Podcasts about synaptive medical

Hannah Sennik is the co-founder of Rekammend, a Toronto based medtech start-up that provides opportunities for individuals with speech and language disorders to engage in meaningful conversation. Their main product Reka personalizes the communication experience for clients and increases their overall independencer. In this episode we dive into Rekammend's founding story, their technology and hear all about what they're doing to begin their first round testing in April 2021. Hannah has also completed medtech internships at Apple, Synaptive Medical and Intellijoint, she summarizes what she's learnt from all these experiences to lead her company. Let us know what you think! As always, keep Medtekking. Reach out to Hannah here! Know someone who may benefit from Reka? Check out their website rekammend.com for more information. Let's continue the conversation, reach out to the co-founders: Alia Myers Zion Maynard Medtalkcracy socials: LinkedIn Instagram Twitter

Cameron Piron, President of Synaptive Medical, an industry-recognized leader and innovator in image-guided surgery. Prior to co-founding Synaptive Medival, Cameron was president and co-founder of Sentinelle Medical, a medical device company that developed and manufactured advanced MRI-based breast imaging technologies.

Dr. Costas Hadjipanayis, Director of Neurosurgical Oncology for Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital discusses his experience working with the advanced robotically-controlled digital microscope, Modus V, from Synaptive Medical and how this technology was used recently to successfully remove a 19-year old woman's rare brain tumor.  Dr. H talks about the advantages to using this technology prior to surgery and during surgery, and how doctors need to think about embracing new devices and techniques to more accurately address medical challenges. @SynaptiveMed #BrainSurgery  #Neurosurgery  #PrecisionMedicine  #RoboticSurgery  #ModusV Synaptive Medical Listen to the podcast here.    

Dr. Costas Hadjipanayis, Director of Neurosurgical Oncology for Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital discusses his experience working with the advanced robotically-controlled digital microscope, Modus V, from Synaptive Medical and how this technology was used recently to successfully remove a 19-year old woman's rare brain tumor.  Dr. H talks about the advantages to using this technology prior to surgery and during surgery, and how doctors need to think about embracing new devices and techniques to more accurately address medical challenges. @SynaptiveMed #BrainSurgery  #Neurosurgery  #PrecisionMedicine  #RoboticSurgery  #ModusV Synaptive Medical Download the transcript here.

This week on SIIMCast, join Arjun and Jason, as they interview Norman Young and Chris Hafey ( @CHafey ‏) about open source software in imaging informatics and medicine. Norman Young has been involved with medical imaging product development for the past 20 years. He began his career as a medical imaging software developer at an major academic hospital in Toronto, Canada. That was followed by stints at two RIS/PACS companies. In 2005, he founded ClearCanvas, an open source medical imaging software company, which went on to be acquired by Synaptive Medical in 2014. Today, Norman manages a team of physicists and software developers at Synaptive, building applications in MRI and imaging informatics. Chris Hafey serves as Chief Technology at Nucleus Health. Prior to NucleusHealth, Chris served as CTO for OnPoint Medical Diagnostics, Chief Architect at Vital Images, Director of Engineering at Stentor and other leadership roles for many technology firms. Chris is the creater of the Cornerstone Open source SDK for interacting with DICOM images on the web. You can find our podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or anywhere else you subscribe to podcasts. Please help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can find us on Twitter: @SIIM_Tweets, and individually at @arjunsharmarad, @jaynagels, @AAnandMD Visit us at https://siim.org/page/siimcast Medical Imaging-related Projects referenced in the discussion: CornerstoneJS Web-based medical imaging library: http://bit.ly/2yOUKYM Clear Canvas - https://www.clearcanvas.ca/ ClearCanvas Open Source Project - https://clearcanvas.github.io/ Horos Free Medical DICOM Viewer for OSX - https://horosproject.org/ OsiriX DICOM Viewer - https://www.osirix-viewer.com/ DVTk, a must have for anybody working with DICOM! - https://www.dvtk.org/ NextGen Connect (formerly Mirth Connect) - https://www.nextgen.com/products-and-services/integration-engine dwv, DICOM Web Viewer - https://ivmartel.github.io/dwv/ Oviyam - http://oviyam.raster.in/ And others: The Linux Operating System: What is Linux? at Opensource.com - https://opensource.com/resources/linux 3D Slicer - https://www.slicer.org/ Docker Enterprise Container Platform: https://www.docker.com/ MySQL Database - https://www.mysql.com/ PostgreSQL - https://www.postgresql.org/ MongoDB - https://www.mongodb.com/ Git - https://git-scm.com/ Visual Studio Code - https://code.visualstudio.com/ Node.js - https://nodejs.org/ React - https://reactjs.org/ React Bootstrap - https://react-bootstrap.github.io/

