ��˾��ֱ��, Intrepid Labs is accelerating pharmaceutical drug development through the integration of AI, automation and advanced computing.

“It’s this concept of using AI to explore the unexplored,” Allen says.

“What if that formulation could really transform the properties and performance of your drug is one of those unexplored formulations. That will then take that drug through clinical development smoothly and get it to patients faster, which is really the goal.”

Meanwhile, Pinto, a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and director of the Upstream Lab, Unity Health Toronto, focuses his research on addressing the social determinants of health by running clinical trials of interventions and using AI tools for surveillance of respiratory illness.

“When we started to do this work around AI in primary care, we wanted to be directed by primary care providers and patients,” says Pinto, an associate professor in the department of family and community medicine in ��˾��ֱ��’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Reducing health-care inequities is top of mind for Pinto. His lab focuses on implementing AI to prioritize community engagement and bridge socioeconomic gaps to mitigate biases.

“We’re using these tools to look at all of the patients in a population and then focus our attention on the people who need it most.”

About the hosts:

Beth Coleman is an associate professor at ��˾��ֱ�� Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and the Faculty of Information. She is also a research lead on AI policy and praxis at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. Coleman authored Reality Was Whatever Happened: Octavia Butler AI and Other Possible Worlds using art and generative AI.

Rahul Krishnan is an assistant professor in ��˾��ֱ��’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. He is a Canada CIFAR Chair at the Vector Institute, a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a faculty member at the Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM).

Heart-on-a-chip model used to glean insights into COVID-19-induced heart inflammation

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 19:06:23 +0000

Heart-on-a-chip model used to glean insights into COVID-19-induced heart inflammation

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 04/08/2024 - 15:06

Cutline

Researchers worked in the Toronto High Containment Facility at ��˾��ֱ�� to examine the effects of COVID-19 on heart inflammation (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

Betty Zou

Topic

Breaking Research

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

��˾��ֱ��

University Health Network

Subheadline

Researcher dedicates study to her late grandmother, who died from COVID-19-induced heart failure

Researchers at the University of Toronto and its partner hospitals have created a unique heart-on-a-chip model that is helping untangle the causes of COVID-19-induced heart inflammation and uncover strategies to reduce its impact.

While COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory infection, clinicians and researchers are increasingly aware of the virus’s effects on other organs – including the heart. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between March 2020 and January 2021 had 15 times higher risk for developing myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, compared to patients without COVID-19.

But the biology behind the association between SARS-CoV-2 infection and heart inflammation had remained unclear – in part because there have not been good models with which to study infection-related heart inflammation.

“Conventionally, people grow heart cells in a 2D setting and then expose it to SARS-CoV-2 to see how the virus damages the heart. But that’s not actually what happens in our body,” says Rick Lu, a PhD graduate from ��˾��ֱ��’s Institute for Biomedical Engineering who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at ��˾��ֱ��’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.

Lu is the first author of a new study published in Science Advances that describes a miniature 3D heart-on-a-chip model that more accurately captures the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection and its associated immune response on cardiac dysfunction.

The first-of-its-kind model builds on previous work led by Milica Radisic, Lu’s PhD adviser, a senior scientist at University Health Network and a ��˾��ֱ�� professor of biomedical engineering. The approach uses a lab-made network of blood vessels surrounded by heart tissues grown from stem cells to mimic a real human heart with its tangle of vessels going in and out.

From left to right: Researchers Milica Radisic, Rick Lu and Claudia dos Santos (supplied images)

To examine the effects of COVID-19 on heart inflammation, Lu and his colleagues first had to adapt their model to work in the Toronto High Containment Facility, a specialized lab that allows researchers to study high-risk pathogens like SARS-CoV-2 in a safe and secure way.

“This work would simply not be possible without the Toronto High Containment Facility,” says Radisic, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering.

In the high containment lab, the researchers added live virus and immune cells to the blood vessels and allowed them to flow through their mini hearts-on-a-chip, replicating the immune response that happens after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. They found that the combination of SARS-CoV-2 and immune cells reduced the heart’s ability to contract and pump. To understand why, the researchers turned to mitochondria, the tiny energy storehouses that power the muscle’s beating movements. They showed that SARS-CoV-2 infection led to loss of mitochondria and a release of mitochondrial DNA from the heart cells into the nutrient broth used to grow the organoids.

