PRiME Inaugural Symposium

On September 30th, faculty members and trainees, together with representatives from industry, Toronto’s local hospitals, and other community organizations, attended a symposium to officially launch PRiME, a precision medicine initiative at the University of Toronto.

Held at the Royal Ontario Museum, the afternoon program was packed with content.  After introductory remarks from Christine Allen, Associate Vice-President and Vice-Provost, Strategic Initiatives at UofT, the Director of PRiME, Shana Kelley, provided a welcome and introduction to the mission of PRiME. “While the number of targeted therapies is increasing, the majority of patients still receive conventional therapies,” said Shana Kelley.  “A multidisciplinary approach that goes beyond genomics and mutational profiling is required to accelerate new discoveries and realize the promise of precision medicine. We have that capability at U of T,” she said.  

The first plenary talk was given by Jim Wells, a world-renown professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and pioneer in antibody engineering. Presentations through the rest of the day included Faculty lectures from Milica Radisic, Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry describing her myocardium-on-a-chip models and from Leah Cowen, Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, explaining her development of treatments for invasive fungal infections. The afternoon ended with Dawn Bell, Chief Scientific Officer at Novartis, providing the second plenary talk of the day.

The symposium also featured research presentations from the first cohort of PRiME Fellows, highlighting their collaborative research projects. PRiME faculty members also had their research represented in posters displayed and presented by their trainees during the coffee break.

Another highlight of the agenda was a panel discussion focused on some of the key challenges in precision medicine, globally, and more specifically, in Toronto.  Led by PRiME Associate Director, Stephane Angers, the industry panelists included Michel Bouvier (CEO, IRIC), Philip Tagari (Amgen), Robert Radinsky (Janssen R&D, Johnson and Johnson Innovation), Stephanie Oestreich (Evotec), and Joel Drewry (Versant Ventures), and allowed the audience to garner insights into what approaches will help PRiME build new solutions in Toronto’s unique ecosystem. 

The symposium provided the first of many opportunities for PRiME members and partners to meet and develop relationships toward building research solutions together.  Read the full story in the U of T News here.

PRiME Fellowship Awards

The 2019 Precision Medicine initiative (PRiME) Fellowship Awards were announced today and will provide financial support for 10 outstanding trainees from the labs of PRiME faculty members at the University of Toronto. 

Selected by PRiME’s Fellowship Committee, these high-calibre researchers bring a diverse range of projects that address PRiME’s mandate of identifying new disease targets, discovering novel targeted therapeutics, and developing next-generation diagnostics for precision medicine.

Launched in the spring of 2019, PRiME is a multi-faculty initiative that leverages U of T’s excellence in pharmaceutical sciences, medicine, physical sciences and engineering. Led by Shana Kelley, University Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, PRiME bridges research from Pharmacy, the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Arts & Science, and the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

The Fellows chosen for this award will undertake projects that combine the expertise of at least two faculty members, with many new cross-faculty collaborations included in this year’s cohort.

“One of the initial focuses of PRiME is to build a strong program for our trainees, including resources and support for both internal and external funding opportunities,” said Kelley. “Building a strong community of translational trainees will provide an excellent foundation for the initiative as we pursue a presence in the international research landscape.”

The 2019 awardees are listed below in alphabetical order:

• Noor Al-saden, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Ray Reilly (Pharmacy) and Dr. Mitch Winnik (Arts & Science)

Project: Radiation nanomedicine for intraoperative treatment of Glioblastoma

• Rony Chidiac, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Stephane Angers (Pharmacy) and Dr. Dev Sidhu (Medicine)

Project: Frizzled antibody agonists for modulation of endothelial cell permeability

• Angela Duong, PhD Student, Dr. Ana Andreazza, Dr. Liliana Attisano and Dr. Martin Beaulieu (Medicine)

Project: Cerebral organoids to investigate the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in neurotransmission and bipolar disorder

• Margot Karlikow, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Keith Pardee (Pharmacy) and Dr. Gilbert Walker (Arts & Science)

Project: CRISPR-based sensors as diagnostic tools

• Anastasia Korolj, PhD Student, Dr. Milica Radisic, Dr. Axel Guenther (Applied Science & Engineering), and Dr. Ana Konvalinka (Medicine)

Project: Podocytes-on-chip for predicting kidney disease recurrence

• Jiabao Liu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Henry Krause (Medicine) and Dr. Carolyn Cummins (Pharmacy)

Project: Untargeted identification of natural modulators of orphan nuclear receptors

• Mark Mabanglo, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Walid A. Houry (Medicine) and Dr. Robert A. Batey (Arts & Science)

Project: Targeting ClpP proteases for antibiotic drug development: Mapping the reaction pathway by time-resolved X-ray crystallography

• Jiaxi Peng, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Aaron Wheeler and Dr. Hui Peng (Arts & Science)

Project: Analysis of neural stem cell aging by single-cell proteomics

• Yu-xi Xiao, PhD Student, Dr. Jason Moffat (Medicine) and Dr. Shana Kelley (Pharmacy)

Project: High-throughput, microfluidic repression and activation CRISPR screening

• Fei Xu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Eugenia Kumacheva and Dr. Alan Aspuru-Guzik (Arts & Science)

Project: Combining machine learning and microfluidic growth of cancer organoids for drug discovery

For more information on this year’s Fellowship winners, follow PRiME on Twitter and LinkedIn where profiles of each Fellow will be posted in the coming weeks.