In this week's episode, hear the person Ilya declared "the coolest person I know": Jenn Dixon (MSE 1T8 + PEY) about her time at Synaptive and also about her motorcycle. Notes 0:20 - Coming from an international school in Oman to deciding to study in Canada 4:58 - Finishing 3rd year feeling very burnt out 5:44 - Her extremely strategic approach to applying, choosing between "traditional MSE stuff" and forensic engineering 9:28 - Interview process at Synaptive, how she stood out with enthusiasm 12:37 - Transitioning into working with just 2 days of rest after her last exam 17:04 - Not having the specific "tribal knowledge" of the field, value of 1:1s with coworkers 22:53 - Things that made the year hectic 29:09 - Rediscovering things about herself, visiting her parents for the first time in several years 31:18 - Questioning the notion that people are closest friends with one another while they are in school 34:55 - Differences in looking for work as an international student, a whole lot more paperwork 37:40 - Motorcycle!!!! Motorcycle!!! 43:27 - Coming back to school, starting to see school more as a means to an end 44:34 - Thinking of yourself as an RPG character with different sliders, "having other sliders"

Up this week is Sam Stuart, our first MSE student! She did her PEY at Synaptive Medical and did a research exchange in Liverpool, while also doing some intellectual property consulting on the side. Notes 0:00 - Being picky in applying for PEY jobs, interviewing for Synaptive Medical 1:50 - Canada Wide Science Fair, research background, ending up doing research and getting an interest in biology 5:15 - What Synaptive Medical does - robotic surgery 7:20 - What it means to work in quality: minimizing risk 10:57 - Learning curve working on a high tech product 12:45 - Learning to code 15:32 - Good days, bad days - bad day at work, burnout, learning to meditate 21:04 - Applying for research exchange through the CIE 22:20 - Improving fitting practices for contact lenses in Liverpool, for the BBC reporters! 25:30 - Travelling and travel blogging, hitting 20 countries over the summer, Headspace 28:07 - Learning to do IP inside a company and how that’s different from doing that at a law firm 34:05 - What you have to do to become a patent agent, and how an engineering background is useful for it 38:00 - Changes in plans to go to grad school, design + research based masters 41:15 - Giving a TEDx talk in Collingwood and working on outreach and having engineers share their stories Links Ready Set Zen travel blog! Headspace Isowater Corporation Sam's TED talk! Email Sam at samantha.stuart@mail.utoronto.ca Music by Shawn Lee

079 | Acknowledging some of the industry’s best Welcome to another episode of Biotechnology Focus radio. I am your host, Michelle Currie, here to give you the lowdown on the Canadian biotech scene. Today, I will be discussing such topics as empathic distress, the top industry leaders that stood out from the pack this past year, a plausible link between white matter in the brain and Alzheimer’s, and how a multi-use drug could benefit those combatting esophageal cancer. +++++ Ever felt like you were picking up someone’s stress just from being around them? As if their experiences radiated and permeated your own mind? Well, studies being done at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary are studying precisely that. Researchers have been told by healthcare workers that empathic nuances seem to transfer from soldiers’ who suffer from PTSD to their partners or family members, despite never having served in the military. Jaideep Bains, PhD, and his team at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) in the Cumming School of Medicine have discovered that stress transmitted from others can change the brain in the same way as real stress does. The research team studied the effects of stress in pairs of male or female mice. They removed one mouse from each pair and exposed it to a mild stress before returning it to its partner. They then examined the responses of a specific population of brain cells in each mouse, which revealed that networks in the brains of both the stressed mouse and naïve partner were altered in the same way. “There has been other literature that shows stress can be transferred — and our study is actually showing the brain is changed by that transferred stress,” says Toni-Lee Sterley, a postdoctoral fellow in Bains’s lab and the study’s lead author. “The neurons that control the brain’s response to stress showed changes in unstressed partners that were identical to those we measured in the stressed mice.” The researchers discovered that the activation of the neurons causes the release of a chemical signal that acts as an “alarm pheromone” from the mouse that alerts the partner. The partner who detects the signal can then in turn, alert additional members of the group. Bains adds, “What we can begin to think about is whether other people’s experiences or stresses may be changing us in a way that we don’t fully understand. The study also demonstrates that traits we think of as uniquely human are evolutionary conserved biological traits.” The study demonstrates that the effects of stress on the brain are reversed only in female mice following a social interaction. The residual effects of stress on neurons in females were cut almost in half following time spent with unstressed partners. However, this did not apply or ring true for males. If some of the effects of stress are erased through social interactions, but this benefit is limited to females, this may provide insights into how we design personalized approaches for the treatment of stress disorders in people. +++++ I would also like to acknowledge this year’s