Working with Claudia dos Santos, a scientist and critical care doctor at Unity Health Toronto, associate professor of medicine and Pitts Research Chair in Acute Care and Emergency Medicine at ��˾��ֱ��’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, the researchers then asked whether the presence of freely circulating mitochondrial DNA is also seen in patients experiencing COVID-19-induced heart complications.

They analyzed blood samples from patients with and without COVID-19 and found nearly two-and-a-half times higher levels of mitochondrial DNA in patients who were COVID-19-positive. Their findings point to mitochondrial DNA levels as a powerful predictor of a person’s risk of experiencing cardiac problems after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The team also showed that a new type of cell-based therapy called exosomes – little cargo vessels that bubble off cells – could reduce inflammation and mitochondria loss, as well as improve heart function, after SARS-CoV-2 infection, highlighting their potential to repair COVID-19-associated heart damage.

By integrating blood vessels and immune cells, Lu hopes that the innovative heart-on-a-chip model can help researchers and clinicians understand and identify treatment strategies for other infection-related heart conditions.

“The good thing about our system is that it’s readily adaptable to any kind of infectious disease,” says Lu. “The other benefit is that we don’t have to rely as much on animal models. Since we’re already using human-derived cells, the clinical translatability is much higher.”

As a next step, Radisic’s group plans to use the miniature organs to uncover why males are more likely than females to experience COVID-19-associated heart complications and to examine the cardiac issues commonly seen in people with long COVID-19.

Radisic says the motivation for this work was deeply personal. She dedicated the study to her late grandmother who died from COVID-19-induced heart failure after six weeks in the intensive care unit.

“The feeling of helplessness is rather profound when a loved one is dying,” she says. “As scientists, we can take small steps toward new cures so that other people do not meet the same fate. For me, this work meant overcoming the feeling of helplessness.”

The work was supported by investments from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the creation of the ��˾��ֱ�� COVID-19 biobank and the Precision Medicine in Critical Care (PREDICT) Biobank at Unity Health Toronto – and by the contributions of patients and families that donated biological samples, making significant advances in research possible.

How will AI change our world? ��˾��ֱ�� podcast explores technology’s impact on society

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 15:17:45 +0000

How will AI change our world? ��˾��ֱ�� podcast explores technology’s impact on society

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/04/2024 - 11:17

Mariam Matti

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

What Now? AI

��˾��ֱ��

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

CIFAR

Computer Science

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Information

Faculty of Law

Geoffrey Hinton

��˾��ֱ�� Mississauga

Vector Institute

Subheadline

In What Now? AI, hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan explore – and demystify – artificial intelligence and its impact on society with the help of leading experts

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence are posing profound questions about the future – and about us.

Can we ensure safety and alignment within AI systems? How might AI forever transform fields like health care? What ripple effects could AI have on jobs and livelihoods, including in creative industries?

University of Toronto researchers Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan explore – and demystify – these and other topics by tapping into the knowledge of leading AI experts in What Now? AI, a new ��˾��ֱ�� podcast that launches this week.

It can be found on Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio and Amazon.

An associate professor at ��˾��ֱ�� Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and the Faculty of Information, Coleman says she hopes the episodes help audiences make sense of new AI tools and systems by cutting through “all the noisiness and controversy that has taken over the headlines.”

“It can be complex and technical, but it’s also social,” says Coleman, a research lead on AI policy and praxis at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology & Society.

“What we do with AI makes a difference and more people need to be able to share that knowledge.”

Coleman’s own research centres around technology and society with a focus on data and cities, AI and policy, and generative arts. Inspired by Octavia Butler’s 1980 Xenogenesis trilogy, Coleman authored Reality Was Whatever Happened: Octavia Butler AI and Other Possible Worlds using art and generative AI.

Krishnan, meanwhile, is an assistant professor in ��˾��ֱ��’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. A Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute and Canada Research Chair in computational medicine, Krishnan and his team focus on teaching neural networks about causality, building deep learning models that analyze cause and effect from data.

“I’m excited to co-host this podcast to explore and demystify for a broader audience AI through the lens of an accomplished and diverse set of experts,” says Krishnan, who is also a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a faculty member at the Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM).

What Now? AI picks up where the conversation started last year by Geoffrey Hinton, the cognitive psychologist and University Professor emeritus of computer science who is known as the “Godfather of AI.” After a lifetime spent developing a type of AI known as deep learning, Hinton stepped back from his role at Google to warn about the existential threats of unchecked AI development.

