Yearly Archives: 2013

Simple test could replace surgery to diagnose male infertility

Dr. Keith Jarvi (left), Head of Urology and Director of the Murray Koffler Urologic Wellness Centre and Dr. Andrei Dabrovich, lead author of the paper.
Dr. Keith Jarvi (left), Head of Urology and Director of the Murray Koffler Urologic Wellness Centre and Dr. Andrei Darbovich, lead author of the paper.

Mount Sinai’s Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute has developed a new test that could make a big difference to men facing infertility.

A study published in a leading international journal, Science Translational Medicine, details the discovery of a key biomarker that can pinpoint the cause of infertility without the need for invasive surgery.

This story was covered by BBC News, ABC News’s “PM” with Mark Colvin, CTV News, CBC News, The Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen and the Calgary Herald.

About half a million Canadian men are infertile, according to clinician-research Dr. Keith Jarvi. As a urologist who treats men with infertility, he knows how valuable this simple, inexpensive test could be. “Testing a semen sample can be done in the doctor’s clinic as it’s noninvasive and much easier for the patient than surgery,” he says.

Dr. Jarvi directs the Murray Koffler Urologic Wellness Centre, is head of Urology, and associate scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute. He is a professor of Surgery at University of Toronto.

MaRS Innovation, which commercializes discoveries made by University of Toronto hospitals and research institutes, is already working on the project, which Jarvi believes may lead to commercial tests within the next couple of years. [For more information, contact Barry Elkind].

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CAMH, Assurex Health Partner to Bring Personalized Care to More Canadians

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Assurex Health combine resources to bring personalized medicine in psychiatry, reducing the current trial-and-error approach

TORONTO – The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Canada’s leading hospital for mental health, and Assurex Health, a global leader in personalized medicine, have signed an agreement for a joint venture to bring the benefits of this treatment approach to more Canadians.

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Logo

The personalized approach helps to match the right medication at the right dose for each patient, based on their genetic makeup. Using Assurex Health’s GeneSight panel, physicians can easily see which psychiatric medications are likely to be effective for each patient and which ones are not, often avoiding treatment failure and side effects.

“This partnership between CAMH and Assurex Health is essential to advance the widespread use of personalized medicine in psychiatry, and improve health care for Canadians who need medications for mental health problems,” said Dr. James Kennedy, head of the Tanenbaum Centre for Pharmacogenetics at CAMH. This approach is a game-changer from the current trial-and-error approach to prescribing, which results in many patients having to try different psychiatric medications, each with potential side-effects, before the best medication for them can be determined.

AssureRx Canada (ARxC) has been established as a subsidiary of the U.S. company, with its Canadian office and laboratory on CAMH premises. Assurex Health will provide backing for ARxC operations. CAMH holds a minority equity share in AssureRx Canada and will receive royalties on the sale of genetic tests that incorporate CAMH-discovered genetic markers.

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MaRS Innovation launches streamlined funding program

Applications invited for MI’s Industry Access Program, which matches early-stage, high-potential technologies to partners and funding

The commercialization process: Moving transformational ideas from the lab bench to the street
MaRS Innovation’s commercialization process helps inventors move their transformational ideas from the lab bench to the street.

MaRS Innovation (MI) has launched a unique funding program to match researchers with industry partners while advancing early stage technologies: the MaRS Innovation Industry Access Program (MI-IAP).

This program provides a simple mechanism to connect researchers with MI’s industry partners. The process and application form are intentionally brief to save researchers time and allow MI’s partners to review a wide range of remarkable technologies within the Toronto academic community in a short period of time.

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Parimal Nathwani, vice-president, Life Sciences,     MaRS Innovation.

“Many granting programs require an industry partner, but leave finding that partner to the researcher,” says Parimal Nathwani, vice-president of life sciences at MI. “Our Industrial Partnership Program completes that step for them. We also know researchers within our member institutions are incredibly busy, which is why we’ve adopted a streamlined process to save them time.”

The program is open to any researcher affiliated with our 16 member institutions working on technologies in:

  • therapeutics
  • diagnostics
  • medical devices
  • health IT
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WaveCheck crowdfunding campaign honours contriburing artists, sponsors and inventors

Reception at Sunnybrook Hospital recognizes WaveCheck’s inventors, contributing artists and the three women featured in the campaign video

The WaveCheck Indiegogo campaign continues to generate wide support from MaRS Innovation’s community. To give back and show their appreciation, the campaign team hosted a reception at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in the Louise Temerty Breast Cancer Centre on November 6, 2013.

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From left, WaveCheck campaign co-director Elizabeth Monier-Williams contributing artist Janet F. Potter, WaveCheck supporter Carmen Tellez O’Mahony, contributing artist Deniz Ergun Seker, WAAC President Dale Butterill and contributing artist Lila Miller.
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WaveCheck’s appreciation event was held at The Louise Temerty Breast Cancer Centre, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

Present were several members of the Women’s Art Association of Canada (WAAC) who donated 11 of the 15 artworks to the campaign. Also present was Dale Butterill, president of WAAC, who expressed support during her opening remarks. Together with members of WAAC, contributing artists donated over $15,000 worth of art to the campaign.

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WaveCheck raises over $41,000 for breast cancer treatment monitoring in three weeks

waveOver 340 people worldwide have joined WaveCheck‘s Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to fund a breakthrough clinical technique for breast cancer that promises to revolutionize the way chemotherapy is monitored.

“Breast Cancer Awareness Month’s positivity makes it easy to overlook the fact that 60 to 70 per cent of chemotherapy treatments fail,” says Dr. Gregory Czarnota, chief of Radiation Oncology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and co-inventor of WaveCheck with Professor Michael C. Kolios of Ryerson University. “WaveCheck’s technology can tell people with breast cancer and their doctors if a particular chemotherapy is working in as little as four weeks.”

