Crowdfunding campaigns for stem-cell treatments may be duping patients seeking relief and leaving donors out of pocket. These campaigns, which encourage strangers to help fund medical procedures, fail to emphasize risks and often exaggerate efficacy, according to a new study co-authored by Jeremy Snyder, a bio-ethicist professor at Simon Fraser University. “It’s a viral spread of misinformation,” he said. “They’re hyping the…
Dr Peter Black has been awarded an MSFHR Health Professional-Investigator award in partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation. The project, “Unraveling disparate roles of Notch-1 and Notch-2 signaling in bladder cancer” will further his ongoing work on the Notch signaling pathway in bladder cancer. Loss of the cell surface receptor Notch-1 drives growth of…
The Centre for Drug Research and Development, Canada’s national drug development and commercialization centre, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Lana Janes as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. As a life sciences industry executive for over 20 years, Dr. Janes has extensive pharmaceutical development experience that spans the full life cycle of therapeutic product development from discovery through commercialization. As an…
The gastrointestinal (GI) tract represents a unique challenge to the mammalian immune system. It must tolerate the presence of the luminal microbiota and thus not respond to their products, but still protect the intestinal mucosa from potentially harmful dietary antigens and invading pathogens. The intestinal epithelium, composed of a single layer of cells, is crucial for preserving gut homeostasis and…
For the past 35 years, scientists have been seeking a candidate therapeutic “smart-drug” that can cleave a specific RNA sequence under cellular conditions. In past riboyzmes and DNAyzmes had offered promise for this but have not lived up to this promise. In our case, we’ve developed a new DNA-based catalyst that can cleave RNA without metal ions where the catalytic “power” comes from synthetic appendages...
The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), Canada’s national drug development and commercialization centre, and Pfizer Canada today announced the launch of the CDRD Executive Institute under the umbrella of The CDRD Academy. This launch is made possible by a significant $1,000,000 contribution by Pfizer Canada. The Institute’s aim is to provide ongoing executive development to ensure that the…
Innovative Targeting Solutions Inc., the global leader in the discovery and optimization of antibodies, today announced a research collaboration with Sanofi. The collaboration uses Innovative Targeting Solutions’ proprietary HuTARG platform to discover novel first-in-class antibody therapeutic candidates. The HuTARG platform, a first-in-class, protein engineering platform, is able to generate large repertoires of fully human antibodies or other protein-based drug modalities, in a mammalian cell…
Over the past few years, Dr. Helen Tremlett and her team have been evaluating population health data to establish a greater understanding of the relationship between MS drug treatments, comorbidities, and associated health outcomes. Most recently, her team, including post-doctoral fellow Dr. José Wijnands, has undergone a first-of-its-kind study to assess disease modifying treatments (DMTs) for multiple sclerosis (MS) and their relationship…
Cortical capillaries are prone to obstruction, which over time, could have a major impact on brain angioarchitecture and function. The mechanisms that govern the removal of these obstructions and what long-term fate awaits obstructed capillaries, remains a mystery. We estimate that ~0.12% of mouse cortical capillaries are obstructed each day (lasting >20 min), preferentially in superficial layers and lower order…
Genome BC is pleased to announce $1 million in funding to Aspect Biosystems (Aspect), a privately held biotechnology company focused on commercializing cutting-edge 3D bioprinting technologies. Aspect’s Lab-on-a-Printer™ 3D bioprinting platform technology enables the rapid creation of functional living tissues. The therapeutic applications are broad and profound and have attracted the attention of global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. “Genome BC’s…
