From speeding up diagnostic testing to streamlining communications between health-care facilities and promoting hand-washing, University of Toronto startups are finding a number of ways to contribute to the fight against COVID-19.
Many U of T entrepreneurs pivoted quickly during the early days of the pandemic to help address a global health threat, demonstrating a capacity for innovation, flexibility and quick-thinking.
With Entrepreneurship Week underway, here’s a look at six U of T startups whose innovative products and services are helping shape the response to the pandemic.
Structura Biotechnology
U of T PhD candidate Ali Punjani (right) is CEO of the U of T startup Structura Biotechnology, which is built on research he did during his PhD in computer science at U of T. His sister, Saara Virani (left), is the company’s chief operating officer (photo by Chris Sorensen)
Before COVID-19 vaccines could be developed, researchers needed to understand the coronavirus spike protein – the part of the virus that infects human cells. Thanks to software developed by Structura Biotechnology, they were able to do so at warp speed, without a lot of the trial and error that usually characterizes such efforts.
The company’s contribution was a software program called cryoSPARC that can quickly process data of the spike protein and generate 3D images, allowing scientists in academia and pharma alike to understand 3D protein structures.
Using cryoSPARC, which was spun out of research done by Ali Punjani while he was a PhD student in the department of computer science and was designed by alumnus Suhail Dawood, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and the U.S. National Institutes of Health were able to quickly go from a raw sample to being able to produce an atomic scale map of the spike, according to research that was published in the journal Science.
“One of their novel algorithms, referred to as 3D Variability Analysis, provided insights into the dynamic motions of the coronavirus spike protein that are important for receptor-binding and membrane fusion,” Jason McLellan, an associate professor in molecular biosciences at UT Austin, told U of T News in February 2020.
“The work by UT Austin and the NIH demonstrates the power of structural biology,” Punjani said at the time. “We can actually look at a new disease that was discovered just a couple of months ago and see how it works at the molecular level. It’s very exciting.”
Structura Biotechnology’s product is already being used by hundreds of institutions worldwide, including the University of California, Berkeley, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and several large labs.
LSK Technologies
From left to right: Livia Guo, Assistant Professor Keith Pardee and Seray Çiçek of LSK Technologies, which is developing a portable, “lab-in-a-box” technology to diagnose COVID-19 and other diseases (photo courtesy of LSK Technologies)
Founded by alumni Seray Çiçekand Yuxiu (Livia) Guo,along with Assistant Professor Keith Pardee of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, LSK Technologies has invented a portable diagnostic device that can provide rapid testing for infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
The origins of the device lie in a special paper, invented by Pardee in 2016, that changes colour in reaction to a viral genome. In 2018, Çiçek and Guo – then graduate students in Pardee’s lab – built a portable device that could use the paper to provide test results, and can be used even by people not skilled in medical and lab processes.
Since joining U of T’s UTEST and Health Innovation Hub (H2i) in 2019, the company has gone from strength to strength, creating prototypes, running pilot projects, securing investment and winning a series of awards, including at the RBC Innovation and Entrepreneurship Early Stage Competition.
The first versions of the device, dubbed PLUM, were deployed to remote Latin American communities to tackle the threat of Zika virus. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the company quickly expanded their platform to diagnose SARS-CoV-2.
Hypercare
(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)
Hypercare, a digital app developed by U of T alumnus Albert Tai, enables health-care workers in different facilities and hospitals to streamline their communications, helping to improve the care of COVID-19 patients.
Prior to the app being rolled out, a physician attending to a patient with COVID-19 would typically need to go through multiple phone calls and paged messages to co-ordinate care.
Hypercare simplifies matters by enabling the physician to use an app to alert critical care response teams that can facilitate the transfer of a patient to the intensive care unit while co-ordinating with an intensivist and anesthesiologist over the app.
Launched by Tai alongside Joseph Choi, an emergency physician at the University Health Network and assistant professor in U of T’s department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and software engineer Umar Azhar, Hypercare received support from H2i and UTEST before securing investments from angel investors.
The company’s app is now being used by nearly 600 health-care staff throughout Toronto’s Michael Garron Hospital. It’s also being used by inner-city physicians to improve care for people experiencing homelessness.