Since then, there have been ongoing advancements in AI research, technological applications and policy development.

Coleman and Krishnan will tackle these and other topics with guests:

Gillian Hadfield, professor of law and strategic management at the Faculty of Law and the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society.
Roger Grosse, associate professor of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and founding member of the Vector Institute.
Christine Allen, professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and co-founder and CEO of Intrepid Labs Inc.
Andrew Pinto, a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, and associate professor in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Nick Frosst, co-founder of Cohere, singer in Good Kid band and a ��˾��ֱ�� computer science and cognitive science alumnus.

“The What Now? AI podcast highlights the incredible researchers at the University of Toronto who are exploring the profound implications of this transformative technology,” says Leah Cowen, ��˾��ֱ��’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “These discussions tackle critical questions surrounding AI safety and alignment and its myriad implications across various domains.

“The university is committed to fostering informed discussions that will shape our collective understanding of AI’s role in our society and in our future.”

Coleman says she hopes listeners come away from the podcast feeling more grounded.

Krishnan, for his part, wants the audience to understand “that there is no one group that has ownership” over the technology” and that “the free exchange of ideas and open-source tools encourage people from all disciplines to come see how accessible AI can be, what AI can do for them and how they can advance the discourse in the field.”

'Iterate, adapt and accelerate': ��˾��ֱ�� researcher on working at the crossroads of science and business

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 14:05:30 +0000

'Iterate, adapt and accelerate': ��˾��ֱ�� researcher on working at the crossroads of science and business

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 03/08/2024 - 09:05

Cutline

Christine Allen, a professor in ��˾��ֱ��’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, has launched several startups over the course of her career and is a champion of women in STEM (photo by Steve Southon)

Eileen Hoftyzer

Topic

Entrepreneurship

Subheadline

“As an entrepreneur, you can’t stop thinking about the market, your customers’ problems and how you will solve them”

Making the leap from scientist to entrepreneur requires creativity, determination and resilience – not to mention an acute understanding of the real-world need for the innovative technology or idea in question.

Christine Allen, a professor in the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and who has launched several startups, says the last part of the equation is particularly important.

“It’s not just about whether you have an interesting idea,” says Allen, an expert in drug formulation and development. “You also have to identify a use case for your technology that addresses the problem better than the existing technology and successfully do everything it takes to get the technology to the patient.

“You need to have a clear target market and differentiated value proposition.”

Allen has focused on turning laboratory discoveries into clinical tools since the early days of her career. Following her postdoctoral training at the BC Cancer Agency, she worked as a scientist at Celator Pharmaceuticals before moving back to academia to take a role at ��˾��ֱ��’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. Since setting up her ��˾��ֱ�� lab, she has worked closely with the pharmaceutical industry and clinicians to license her patented technologies and support the development of new drugs.

“Since I started at the University of Toronto, I’ve always worked with companies,” she says. “One of the reasons is that I really want to work on research that will result in a new drug or technology or device that can be used in the real world or in patients.”

She has also founded startup companies to advance promising technologies. That includes Nanovista to develop nanotechnology that illuminates tumours to allow for precise image-guided surgery and cancer therapy. The company is currently raising capital to enter a Phase 1 clinical trial.

Listen to Christine Allen discuss her work on the I'm Pharmacy Podcast

Then, in 2023, Allen partnered with Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a professor in ��˾��ֱ��’s departments of chemistry and computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is an expert in artificial intelligence, to build Intrepid Labs. Intrepid has developed a proprietary technology that uses machine learning and robotics to accelerate drug development through better, faster drug formulation.

The company is the first startup to emerge from the Acceleration Consortium, a ��˾��ֱ�� institutional strategic initiative led by Aspuru-Guzik that uses self-driving labs to speed the discovery of materials and molecules needed for a sustainable future.

In drug development, Allen says, focusing on the needs of patients and clinicians is paramount.

“As an entrepreneur, you can’t stop thinking about the market, your customers’ problems and how you will solve them,” she says. “The path is not a straight line. You need to iterate, adapt and accelerate.”

Pauric Bannigan started as a postdoctoral fellow in Allen’s lab before becoming the lab’s senior research associate and launching Intrepid alongside Allen, Aspuru-Guzik and ��˾��ֱ�� alumnus Riley Hickman. He says that launching a company requires effort and resilience, but the team’s commitment to the technology helps them push through the challenges.