WaveCheck’s campaign made the Top 10 list for the most financially successful Canadian crowdfunding campaigns on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo in Globe and Mail’s Report on Small Business. CTV News Channel, CBC Toronto News (see the above clip), CBC Radio Canada and Canadian Healthcare Technology have also covered the project, along with Oshawa Today (radio), The Ryersonian and The Eyeopener.

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MaRS Innovation focus of Yonge Street Media article on growing technology sectors

President and CEO Dr. Raphael Hofstein speaks on healthcare innovation in Toronto

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Dr. Raphael Hofstein, MaRS Innovation president and CEO, was featured in an article by Yonge Street Media. (Photo Credit: Yonge Street Media)

In an October 30 article, Yonge Street Media‘s Andrew Seale spoke with MI’s president and CEO Raphael Hofstein on the booming healthcare innovation coming from Toronto since 2005.

Seale’s article is the first of a two-part series on technological innovation.

In the article, Hofstein credits the city’s intellectual infrastructure and access to healthcare resources for allowing innovation to flourish.

Three of MI’s start-up companies are also mentioned in the article.

Here’s an excerpt (links and emphasis our own):

“The Intellectual Property that is being generated in Toronto (is) a major chunk of the IP that’s being generated across Canada,” he says.

Chipcare CorporationHe points to ChipCare Corporation‘s state-of-the-art handheld analyzer, which allows doctors to run multiple diagnostics on a patient’s blood on site as opposed to bringing the patient to the clinic. The University of Toronto developed cell analyzer could prove to be a game changer in the fight against HIV. “Lab-in-a-chip” technology like this is crucial in third world countries where healthcare access is severely limited.

Xagenic logo CroppedXagenic’s AuRA platform—another diagnostic tool for blood samples—uses ultra sensitive microelectrode arrays (nano-sensors) developed by another team of researchers at University of Toronto. The inexpensive tech makes it possible for molecular diagnostic testing outside of labs.

ApneaDX Corporate LogoMaRS Innovation-backed ApneaDX has developed a clinical-quality sleep-monitoring tool. Previously, diagnosing for sleep apnea—a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal breathing patterns—often required an expensive overnight stay at a sleep clinic. The device is a fraction of the cost and records the data on a chip, which is then analyzed by the company’s software.

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Thotra Receives National Post and Hindustan Times Coverage for Speech Transformation Technology

Thotra’s speech transformation technology to improve  comprehension in call centres and transcription services worldwide

Thotra logoOn October 11, 2013, The Hindustan Times covered a technology developed by UTEST start-up graduate Thotra (invented by Frank Rudzicz) for its speech-transformation software.

The article commends Thotra for recognizing the communications gap surrounding accents, hailing the technology as the solution to “put an end to all accent problems.”

On October 2, 2013, Thotra’s technology was also covered in the National Post:

The software, which filters out aspects of speech that can hinder comprehension, is put to the test by processing lines from Colin Firth in the movie The King’s Speech. The results showcase the potential of the software and how it can assist comprehension of accents.

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WaveCheck to Transform Chemotherapy Monitoring for Women with Breast Cancer

Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for North American clinical study during Breast Cancer Awareness Month; 12 artists donate 13 original works worth over $15,000 to support campaign

Toronto, Canada (October 9, 2013) — WaveCheck — a painless, non-surgical clinical technique developed by a Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre oncologist and a Ryerson University physicist and supported by MaRS Innovation — is poised to transform chemotherapy response monitoring for women with breast cancer.

Dr. Gregory Czarnota of Sunnybrook Health Sciences (left) and Professor Michael Kolios of Ryerson University, WaveCheck's inventors.
Dr. Gregory Czarnota of Sunnybrook Health Sciences (left) and Professor Michael Kolios of Ryerson University, WaveCheck’s inventors.

WaveCheck combines traditional ultrasound with new software to detect responses to chemotherapy in breast cancer tissues. By making better, more accurate information available about a woman’s response to her chemotherapy treatment in weeks rather than months, WaveCheck creates greater transparency through dialogue between a women and her doctors, empowering her to participate in discussions about whether a given chemotherapy treatment is effective.

Contribute to WaveCheck‘s Indiegogo campaign and help make this technology available to all women with breast cancer faster.

Media coverage: CTV News Channel, the Globe and Mail and Canadian Healthcare Technology have covered WaveCheck’s campaign.

Developed by Dr. Gregory Czarnota, chief of Radiation Oncology at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre, and Michael C. Kolios, professor of Physics and Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Applications of Ultrasound at Ryerson, WaveCheck has been used in clinical studies with nearly 100 women receiving upfront, neoadjuvant chemotherapy to treat locally-advanced breast cancer. These results are published in two leading journals, Clinical Cancer Research and Translational Oncology.


In the Indiegogo campaign video, Czarnota, Kolios and three of the 100 women who participated in the first Sunnybrook study explain WaveCheck’s impact.

“The hard truth for women with breast cancer is that 60 to 70 per cent of chemotherapy treatments fail,” said Czarnota, who is also a senior scientist and director of cancer research at Sunnybrook Research Institute and assistant professor in the University of Toronto’s Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Biophysics within the Faculty of Medicine. “The 1.5 million women worldwide who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year need to know that their chemotherapy is working as soon as possible. But this kind of treatment monitoring doesn’t currently exist in standard clinical practice. Instead, a woman’s tumour response is evaluated after she completes her chemotherapy treatment, which is typically a four- to six-month process.

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