Biotechnology Focus top life sciences CEO picks from across the country. They are industry leaders who have stood out from the pack, and whose tenacity is extremely admirable. They have captured the attention of the Canadian biotech investment community and are the cream of the crop as Chief Executive Officers on the Canadian biotech scene. With the help of some leading Canadian biotech analysts and investors, we’ve put together a list of who we think the Top 5 CEOs who elevate their companies are. The criteria for making the list: They are CEOs who have delivered in the past and are with companies where they have a chance of delivering in the future. They aren’t necessarily leading the biggest companies, but rather, they qualify because they are the best leaders. Dr. Clarissa Desjardins is a co-founder of Clementia Pharmaceuticals and has been the president since its inception in 2010 and chief executive officer since 2012. Her company is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that develops disease-modifying treatments for patients suffering from debilitating bone and other diseases. Cameron Piron is an industry-recognized leader and innovator in image-guided surgery. Although he is not a CEO, he has made a profound impact as a co-founder and president at Synaptive Medical – a company that is breaking ground with advanced medical devices, medical imaging and information science. Their BrightMatter technology combines surgical planning and navigation, robotic digital microscopy and informatics to create a family of devices to obtain patient data and retrieve it when needed the most. Dr. Ali Tehrani is a co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Zymeworks Inc., and an obvious choice for this year’s list. He has been an integral part of the success of Zymeworks, which continues to partner and flourish at a dizzying rate. The company’s lead clinical candidate, ZW25, is a Azymetric bispecific antibody that targets two distinct domains of the HER2 receptor resulting in multiple differentiated mechanisms of action. Carl Hansen started AbCellera working out of his laboratory at the University of British Columbia in 2012. He is the president and CEO of this privately held biotech company that provides enabling technologies for the discovery and development of monoclonal (mAb) therapies directly from natural immune cells. AbCellera’s lead technology is a proprietary single cell antibody discovery platform that provides researchers the opportunity to rapidly identify mAb therapeutic candidates from the natural immune repertoires of any species. Lloyd Segal, a veteran biotech executive, president and CEO of Repare Therapeutics was another indisputable choice for this list. Lloyd is an entrepreneur-in-residence at Versant Ventures, and from 2010-2016 was a managing partner at Persistence Capital Partners, a leading healthcare private equity investor. He held CEO roles at Caprion Pharmaceuticals, which he co-founded, Advanced Bioconcept and Thallion Pharmaceuticals, and has served as a director of several public and private corporations in the U.S. and Canada. Repare is developing new, precision oncology drugs for patients that target specific vulnerabilities of tumour cells. Its approach assimilates insights from several fields of cell biology including DNA repair and synthetic lethality. There was no shortage of great candidates for this year’s top biotech CEO picks. After so many outstanding nominations, it was hard to narrow it down to just five. Here are some of the Honourable mentions who just missed the cut: Roberto Bellini – President and CEO of Bellus Health   Richard Glickman – Founder and CEO of Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Arun Menawat – CEO of Profound Medical Sammy Farah – President and CEO of Turnstone Biologics Anthony Cheung – President and CEO of enGene Inc. David Main – President and CEO of Aquinox Pharmaceuticals   +++++ Scientists from Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto have discovered that the white matter found in the brain chips away at memory by shrinking the brain and contributing more to dementia than previously thought. White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are bright spots on MRI scans – tissue in the brain that is wearing away due to effects of aging and vascular risk factors on the brain’s small vessels. The research, published in the February 2018 issue of the journal Neurology, showed that individuals with extensive small vessel disease had profound shrinking of the temporal lobe, an important brain region that is instrumental to learning and memory function. The study included over 700 participants of the Sunnybrook Dementia Study led by Dr. Sandra E. Black. The researchers’ analyses showed that shrinkage of the temporal lobe explained how WMH were associated with memory problems. WMH is associated with poor verbal recall more so due to temporal lobe shrinkage and deficits in recognition memory – the most sensitive and specific cognitive sign of Alzheimer’s disease – in people with Alzheimer’s disease and across other late-life dementia syndromes including post-stroke dementia. The researchers stress that small vessel disease is often a “silent” contributor to cognitive decline and dementia, as do large vessel strokes. Since small vessels are linked to brain shrinkage and memory problems it is important to recognize vascular brain disease as a potential “root cause” for dementia. +++++ Faculty of Medicine scientists at