DNAstack
Co-founded by U of T alumnus Marc Fiume, DNAstack launched a search engine aimed at the global research community that scans and indexes genomic information about the novel coronavirus (photo by Jeff Beardall)
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, DNAstack – a software company that specializes in cloud computing solutions for the biomedical space – quickly adapted its technology to address the public health crisis.
Based on the company’s health-oriented search engine, the COVID-19 Beacon tool enables researchers to use information on the virus’s genome and other biological data to see how the virus evolves as it moves through the global population.
“By sharing this genomic information over a cloud-based global network, there is the potential to improve knowledge of COVID-19 at a speed and scale that isn’t otherwise possible,” said DNAstack co-founder Marc Fiume, who earned his bachelor’s, master’s and PhD from U of T, in an interview with U of T News in May 2020.
“That will contribute to new ways to fight the virus, such as the development of a vaccine.”
DNAstack also leads the COVID Cloud consortium, which is dedicated to expanding development of software platforms for genomics and health data pertinent to COVID-19. In December, the company announced that COVID Cloud secured $5.1 million for the project, which is co-funded by Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster.
Indaggo
Melanie Ratnam (centre, top row) and her team pivoted their startup Indaggo, conceived as a platform to help labs source supplies, when COVID-19 struck. They are now connecting health-care workers with donated equipment (screenshot via Zoom)
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, many labs and research facilities halted operations. For U of T Scarborough startup Indaggo – which was preparing to launch a platform to help labs source research supplies – that meant having to put its launch and business plan on hold.
But it wasn’t long before the company decided to refocus its efforts on helping front-line medical workers and organizations access health and medical supplies such as personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand sanitizer. How? By developing a platform called RESPOND to connect organizations in need of the supplies to willing donors.
“Volunteers can then respond by donating toward the goal.”
Among the organizations that have used the application is Services and Housing in the Province (SHIP), a non-profit that provides housing and supports to vulnerable populations in the Greater Toronto Area.
“During these uncertain times, many doors have been closed to those most in need. Individuals who are homeless, precariously housed or living with a mental health issue may face increased challenges in practicing measures essential to keeping them safe,” said Laurie Ridler, CEO of SHIP.
“Indaggo has supported SHIP in working toward these efforts through a generous donation of 500 hand-sewn masks. We are thankful of the support for our community, especially at a time like this.”
Hygienic Echo
U of T and UHN researcher Geoff Fernie’s startup makes a wearable device that reminds health-care workers to wash their hands, helping to reduce hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections (photo courtesy of The Kite Research Institute at UHN)
A wearable device developed by Hygienic Echo – a startup founded by Professor Geoff Fernie of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – is helping reduce the spread of hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections by reminding health-care workers to wash their hands.
The “Buddy Badge” comprises an array of sensors that are connected to hand-washing stations, doorways and paths to patient wards. If a worker hasn’t washed their hands before passing through a doorway to a patient’s room, for example, it will vibrate to remind them to do so.
Hygienic Echo was formed in 2018 with the goal of creating products that help reduce infections. The company’s technology was the product of 17 years of wearable technology research by Fernie and his team.
More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast United States in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it — an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts.
That’s enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina that much water would be 3.5 feet deep (more than 1 meter). It’s enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools.
“That’s an astronomical amount of precipitation,” said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky.”
The flood damage from the rain is apocalyptic, meteorologists said. More than 100 people are dead, according to officials.
Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, calculated the amount of rain, using precipitation measurements made in 2.5-mile-by-2.5 mile grids as measured by satellites and ground observations. He came up with 40 trillion gallons through Sunday for the eastern United States, with 20 trillion gallons of that hitting just Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Florida from Hurricane Helene.
Clark did the calculations independently and said the 40 trillion gallon figure (151 trillion liters) is about right and, if anything, conservative. Maue said maybe 1 to 2 trillion more gallons of rain had fallen, much if it in Virginia, since his calculations.
Clark, who spends much of his work on issues of shrinking western water supplies, said to put the amount of rain in perspective, it’s more than twice the combined amount of water stored by two key Colorado River basin reservoirs: Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Several meteorologists said this was a combination of two, maybe three storm systems. Before Helene struck, rain had fallen heavily for days because a low pressure system had “cut off” from the jet stream — which moves weather systems along west to east — and stalled over the Southeast. That funneled plenty of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico. And a storm that fell just short of named status parked along North Carolina’s Atlantic coast, dumping as much as 20 inches of rain, said North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello.