“My time in Christine’s lab provided a unique vantage point on the pharma and biotech ecosystem, laying a strong foundation for navigating the entrepreneurial world. Despite this background, the shift to a startup led to many new challenges – from recalibrating our research for market needs to understanding the intricacies of intellectual property and direct customer engagement,” he says.

“Looking ahead, I'm optimistic. Our team is committed, and our technology has the potential to make a significant impact. As we continue to grow and evolve, the experiences gained from each challenge only strengthen our resolve and commitment to success.”

Longstanding interest in women’s health and women in STEM

In her lab, Allen continues to work with pharmaceutical companies to develop new formulations. In recent years, she has been working with Jazz Pharmaceuticals (which now owns Celator) to develop a new therapy for ovarian cancer – a field of research that she is particularly interested in.

“Women’s cancer is something that’s really important to me, particularly ovarian cancer because standard of care hasn’t changed much over time,” she says.

Allen will be presenting her work as the keynote speaker at a women’s health session at the 2024 Controlled Release Society (CRS) annual meeting.

Allen was invited to speak at the session by Hagar Labouta, a scientist at Unity Health Toronto and an assistant professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. They first met through the CRS’s Women in Science Committee, which hosts virtual and in-person events for women in the society and provides annual awards.

Allen also organizes ��˾��ֱ��’s Women in STEAM: Leading and Reading book club, which invites students and faculty from across the university and hospital community to discuss books, as well as issues and experiences they face as women.

“Women experience certain challenges that often only resonate fully when shared with other women. It's comforting to know others have navigated similar issues successfully, reinforcing the belief that you can overcome these challenges, too,” Allen says. “Initiatives like the book club and the Women in Science group foster a sense of community. They ensure individuals feel heard, seen and that they belong – a sentiment that might be hard to find in large organizations.”

Major shift in acceptance of entrepreneurship

Allen says she has seen attitudes about entrepreneurship shift during more than 20 years at the university – and that there is now greater support for scientists and trainees looking to launch startups and commercialize their research.

Allen has been on the forefront of this shift, taking on leadership roles in the university and in industry, including a one-year appointment at adMare Bioinnovations, an organization that helps support Canadian life science companies and researchers.

Her commitment to translational research and commercialization carries over to her trainees. Bannigan notes that Allen’s connections within industry offer trainees unique learning and networking opportunities that help them gain a deeper understanding of entrepreneurship and commercialization.

“Christine always encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, allowing members to work on projects that merge fields such as pharmaceutical science and data science,” he says. “This interdisciplinary approach is crucial for innovation and creates a positive atmosphere where ideas and knowledge are freely shared, which often leads to the development of innovative solutions to complex problems.”

Allen has recently been recognized with two high-profile awards: the Community Service Award from Life Sciences Ontario and the Julia Levy Award from the Society of Chemical Industry, which recognizes successful commercialization of innovation in Canada.

“I feel very proud of the translational work that I’ve done, whether it’s the technologies in my own lab or the drugs I’ve helped formulate and move closer to translation and commercialization,” Allen says.

“When you put a lot of energy and effort into something and people notice, it means a lot. I have been well supported at ��˾��ֱ�� and in this broad community of biotech, pharma and innovation organizations. Being recognized by people that you really care about means so much.”

How AI will – and won’t – change health care in 2024

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 18:54:54 +0000

How AI will – and won’t – change health care in 2024

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 01/24/2024 - 13:54

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(photo by Sean Anthony Eddy/Getty Images)

Adina Bresge

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Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Subheadline

Muhammad Mamdani, who has overseen the implementation of more than 50 AI-powered solutions into clinical practice, says "the potential is massive for patient care in several areas"

Muhammad Mamdani understands why people are wary of artificial intelligence having a say in their health care – but he’s even more concerned about the patients who are waiting to benefit from the potentially life-saving benefits of AI-assisted medicine.

As vice-president, data science and advanced analytics at Unity Health Toronto, Mamdani has overseen the implementation of more than 50 AI-powered solutions into clinical practice – from an early warning system that uses electronic medical records to predict a patient’s risk of death or requiring intensive care, to a brain-bleed detection tool that can help fast-track access to critical treatment.

And he says there’s more to come in 2024.

“I hope to see more AI being used for clinical decision making,” say Mamdani, who is a professor in the department of medicine in the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the director of the Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM).