the University of British Columbia have discovered that a drug currently being tested for autoimmune disorders of the blood may also be a knight in shining armour for those with esophageal cancer. Shane Duggan, a postdoctoral fellow in the division of gastroenterology, and Dermot Kelleher, dean of the faculty of medicine, found that fostamatinib reduced the growth rate of esophageal adenocarcinoma in mice by at least 70 per cent compared to the control growth. Esophageal cancer has abysmal survival rates (only 14 per cent alive five years after diagnosis) and is a growing Canadian health concern. The scientists published their discovery in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology explaining their search for possible treatment targets for esophageal cancer – the sixth-leading cause of cancer-related mortality and second-deadliest form of cancer. Duggan and Kelleher conducted a screen of about 6,000 genes found in a cell that are known or emerging drug targets in a variety of diseases. They found about 300 druggable genes specific to esophageal cancer and using biopsies of esophageal cancer from Br itish Columbia, the U.K., and Ireland, they narrowed that list to three primary candidates. It was then that they noticed something surprising – the genes were more associated with immune cells than with the epithelial cells of the esophagus. Esophageal cancer is often preceded by a condition called Barrett’s esophagus, which results from gastroesophagealreflux disease (GERD). The reflux causes the inflammation and induces the esophageal tissue to transform into intestinal-like tissue. The immune cells unleashed by GERD may never fully depart from the esophagus, causing low-level inflammation that continues undetected and without symptoms. The transformed esophageal epithelial cells, after prolonged exposure to inflammation, seem to produce and become driven by a protein called spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK). Duggan and Kelleher then turned their attention to fostamatinib, an SYK inhibitor developed by San Francisco-based Rigel Pharmaceuticals Inc., which has shown promise in immune and lymphoproliferative disorders. Proving them right, their study expressed that the drug was very effective at stopping the growth of esophageal cancer in vitro and in mice models that had been implanted with human esophageal cancer cells. While the tumours expanded rapidly in the mice in the control group, there was virtually no growth of the tumours in the mice given fostamatinib. +++++ Well that wraps up another episode! As always, if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you, so feel free to email me at press@promotivemedia.ca. In the meantime, thanks for listening and hope you have a great week ahead! From my desk to yours – this is Michelle Currie.

On this weeks show, and amazing turnaround in the fortunes of the MaRS West Tower, CQDM and Brain Canada team up once again, and a significant step in the fight against cancer. We have all this and more on this week’s Biotechnology Focus Radio Show Podcast. Welcome to another episode of Biotechnology Focus Podcast. I’m your host Shawn Lawrence, here to give you a rundown of this week’s top stories on the Canadian biotech scene,   Story CQDM and Brain Canada are join forces again in the funding of two new research projects to address unmet needs in brain research. Together, the two organizations are awarding a total of $3 million to the projects which will oversee the development  cutting-edge tools, technologies and platforms designed to accelerate the discovery of new drugs for brain and nervous system disorders. The two distinguished research teams will unite nine researchers from seven public and private organizations across Canada. The first project is led by Edward Fon at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (MNI) joined by multi-provincial collaborators from McGill University, Université Laval and University of British Columbia. The second project led by Jean-Martin Beaulieu at University of Toronto is a public-private collaboration with the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and ImStar Therapeutics in Vancouver. Additionally, these researchers will benefit from CQDM’s unique mentoring program. They will have the opportunity to collaborate with influential senior scientists from the pharmaceutical industry who bring expertise and support to the projects, to help better align research with the needs of industry and patients. The Brain Canada funds are provided through a partnership with Health Canada, known as the Canada Brain Research Fund. Story Princess Margaret Cancer Centre scientists have discovered a distinct cell population in tumours that inhibits the body’s immune response to fight cancer. According to principal investigator Pamela Ohashi, director, Tumour Immunotherapy Program at the cancer centre, University Health Network. Dr. Ohashi holds a Canada Research chair in Autoimmunity and Tumour Immunity, the findings, published online in Nature Medicine, are critical to understanding more about why patients will or will not respond to immune therapies.  