Sanofi-Pasteur is developing new vaccine formulations that need to be evaluated on their efficacy and potency. Traditionally, the use of animal models to predict human immunity has been accepted as the best way to select vaccine formulations. However, animal models can be costly and time-prohibitive, and the assays employed to assess vaccine efficacy and potency are not ideal for rapid screening and optimization of multiple formulations. To overcome these limitations, we propose to test new vaccine formulations utilizing laboratory cultured macrophage cells.

DoseBiome has developed a new probiotic that targets several aspects of oral health: dental caries, periodontal diseases, and halitosis. This project aims to understand the exact mechanism of our probiotic's inhibitory properties against the pathogens associated with the above diseases. DoseBiome is a new start-up in the probiotic/microbiome health sector, and this project will allow for improved technology and manufacturing processes for our oral probiotic line.

Cannabis has been in use for a long period of time both as medicine and as well as a recreational drug. With the current legalization of the crop in Canada, cannabis industry is expanding but there is limited information on improving the medical cannabis in terms of the content of minor cannabinoids such as THCV or developing a variety that is tolerant to fungal pathogen such as powdery mildew.

As an analytical platform, the Sanofi Pasteur Analytical Sciences (Toronto) Molecular Biology Centre (MBC) is applying and optimizing the use of high-throughput sequencing (HTS). The detection of adventitious viruses in biological products relies on a set of methods defined by the regulatory agencies called the compendial methods. High-throughput sequencing has the potential to improve the current breadth of detection and to remove some poorly performing compendial in vivo animal tests.

Since 2016, the Molecular Biology Centre has used HTS for the detection of adventitious viruses.

Herbal medicines are mainly used to maintain health, prevent diseases and treat chronic conditions. Although many Canadians have taken or are regularly take herbal products, there still are concerns about the safety and quality of these products. Osteoporosis is a chronic disease called silent thief since there are no symptoms until bone fractures happened. The fractures from osteoporosis are more common than heart attack, stroke and breast cancer combined. Especially for women approaching or being in menopause, lose 2-3% of their bone mass each year.

To design effective and patient-specific cancer therapy, sensitive detection of relapse and distant metastases by non-invasive medical imaging is essential, for which MRI offers tremendous potential due to wide availability of the equipment in clinic and avoidance of ionizing radiation. Although gadolinium-based contrast agents are the most frequently used for MRI, they are associated with nephrogenic systemic fibrosis and brain deposition. Thus, less toxic manganese ions (Mn2+) are exploited as an alternative for tumor detection using MRI.

The University of Toronto’s Translational Research Program (TRP) is a graduate program that developed the Co-Translational Framework (CTF) to systematically mobilize research towards innovations to improve health outcomes.
The Translational Research for Innovation initiative is the research mechanism to help validate the CTF to facilitate meaningful collaboration between industry and academia.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases (COPD) is a lung disease that cause a lot of suffering to the Canadian population. To accelerate the drug discovery process, an old blood pressure lowering medication was tested to block the progression of COPD. A patient study showed that the old medication did provide some protective effect to the lung airways of COPD patients. However, we have found that this old medication does not slow down COPD by lowering blood pressure, but rather by acting on a new, unknown target.

Solids exist as crystals, amorphous or subcooled liquids. The degree of crystallinity determines the long range order in a solid phase. Molecules when transferred from the solution to the solid phase may take many different crystal forms (polymorphs, solvates/hydrates, salts, co-crystals). Theoretically, there are 230 space groups describing the diversity of a crystalline material. About two thirds of pharmaceutical small molecules exist in more than one polymorphic solid form. Crystallization of polymorphs still has a touch of art.