The news of a $375,000 Knowledge Translation Strategic Initiative  grant from the Alberta Innovatives – Health Solutions program to University of Alberta spin-off company and TEC Edmonton client Metabolomic Technologies Inc. (MTI) is exciting enough unto itself. It allows MTI to continue validation tests for its promising, novel colonic polyp screening diagnostic test - PolypDx™ and to establish a clinical workflow for processing  PolypDx™ samples accurately, swiftly and inexpensively in a medical laboratory. But just as exciting is the evolution of an all-Alberta partnership or medical eco-system to bring made-in-Alberta medical innovation to the national and international marketplace. In the beginning, University of Alberta professor and medical doctor Richard Fedorak and his team discovered recurring patterns in urine analysis that could accurately indicate the presence of polyps in the colon. Polyps alert medical doctors to the possibility of colon cancer and when found are ...

The debate over commercialization of research in Alberta's post-secondary institutes continues.

The Edmonton Journal: Front page of print edition, Thursday, May 23, 2013. 
"Profit push worries campuses"  by staff writer Sheila Pratt
 

Much discussion and debate in the newspapers today on federal government's National Research Council re-orientation to the application of science for commercial purposes,  as opposed to "pure" science. Weighing in from the National Post was Andrew Coyne's column casting a pox on both schools. "The redirection of public funds from basic to applied research may be bad science, but it is even worse economics. Whatever the distortion of the NRC’s raison d’etre is implied, it is nothing compared to the distortion of the economy. Far from a pragmatic matching of public research dollars to the real-word needs of industry, it reveals a basic confusion about the appropriate public and private roles in funding research." Columnist John Ivison suggests "The government has been spending billions to try to kick-start business R&D and been getting very little to show for its money. Pure research will continue in academia but the NRC will now be focused on being t ...

 The Alberta-Pfizer Translational Research Collaboration is receiving new support from Pfizer and the Alberta government to advance leading-edge health care research towards real-world application.

  For a researcher to be awarded one I2I (Idea to Innovation) grant from the Natural  Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is considered quite the feat. To be awarded three I2I NSERC grants within 12 months is nearly unheard of. So it’s a resounding vote of confidence, from the federal NSERC office, in Dr. Walied Moussa’s promising nano-sensor technology, as it moves off the laboratory bench, through field research and now into prototype development. From research emerging out of his team’s MEMS/NEMS Advanced Design Lab, the University of Alberta mechanical engineering professor and researcher has received three Idea to Innovation grants of over $123,000 each. The funds have been used to build prototypes of Dr. Moussa’s unique nano-sized strain sensors, nano-sensor activated touch screens, and, most lately, a prototype nano-sized “energy harvester” from which the nano-sensors can be powered for wireless data transmission. “The NS ...

TEC Edmonton in the news: Winter 2012/13 "Research to make a difference":  In the lead story in the fall 2012 edition of  Research News, the house magazine of Alberta Innovates Health Solutions,  no fewer than five companies and Alberta researchers that are featured have been assisted in one way or another by TEC Edmonton. Dr. Breanne Everett's Orpyx Medical Technologies, featured on Page 12, won the TEC VenturePrize student business plan competition in 2012.  MTI Metabolomics Technologies Inc, featured on Page 20, is a TEC Edmonton client company. TEC Edmonton Executive-in-Residence Reg Joseph serves as CEO of MTI. On Page 22, Osteometabolix Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a TEC Edmonton client.. Finally, on Page 23, researcher Rui Zhou is featured. Ms. Zhou collaborates with Dr. Vivian Mushahwar, who has worked closely with TEC Edmonton on the setting up of Biomotion, a U of A  spin-off company developing  technologies to assist those with paralysis.   * * * Edm ...

  Edmonton-based Delta Genomics, and the Canadian beef-breeding industry, is getting a hand-up from the Canadian government’s Agricultural Innovation Program through a $575,000 investment. The investment will allow the non-profit genotyping lab and its breed association partners to offer a new more cost effective sire identification tool that will help accelerate the adoption of new genetic profiling. This new tool is more accurate, less costly and less time-consuming than traditional DNA tests. The new “parentage” gene technology can now tell the beef producer more with less cost – not only identify the sire of a calf conceived in a community pasture, but also the bull calf’s potential to pass on desirable traits such as feed efficiency, disease resistance, weight-gain, and  meat quality.  The investment, announced at Delta Genomics’ home in the Edmonton TEC Centre on the fourth floor of Edmonton’s downtown Enterprise Square on Jan. 10, 2013 by A ...

Cancer docs are caught on the horns of a dilemma. Taxane chemotherapy, best known as the brand drug Taxol™, is one of modern medicine’s most potent weapons in fighting metastatic breast cancer. But half the women using taxane drugs to shrink breast cancer tumours develop resistance to the  chemotherapy treatment before the  treatment is complete. For them, it means going through the difficult (and expensive) chemotherapy treatment for naught. Here is potentially good news for breast cancer fighters. University of Alberta researcher Dr. Ing Swie Goping and her team are studying a particular bio-marker (a bio-marker being any substance in the body that changes when we have a disease) that can predict, ahead of time,  individuals whose breast cancers will be resistant to certain kinds of chemotherapy treatment. If changes in the bio-marker  can be translated into a simple and practical diagnostic test, Goping’s research will give the  front-line breast cancer doct ...

  Startup companies in Alberta received a Christmas present from Alberta. The Alberta government, through its investment vehicle Alberta Enterprise, announced a $10 million investment fund to encourage the development of Alberta’s early-stage startup companies. Alberta Enterprise is an independent not-for-profit corporation, funded by the Government of Alberta to assist early-stage technology companies in this province. Many TEC Edmonton client companies will be eligible to apply for investment funding from the Accelerate Angel Fund. “The Accelerate Fund is very important. It creates an eco-system for seed-stage funding,” says TEC Edmonton CEO Chris Lumb. “Investment in early-stage companies has been the biggest gap in Alberta’s innovation development system. This is a well conceived fund, a good formula. It’s not government investing dumbly. The Accelerate Fund formula also leverages dollars from angel investors.” Details about the Accelerate Fund, a d ...

Edmonton-based biotechnology company (and TEC Edmonton client and tenant) Ceapro was excited to announce earlier this month   that it will be the sole licensee of a new variety of oats developed by scientists at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, a variety capable of greatly increasing the ingredient in oats that Ceapro is most interested in, avenanthramides. TEC Edmonton has been assisting Ceapro in the development of its all-natural product lines. Ceapro's expertise lies in unique technology to extract and purify minute amounts of the avenanthramide compound found in oats. The oat-based product is a vital ingredient in  cosmetics and skin care, and holds great promise as a future nutriceutical "functional food" and a plant-based pharmaceutical. The previous challenge was the sheer amount of oats it took to produce small amounts of avenanthramides. The new variety of oats, selectively bred by plant scientist Dr. Bill Collins, produces far more avenanthramide per kernel than ever bef ...