Specifically, Dr. Ohashi and her team uncovered a potential new approach to modulate the immune response to cancer. She adds that by looking at tumour biology from this different perspective, researchers will have a better understanding of the barriers that prevent a strong immune response. This can help advance drug development to target these barriers. Dr. Ohashi discusses her team’s discovery of a new population of cells that regulate immune response in the following audio clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-vbE-DRTdY Dr. Ohashi’s research team along with international collaborators analyzed more than 100 patient samples from ovarian and other cancer types to discover a distinct population of cells found in some tumours. This population of cells suppresses the growth of cancer-fighting immune cells, thereby limiting the ability of the immune system to fight off cancer. For patients, down the road Dr. Ohashi envisions a new era of combined therapies to simultaneously target and kill these suppressive cells while augmenting the immune response against cancer.  The team’s next avenue of research will be focused on identifying a “biomarker” that can identify this distinct suppressive cell elsewhere in the body – for example, in blood or other samples – as a potential predictive clinical tool to determine when these cells are present in patients, which currently cannot be done. Dr. Ohashi’s research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. Story Aequus Pharmaceuticals has landed $100,000 in federal funding through the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program. The company plans to use funds towards an ongoing proof-of-concept clinical study for its lead product candidate, AQS1301, a once-weekly transdermal aripiprazole patch. Aripiprazole is an atypical antipsychotic and the active ingredient in Abilify®, a leading medication in the U.S. used for the treatment of a number of psychiatric disorders including bipolar I disorder, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and irritability associated with autistic disorder. Aripiprazole is currently available in once-daily oral tablets and a once-monthly injectable form, however, medication adherence continues to be a significant challenge for patients. Offering the medication in a patch form potentially could make it more convenient to use, and improve patient adherence says Anne Stevens, COO and director of Aequus Pharmaceuticals . The product is currently in clinical development, butAequus expects to confirm its regulatory development plan in a pre-Investigational New Drug (pre-IND) meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the second half of 2017. Aequus anticipates results of the current repeat dose, 28-day study in the first quarter of 2017. The results will be used to inform the final design of the patch to be advanced into the regulatory phase of its clinical trials. Story Genome British Columbia is making an investment into Augurex Life Sciences through its Industry Innovation (I²) funding program. The company was founded on an invention shared between the University of Alberta and the University of British Columbia in 2006. The funding is repayable and is allocated to promising technologies (products, processes or services) at the early stages of commercial development, and aims to provide risk capital that is concurrently matched by other public or private funding sources. The investment will go towards helping the company launch several blood test products from its pipeline and advance its overall therapeutic program. With a focus on autoimmune diseases affecting joints such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Augurex has already developed its first blood test, called JOINTstat™, which measures the 14-3-3η(eta) protein in blood for early RA diagnosis, joint damage risk monitoring, and also predicts RA development in people with joint pain. Since this is a very early contributor to disease and correlates with joint damage prognosis, it facilitates the identification of patients for early RA intervention and tighter control of treatment so that clinical and remission targets can be reached; the highest priorities in rheumatology care. Additionally, a portfolio of 14-3-3η-centric biomarkers has emerged from Augurex’s work, with demonstrated applications in multiple autoimmune diseases with joint involvement. As an aside, JOINTstat has since been studied in over 4,000 patients, and is Health Canada approved. It was launched in Canada by LifeLabs and has been in clinical use since late 2013 in the U.S. Recently, the test was also CE marked and TGA approved making it certified for clinical use in Europe and Australia.  Story California Capital Equity, LLC, has increased its equity position in Laval, QC’s ProMetic Life Sciences, exercising 44,791,488 share purchase warrants at a price of $0.47 per share for total proceeds of $21,051,999.36. The venture capital firm  based in LosAngeles, CA, specializes in providing growth and development capital to start-up through mezzanine stages. The firm’s equity and debt investments are typically in small and medium sized companies. It first invested in ProMetic in 2008. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, CEO of California Capital Equity cited the company’s robust proprietary therapeutic platforms and promising growth potential as key factors behind the firm’s latest investment.  Story Our final story this week, In an amazing turnaround for what once was a struggling center for innovation and entrepreneurship, that once upon a time event required the government of Ontario to step in and offer bridge financing to keep it afloat, MaRS Discovery District now reports that it has completed a significant private financing of its West Tower, with proceeds of this transaction to be used to repay most of the Ontario government's interest-bearing loans to MaRS. The caveat, is the repayment comes almost three years ahead of schedule.  