Yet, despite AI's potential to transform patient care, it isn’t a cure-all for the underlying problems in Canada’s health system, warns Mamdani, who holds cross-appointments in ��˾��ֱ��’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Mamdani recently spoke to ��˾��ֱ�� News about how AI will – and won’t – shape health care in 2024.

How do you expect AI will transform health care in 2024?

For the past few years, we’ve been in this era of AI hype in health care. A lot of talk, some people doing a few small things here and there, but not really a big splash – and I’m not sure we’ll see a big splash in 2024. A lot of organizations are actively getting into this space, but I would say we’re still at least a few years away from seeing really, really big changes. Instead, I think we’ll see a more gradual adoption of AI in health care.

In 2024, I hope to see more AI being used for clinical decision making. Right now, we’re seeing it used more for non-clinical or administrative tasks. For example, quite a few primary-care clinics and outpatient clinics are using AI scribes that can “listen” to a conversation between a doctor and a patient, transcribe the visit and provide a really good summary note.

[Doctors] are notorious for not writing everything down, and that’s very unfortunate because medicine is very data- and information-driven. When a doctor is talking with a patient, they’re focused on the patient – as they should be – but when the patient leaves, they might have forgotten many of the things that were discussed or didn’t have time to write things down. Then you have an imperfect data set the next time around.

We’re also starting to see tools that can take these transcriptions to suggest diagnoses or recommend medications and, with the doctor’s OK, send prescriptions to the pharmacy.

This coming year, [at Unity Health], we’re working on creating a multimodal data environment that incorporates not only clinical data, but also medical imaging data and waveform data from monitors and ventilators that we’re able to access in real time. For example, you could go into the ICU and constantly ingest data from ventilators to understand if a patient is going to have trouble breathing in the next 20 minutes.

What are some of the ways AI could improve patient care?

The potential is massive for patient care in several areas. One is around chatbot-style solutions where you can ask questions about health-related issues. There are many [clinics] now where you can go on to a website and say, “I have these symptoms. What do you think?”

The other area that I think will probably be more useful is around continuity of care when a patient leaves the hospital or clinic. Oftentimes, patients complain that they don’t have enough information or it wasn’t explained to them what to do next. You’re in this institution undergoing all of these tests and procedures, then when you leave, the doctor tells you all of these things you need to do, and you’re basically on your own – and you may not remember half of what you were told.

Poor post-discharge communication and management is one of the reasons we see a lot of patients being readmitted to hospitals. What if we had an AI chatbot that could stay in contact with the patient, summarize their treatment plan, answer their questions and tell them to call their doctor when necessary?

What are the most significant challenges you foresee in implementing AI technologies in health-care settings?

We should temper our expectations for AI, because when you deal with a health-care system, you have to try to solve the system problem first and use technology to enable appropriate solutions.

Take, for example, the problems we see because of a lack of information sharing between health providers. AI is only as good as the data it’s given, so if a patient goes to hospital X for a problem that was treated at hospital Y a month earlier – but the two hospitals don’t talk to each other, [hospital X’s] AI will be blind to what happened at hospital Y.

As a province, if we got together and enabled these data sources to talk to each other in realtime, AI would be way more powerful.

What are some of the ethical considerations that need to be taken into account when deploying AI in health care?

Obviously, you have to have a robust environment to protect privacy and security for patients. But at the same time, you have to have a progressive data governance framework that allows that data to be accessed by the people who need it.

Another concern is making sure your algorithms perform well among various subgroups. For example, does it perform just as well among young versus old, sick versus not sick, males versus females? The problem is we don’t have data on all these subgroups. So how do we know that our algorithms perform just as well on one race versus another or across all genders when we don’t have such data readily available?

The other challenges are going to be scaling the solutions from one hospital to another or to an entire system. Patient care and processes may differ considerably and AI solutions may need to be tailored to local context. Further, while these AI solutions are really exciting, they can be very expensive. So who pays for them?

At Unity Health, we’ve deployed more than 50 AI solutions into clinical practice, with more going live soon. Other hospitals should have these kinds of tools, but not all of them have the resources to develop and deploy AI solutions and patients are suffering as a result.

What would you say to people who are apprehensive about “Dr. AI?”

That kind of apprehension is very much justified. I get it. There are going to be some failures as well as some successes. But I don’t think this is going away. The potential benefits are far too great to ignore. We need to deploy AI in health care thoughtfully and responsibly. AI is here and it will permeate health care – how it permeates is yet to be determined.

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Kate Richards

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Institutional Strategic Initiatives

PRiME

Cancer

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