Many of the trainees working with PRiME faculty members will pursue career opportunities in the life sciences sector and value the opportunity to collaborate with industry groups during their time at UofT. To create internships with industry partners for PRiME trainees, a new Fellowship Program was launched in July that will provide a framework to facilitate UofT-company partnerships and trainee internships. The new Industry-Partnered Fellowship Program leverages funding from Mitacs Programs to help provide graduate students and postdoctoral fellows the opportunity to work with industry partners of PRiME. In particular, the first two fellowships through this Program were enabled through Mitacs’ response to COVID-19, supported by both federal and provincial investments, to increase the number and types of internships available.
At PRiME, we were able to help connect our research faculty with companies that were looking for additional expertise as they expanded, or pivoted, their business models to address COVID-19. This included one diagnostic company, Cellular Analytics, that adapted its microfluidic platform from detection of cancer biomarkers to identify specific cell populations to help with COVID-19 patient stratification to predict potential responses to therapies. A second project, that is a collaboration with OptiSolve - a company that offers imaging-based analysis of cleaning effectiveness – will focus on the adaptation of the existing imaging technology to include the detection of SARS-CoV2 in a handheld device for rapid surface analysis.
Although these projects are short-term to help with the immediate needs of the pandemic, we also have additional non-COVID-19 related projects in review that will involve PDFs and students for longer terms. The opportunity to work with both small and large industry partners is invaluable for our trainee community. Given the many biotechnology- and diagnostics-driven start-ups in the local ecosystem, we look forward to building relationships to expand this Fellowship Program in the coming months.