Taking part in the private financing are Manulife, Sun Life Financial and iA Financial Group, who together led the $290-million transaction by investing in 19-year bonds issued by Phase II Investment Trust. According to Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of MaRS, the West Tower is now fully leased, and could soon generate the operating income required to be entirely self-sustaining, putting MaRS on stable footing. Last year we featured two of the more noteworthy tenants at the building, Johnson & Johnson’s JLABS @ Toronto, and the Bridge@CCRM in our June/July issue of Biotechnology Focus. And now, offering over 1.5 million square feet of state-of-the-art lab and office space in the heart of Toronto's Discovery District, the MaRS Centre is now home to more than 140 research labs and companies spanning the entire innovation ecosystem, including Multinational medical firms such as Johnson & Johnson's JLABS @ Toronto, which itself houses over 40 biotech and health startups, Merck, growing  life science firms such as Synaptive Medical, Deep Genomics, Interface Biologics, Highland Therapeutics, and Triphase Accelerator; and life science incubators like Blueline Bioscience. Leading research groups from the University of Toronto (which owns a 20% stake in the West Tower), University Health Network (including Princess Margaret Cancer Centre), Ryerson University and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research also call the West tower home. The facility has even attracted other major tenants like Autodesk, Facebook, Merck, PayPal, Etsy, Airbnb, IBM, CIBC and RBC. In all, ventures within the MaRS network raised $2.6 billion in capital and generated $1.3 billion in revenue between 2008 and 2015, and today employs more than 5,200 people. Well that wraps up another episode of the Biotechnology Focus Podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to let us know what you think, and we’re also always looking for story ideas and suggestions for future shows, and of course we’d love to hear from you as well, simply reach out to us via twitter @biotechfocus, or by email at the following email address  press@promotivemedia.ca. And remember, you can also listen to past episodes online via our podcast portal at www.biotechnologyfocus.ca . For all of us here at Biotechnology Focus, thanks for listening.

ProMetic Life Science hits two significant clinical milestones, Antibe Therapeutics reports promising Phase 2 results, In BC researchers, take a closer look at the DNA of the world’s greatest wines, and using genomics to treat and track tuberculosis We have this and more on this week’s Biotechnology Focus Podcast! Welcome to Biotechnology Focus Podcast. I’m your host Shawn Lawrence. Story 1 We start this week’s show in beautiful British Columbia, highlighting two local projects with an international flavor. The first story sees UBC researchers Dan Durall and Mansak (Ben) Tantikachornkiat getting ever closer to identifying the biological personalities of the world’s greatest wines. In a recent study, published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology , the duo 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. As Durall, an associate professor of biology at UBC’s Okanagan campus, explains, 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. Their 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. According to Tantikachornkiat, this technique has allowed them to quickly and accurately monitor in one experiment what previously could have taken multiple experiments and months of trial and error. The next stages of their research will focus this technique on different types of wine making methods to see how they change micro-organisms that affect the final wine product. Story 2 Our second BC story focuses on a new collaborative project involving the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), Oxford University and Public Health England (PHE). Together they are working to build data-sharing capacity between eachother to accelerate the use of genomics as a tool for the diagnosis, treatment and tracking of tuberculosis (TB). Led by Dr. Jennifer Gardy at BCCDC and Dr. Derrick Crook, University of Oxford and PHE, the research project is exploring how to communicate the complex data from a genomics-based test in a simple and effective laboratory report allowing clinicians, many of whom have not worked with genomic data before, to quickly and easily find the information and get the interpretation they need to ensure a direct benefit for patients. Funded in part by Genome BC, the project also supports PHE and BCCDC’s efforts to validate the use of a genomic platform in a clinical setting through developing user-friendly reports to assist doctors in faster and more effective diagnosis and treatment. The use of genomics in the clinic means patients will have access to the most effective treatment several weeks earlier. Through a previous collaboration, the researchers have already demonstrated that using genomics to diagnose and characterize TB infections can reduce the time to diagnose and fully characterize an infection from an average of 31 days to just five days. Genomics also provides important information on the drug resistance profile of the tuberculosis strain, which helps doctors to identify the best treatment and