Applications for next MSc PoP granting round being accepted until February 25, 2016 TORONTO (January 26, 2016) — Nine Ontario-based medical research projects built on great science with potential for…
TORONTO and VANCOUVER, CANADA (January 12, 2016) — A novel drug therapy to reduce the severity and frequency of hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) episodes in people with diabetes is being…
MLA48 leads ConferenceCloud pre-seed round in cooperation with UTEST TORONTO, CANADA (January 11, 2016) — MLA48, Canada’s first angel investment fund committed to providing a 48-hour turnaround on investment decisions,…
2015 created a flurry of activity for MaRS Innovation and our portfolio. As the holidays begin, here are our picks for the top 10 news stories from MI's portfolio in…
UTEST graduate eQOL has received $350,000 from the Ontario Government to support patients managing their kidney dialysis at home. eQOL's solutions use mobile tablets technology to support patients in managing…
“In a project spearheaded by PhD candidate Reza Nosrati, U of T researchers are trying to learn more about the way sperm cells move — something that could benefit those using in vitro fertilization (IVF),” writes Daniel Otis in “Sperm show U of T researchers a new trick: slithering” published in the Toronto Star on November 13, 2015.
MaRS Innovation is working with Professor David Sinton, Nosrati and the university’s Innovations and Partnerships Office to commercialize the technology for the human sperm selection markets, including intellectual property strategy and patent filing, and securing industry partners and collaborators.
The list was published just weeks before the announcement of the fourth UTEST cohort, and included recognition of TrendMD and Whirlscape as notable startups among the graduated UTEST companies.
Here’s the excerpt:
UTEST, a collaboration between U of T and MaRs Innovation, is in its fourth year of operation with 15 teams. The program is one year in length and is only available to current students, recent grads and university faculty. UTest invests $30,000 in its companies in return for 5% equity. Two notable alumni are scholarly content recommendation engine TrendMD and mobile keyboard creator Whirlscape.
The article also mentions Slyce as a breakout company from the INCubes accelerator; the company acquired York University technology through a license deal negotiated by MaRS Innovation prior to their IPO.
TrendMD’s content recommendation engine, an innovative content marketing solution, delivered 450,000 article readers last month
Faced with the challenge of finding research they need across a staggering and ever-growing number of articles online, researchers and clinicians are clicking on personalized article recommendations delivered by TrendMD’s recommendation widget.
TrendMD is a graduate of the UTEST program’s third cohort.
Using sophisticated algorithms across millions of articles served each month, recommended articles are identified based on keywords and user behaviour, such as click behaviour (“people that read X, also clicked on Y”), article popularity, and personalization (what the specific visitor has read on past visits to the network). From an article page with the TrendMD widget, readers get direct links to recommended articles either from within that publisher, or from a third-party publisher — exactly at the moment they are engaged in research– saving time and increasing awareness of relevant research they may not have discovered with a keyword search.
“Since launch, each week we have consistently increased viewers reached by at least 5%. We’re now generating over 95 million recommended articles to approximately 12 million readers per month. Of the people we reach, we’ve delivered over 450,000 readers to publishers in the network. As we continue to grow the TrendMD network, we retain readers longer and increase new traffic for our publishers. We’ve invested in infrastructure to prepare for significant growth in partnerships. We recently indexed over 1 million articles from Wolters Kluwer and began delivering readers to more articles right from the point our recommendation software went live,” said Paul Kudlow, co-founder of TrendMD.
Ingentaconnect recently added 96 journals from 32 publishers to the TrendMD network. Byron Russell, head of Ingentaconnect at Publishing Technology explains, “Each month we direct thousands of readers to our publishing clients’ content and add value by enhancing their research experience. Partnering with TrendMD is an innovative way of delivering more value to both readers and publishers. Readers get highly targeted recommendations for further research, and our publishers’ articles get significantly greater visibility through TrendMD’s growing network.”
In the past month, TrendMD’s recommendation widget was added to over a million articles across hundreds of journals from leading STM publishers such as Wolters Kluwer, Elsevier, Nature Publishing Group, and others. TrendMD’s network is a growing list of the world’s leading research publishers which includes BMJ Group, IEEE (EMBS), MDPI, and Rockefeller University Press. The article recommendation widget is featured across more than 70 publishing partners and is viewed by nearly 12 million readers per month.
“Science, medicine, nursing, and allied health are strengths of our publishers’ network. We can deliver specific article recommendations personalized to a cardiologist’s interests, for example. Articles are identified based on what the user is reading at the moment and what he or she and others also clicked on from within the TrendMD widget across visits to network publishers’ articles,” Paul Kudlow commented.
TORONTO, Oct. 21, 2015 – Working with five leading universities in North America during 2014-15, Crowdmark Inc., a collaborative online grading and analytics platform, has demonstrated the benefits and advantages of using two-stage examinations in a number of undergraduate programs in post-secondary institutions across the world.
Crowdmark has worked with universities to introduce two-stage exams as a way to integrate collaborative learning and assessment into the traditional exam format. In a two-stage exam, students individually complete the exam and then, working in groups of three to four, immediately complete the exam again. This method provides students with immediate feedback through discussion with their peers as they deliberate the most correct response. The two-stage exam provides feedback on individual performance while increasing students’ engagement and comprehension of course content.
James Colliander, Crowdmark Founder/CEO and Professor of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia is encouraged by the reception two-stage exams have received at universities in North America.
“The experiments with two-stage exams last spring were very informative and helped shape our platform to support a new and emerging assessment scenario,” says Colliander. “Also with feedback from our customers, we made elegant improvements allowing Crowdmark to be used for other assessment types including lab reports and group projects.”
TORONTO, ON (September 30, 2015) — Encycle Therapeutics, Inc., a University of Toronto spin-off company created in partnership with MaRS Innovation, announced today that it has completed a $2.85 million (CAD) financing led by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. through its venture capital arm, Takeda Ventures, Inc., with Accel-Rx Health Sciences Accelerator, BDC Capital and MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund.
The funding will support ongoing development of Encycle’s unique nacellin platform chemistry and advance the company’s pipeline of novel therapeutics. It will also allow the company to build on research collaborations with several pharmaceutical companies and ultimately position it for a series A transaction and/or additional strategic partnerships.
“Our proprietary chemistry has the potential to unlock myriad therapeutic avenues, including via intracellular protein-protein interactions that cannot be targeted with conventional therapeutics,” said Dr. Jeffrey Coull, president and CEO of Encycle Therapeutics; upon the closing, Coull joined Encycle’s board of directions. “This funding is critical to enable the company to further explore the vast potential of our technology and to de-risk it to the extent that major transactions will be enabled.”
“Our goal is to make an impact on patients’ lives by turning science and technology into life-changing medicines. We are enthusiastic about Encycle’s technology and its potential in the context of ‘undruggable’ proteins,” said Dr. Ilan Zipkin, senior investment director at Takeda.
“Encycle’s growing momentum reflects MaRS Innovation’s efforts to shift the Canadian paradigm for technology transfer,” said Dr. Raphael Hofstein, chairman of the Encycle Therapeutics Board of Directors and president and CEO of MaRS Innovation. “This company began with promising research in Dr. Andrei Yudin’s laboratory at the University of Toronto. With crucial support from many players along the Ontario-Quebec life sciences corridor, MaRS Innovation collaborated with him to package and protect the technology, launch the company and hire experienced management. The success of this funding round bodes well for its future growth and success.”