Then add Helene, one of the largest storms in the last couple decades and one that held plenty of rain because it was young and moved fast before it hit the Appalachians, said University of Albany hurricane expert Kristen Corbosiero.
“It was not just a perfect storm, but it was a combination of multiple storms that that led to the enormous amount of rain,” Maue said. “That collected at high elevation, we’re talking 3,000 to 6000 feet. And when you drop trillions of gallons on a mountain, that has to go down.”
The fact that these storms hit the mountains made everything worse, and not just because of runoff. The interaction between the mountains and the storm systems wrings more moisture out of the air, Clark, Maue and Corbosiero said.
North Carolina weather officials said their top measurement total was 31.33 inches in the tiny town of Busick. Mount Mitchell also got more than 2 feet of rainfall.
Before 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, “I said to our colleagues, you know, I never thought in my career that we would measure rainfall in feet,” Clark said. “And after Harvey, Florence, the more isolated events in eastern Kentucky, portions of South Dakota. We’re seeing events year in and year out where we are measuring rainfall in feet.”
Storms are getting wetter as the climate change s, said Corbosiero and Dello. A basic law of physics says the air holds nearly 4% more moisture for every degree Fahrenheit warmer (7% for every degree Celsius) and the world has warmed more than 2 degrees (1.2 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
Corbosiero said meteorologists are vigorously debating how much of Helene is due to worsening climate change and how much is random.
For Dello, the “fingerprints of climate change” were clear.
“We’ve seen tropical storm impacts in western North Carolina. But these storms are wetter and these storms are warmer. And there would have been a time when a tropical storm would have been heading toward North Carolina and would have caused some rain and some damage, but not apocalyptic destruction. ”
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It’s a dinosaur that roamed Alberta’s badlands more than 70 million years ago, sporting a big, bumpy, bony head the size of a baby elephant.
On Wednesday, paleontologists near Grande Prairie pulled its 272-kilogram skull from the ground.
They call it “Big Sam.”
The adult Pachyrhinosaurus is the second plant-eating dinosaur to be unearthed from a dense bonebed belonging to a herd that died together on the edge of a valley that now sits 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
It didn’t die alone.
“We have hundreds of juvenile bones in the bonebed, so we know that there are many babies and some adults among all of the big adults,” Emily Bamforth, a paleontologist with the nearby Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, said in an interview on the way to the dig site.
She described the horned Pachyrhinosaurus as “the smaller, older cousin of the triceratops.”
“This species of dinosaur is endemic to the Grand Prairie area, so it’s found here and nowhere else in the world. They are … kind of about the size of an Indian elephant and a rhino,” she added.
The head alone, she said, is about the size of a baby elephant.
The discovery was a long time coming.
The bonebed was first discovered by a high school teacher out for a walk about 50 years ago. It took the teacher a decade to get anyone from southern Alberta to come to take a look.
“At the time, sort of in the ’70s and ’80s, paleontology in northern Alberta was virtually unknown,” said Bamforth.
When paleontogists eventually got to the site, Bamforth said, they learned “it’s actually one of the densest dinosaur bonebeds in North America.”
“It contains about 100 to 300 bones per square metre,” she said.
Paleontologists have been at the site sporadically ever since, combing through bones belonging to turtles, dinosaurs and lizards. Sixteen years ago, they discovered a large skull of an approximately 30-year-old Pachyrhinosaurus, which is now at the museum.
About a year ago, they found the second adult: Big Sam.
Bamforth said both dinosaurs are believed to have been the elders in the herd.
“Their distinguishing feature is that, instead of having a horn on their nose like a triceratops, they had this big, bony bump called a boss. And they have big, bony bumps over their eyes as well,” she said.
“It makes them look a little strange. It’s the one dinosaur that if you find it, it’s the only possible thing it can be.”
The genders of the two adults are unknown.
Bamforth said the extraction was difficult because Big Sam was intertwined in a cluster of about 300 other bones.
The skull was found upside down, “as if the animal was lying on its back,” but was well preserved, she said.
She said the excavation process involved putting plaster on the skull and wooden planks around if for stability. From there, it was lifted out — very carefully — with a crane, and was to be shipped on a trolley to the museum for study.
“I have extracted skulls in the past. This is probably the biggest one I’ve ever done though,” said Bamforth.
“It’s pretty exciting.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