avoid using antibiotics that will not be effective. Valued at $168,000, the initiative called SMAC: Sharing Mycobacterial Analytic Capacity will use techniques from the field of information visualization to design the better laboratory reporting form. Through a series of online surveys and iterative designs, the researchers hope to develop a simple, two-page report that describes a patient’s diagnosis, the antibiotics that are predicted to work to treat the infection, and whether or not the patient is part of an outbreak. As part of SMAC, the UK and Canadian teams are also sharing resources and expertise in TB genomics and bioinformatics in order to accelerate the clinical validation and implementation of genomics-based TB diagnostics, first in the UK, and ultimately in BC. The partnership is a product of a MOU signed by Genome British Columbia and Genomics England last year to improve diagnostic capability and outcomes for patients with cancer, rare diseases and infectious diseases. Story 3 In Atlanta, Georgia, Toronto based med tech company Synaptive Medical has launched a revolutionary brain surgery technology at Emory University Hospital. The technology, called BrightMatter™ is an innovative neurosurgery solution that offers advanced imaging, surgical planning and navigation through robotic visualization. Synaptive’s technology shares a common imaging hub, which analyzes and assesses the quality of imaging scans in real-time prior to surgical planning and creates the foundation for a clinically-integrated imaging informatics research platform. Using an imaging method called diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI, BrightMatter enhances MRI images of the entire brain’s pathways, allowing physicians to consider approaches for navigating around critical structures in neurological surgery. Synaptive’s integrated imaging and navigation systems allow physicians to see details that can’t be seen with the naked eye or a standard MRI, and may allow access to brain locations previously deemed inoperable. The automatic positioning system with an attached camera follows the physician’s tools, showing an image of the patient’s anatomy with unprecedented detail. This robotic arm includes a hands-free optical visualization system that allows for better surgical ergonomics, facilitates collaboration with operating room staff, and consumes less surgical time without the need to manipulate cumbersome optics. Dr. Gustavo Pradilla, an Emory assistant professor of Neurosurgery, and chief of neurosurgery for Grady, co-director of the Grady Skull Base Center, and director of the Cerebrovascular Research Laboratory said that acquiring Synaptive’s platform will bring innovative neurosurgical treatments that are the next technological frontier in intraoperative navigation, robotic-assisted visualization, corridor-based neurosurgery and clinical informatics. He adds that the technology will expand the hospitals ability to treat previously inoperable lesions in delicate areas of the brain, leading to safer and more efficient procedures, smaller incisions, shorter hospital stays. Story 4 In clinical trial news, Toronto’s Antibe Therapeutics Inc. has posted positive results from its Phase 2 clinical trial of ATB-346 in osteoarthritis (OA). ATB-346, is an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug), and a hydrogen sulfide-releasing derivative of naproxen, the most-prescribed NSAID in North America. As part of the trial, 12 patients with OA of the knee were treated once daily for 10 days with the drug at a dose of 250 mg. The dose contains one-sixth of the typical daily dose of naproxen for treating OA. According to the company, the lower dose was found to be very effective at reducing pain, and equal to or better than naproxen or celecoxib in comparable studies. The drug was also found to be safe and well-tolerated. As part of the trial, patients recorded their level of pain one day prior to starting treatment and again on days four and 10 of treatment. The “WOMAC pain scale”, the gold standard in arthritis clinical trials, was used as the measure of beneficial effect. The enhanced effectiveness of ATB-346 as compared to the market-leading drugs for osteoarthritis was a pleasant surprise, particularly considering the low dose of ATB-346 that was used said both the company’s chief science officer John Wallace and the company’s CEO Dan Legault. Legault added that the company plans to expeditiously perform additional clinical trials to confirm the results seen in this phase 2 study, and explore the effectiveness of even lower doses of ATB-346. The Phase 2 clinical trial was carried out in Toronto, Canada by Topstone Research Ltd. Story 5 A research team at the Krembil Research Institute has discovered a pair of tissue biomarkers that directly contribute to the harmful joint degeneration associated with spine osteoarthritis. In a study study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight, the researchers were able to show that elevated levels of both of these biomarkers cause inflammation, cartilage destruction and collagen depletion. Osteoarthritis affects about three million Canadians and is characterized by a breakdown of the protective cartilage found in the body’s spine, hand, knee and hip joints. There is no known cure. The study involved tissue biopsies from 55 patients undergoing decompression or discectomy at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre at Toronto Western Hospital. As part of the study, the research team – led by Dr. Mohit Kapoor at the Krembil Research Institute and comprising Dr. Akihiro Nakamura, a post-doctoral fellow, and Dr. Y. Raja Rampersaud, a clinical expert and spine surgeon – explored the role, function and signaling mechanisms of two tissue biomarkers: microRNA-181a-5p and microRNA-4454. The study screened 2,100 microRNAs and found that measuring the levels of these two specific biomarkers can help clinicians determine the stage to which the disease has progressed, and provide a tool for determining the degree of cartilage destruction. Dr. Kapoor discusses his team’s discovery of the pair of tissue biomarkers in the following audio provided by (Video: UHN From 0:26-1:09,1:30-2:02). The discovery represents the end of the first stage of research. The team is now investigating whether these biomarkers can be detected in the blood – which would help clinicians more simply determine the stage of spine osteoarthritis – and whether further studying the biomarkers will allow researchers to halt and reverse spine degeneration. Story 6 It’s been a week filled with successful milestones for Laval, QC’s ProMetic Life Sciences. A developer of products used in the purification of biologics, drug development, proteomics and the removal of pathogens, the company announced on August 9th it had completed enrollment of the adult patient cohort for its pivotal intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) Phase3 clinical trial for the treatment of primary immunodeficiency diseases (PIDD). The company also announced on August 11 that it had completed patients enrolment of the congenital plasminogen deficient patients in its pivotal phase 2/3 clinical trial required for the accelerated regulatory approval pathway with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration In terms of the Phase 3 trial, completion of enrollment for the adult patient population is five months ahead of schedule and puts the company on the fast track to becoming the first Canadian-based company to locally produce IVIG. It’s also a further indication of the near-term commercial prospect of what will be the company’s second plasma protein. According to company CEO and president Pierre Laurin, Canadian patients are amongst the largest consumers of IVIG on a per capita basis worldwide and the demand continues to grow at a rapid pace. He believes that the manufacturing advantages provided by the company’s proprietary PPPS™ technology can help alleviate Canada’s current dependence on foreign plasma derived therapeutics. IVIG is a preparation of antibodies purified from plasma donations from normal individuals. It is indicated for the maintenance treatment of patients with primary immunodeficiencies including common variable immunodeficiency, X-linked agammaglobulinemia, severe combined immunodeficiency and as a treatment of immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). It is also used for the treatment of many other autoimmune diseases, including Guillain-Barré syndrome, Kawasaki disease. The Phase 3 trial is an open label, single arm, two-cohort multicenter study investigating the safety, tolerability, efficacy and pharmacokinetics of ProMetic’s plasma derived IVIG in a total of 75 patients suffering from PIDD, and the adult cohort includes the 50 enrolled adults (cohort 1) and will also include 25 children (cohort 2). ProMetic anticipates the completion of enrollment for cohort 2 to go quickly with completion of the IVIG Phase 3 clinical trial expected in the second half of 2017. As for the second trial, the FDA has agreed to an accelerated regulatory approval pathway, given the rarity of the condition and the related unmet medical need. To secure an accelerated pathway approval, a drug must treat a serious condition, provide a meaningful advantage over available therapies and demonstrate an effect on a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. Dr John Moran, Chief Medical Officer of ProMetic commented that the ongoing clinical trial has enabled ProMetic to meet the primary end-point of achieving the targeted increase in plasma concentration of plasminogen and to define the optimal treatment regimen. Plasminogen is a naturally occurring protein that is synthesized by the liver and circulates in the blood. Activated plasminogen, plasmin, is a fundamental component of the fibrinolytic system and is the main enzyme involved in the lysis of blood clots and clearance of extravasated fibrin. Plasminogen is therefore vital in wound healing, cell migration, tissue remodeling, angiogenesis and embryogenesis. ProMetic's Plasminogen has received an Orphan Drug Designation by the FDA and the European Commission for the US and the European markets respectively. ProMetic also received a Fast Track Designation by the FDA, a process designed to facilitate the development and expedite review of drugs and biologics intended to treat serious or life-threatening conditions and that demonstrate the potential to address unmet medical needs. With that we’ve come to the end of this week’s program. We hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Laskey Hart our production manager. You can find us online at www.biotechnologyfocus.ca and we’re always looking for your feedback, story ideas and suggestions so we’d love to hear from you. Simply reach out to us on twitter: @BiotechFocus . For all of us here at Biotechnology Focus, thank you for listening.

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