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Globe and Mail and Global News Toronto cover early-stage Bio Printer technology

U of T Ph.D. student Lian Leng demonstrates how the Bio Printer prototype creates new skin cells.
U of T Ph.D. student Lian Leng demonstrates how the Bio Printer prototype creates new skin cells. Screen shot courtesy of Global News Toronto.

An early-stage technology that may revolutionize the way burn victims are treated is generating considerable buzz in Toronto media this week.

Globe and Mail reporter Robert Everett-Green wrote about the joint University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre project January 20 in “A 3-D machine that prints skin? How burn care could be revolutionized.”

Health reporter Beatrice Politi also covered the Bio Printer project for Global News Toronto January 21. Her video segment includes an interview with PhD student Lian Leng and a look at the existing Bio Printer prototype.

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Shotlst: “Track changes” for the physical world

Shotlst is one of six inaugural UTEST companies; next UTEST application round to begin shortly

UTEST-Shotlst co-founders Matt Ratto (left) and Mike Borg
Shotlst co-founders Matt Ratto (left) and Mike Borg. Shotlst was one of six companies accepted into UTEST‘s inaugural cohort. Photo courtesy of Jon Horvatin, University of Toronto.

What if you could turn on Microsoft Word’s “track changes” tool and apply it at will to the world around you?

Sound like science fiction?

Meet Matt Ratto, a professor in the University of T’s Faculty of Information, and Mike Borg, a recent graduate of the faculty. They’ve formed Shotlst, a new software company being incubated by the University of Toronto Early Stage Technology (UTEST) program.

The central metaphor of Shotlst is the “shot list,” a list of scenes a film director plans to get each day on a movie set. It serves to organize the cast and crew’s time and activity for the day.

With Shotlst, a user decides at the outset on “shots” that will be consistent throughout the life of a project.

For example, an architect might take pictures of a cardboard model of a building, 3-D renderings and, later, the actual construction site. These shots would serve as raw material that colleagues could use to annotate and collaborate using the software.

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Gen Magazine features Dr. Aaron Wheeler’s research in microfluidics

MI_kapplexGEN Magazine (Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News) featured the microfluidics research of Dr. Aaron Wheeler on November 15, 2012.

Wheeler, Canada Research Chair of Bioanalytical Chemistry and an associate professor at the University of Toronto, has made an invention disclosure to MaRS Innovation; Kapplex is the start-up company created to commercialize his research.

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Stem Cell Therapeutics, UHN and MaRS Innovation Announce Novel, Clinical-Stage, Cancer Stem Cell Program Agreement

Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. logo
Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp.

Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. (TSX VENTURE:SSS), a life sciences company developing stem cell-related technologies, today announced the signing of an agreement with University Health Network (UHN), through its commercialization agent MaRS Innovation (MI), both of Toronto.

The agreement provides Stem Cell Therapeutics (“SCT”) with an option to an exclusive world-wide license to an innovative cancer stem cell program.

This agreement produced a license for a UHN technology on April 17, 2013.

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Shotlst CEO featured in Globe article on future of tech in education

Shotlst LogoMatt Ratto, assistant professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information and co-inventor and CEO of Shotlst, a UTEST company, was featured in the Globe and Mail on October 22 in an article by Nick Rockel on how emerging technology will change the education experience.

Here’s an excerpt:

Asked what the technological tools in university classrooms will look and feel like by 2020, Matt Ratto admits he’s no futurist. But the assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information is helping shape the future – by changing students’ relationship with technology.

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Baxter and MaRS Innovation Form Strategic Partnership

Partnership to invest up to $1M in promising Canadian healthcare discoveries

Baxter Corporate Headquarters in Mississauga, ON
Baxter Corporate Headquarters in Mississauga, ON

TORONTO, Ontario, October 4, 2012—Baxter International Inc. and MaRS Innovation, a Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research, have entered into a strategic partnership to commercialize early-stage technologies that present innovative methods in therapeutics and drug discovery technologies.

Information about Baxter and MaRS Innovation’s partnership is also available in French.

The partnership’s shared vision for delivering novel, transformative therapeutic technologies will benefit Canadians and others around the world. Baxter and MaRS Innovation will identify investment opportunities emerging from well-validated scientific research discoveries within MaRS Innovation’s 16 member institutions, including the University of Toronto and its nine affiliated teaching hospitals.

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U of T, MaRS Innovation Collaborate to Launch Incubator for Student Software Companies

Hadi Aladdin (left) and Marwan Aladdin, U of T graduates and the founders of CoursePeer.
Hadi Aladdin (left) and Marwan Aladdin, U of T graduates and the founders of CoursePeer, one of six UTEST companies.

TORONTO, ON – A new program that provides nascent software companies with start-up funds, work space, mentoring and business strategy support, was launched today by the University of Toronto and commercialization partner MaRS Innovation, with support from the MaRS Discovery District.

TechVibes has a profile page for UTEST and covered CoursePeer as part of their students start-ups series.

The new program, called University of Toronto Early Stage Technology (UTEST), is part of a growing ecosystem of incubators and commercialization support services at U of T, including the newly-launched Banting and Best Institute. UTEST is unique among campus incubators in that its companies receive start-up funds—$30,000 each in this inaugural year—and because it accepts companies in the very earliest stages of idea generation, before they’re ready for traditional incubators.

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Business Without Borders highlights ScarX Therapeutics’ Chinese co-development partnership

ScarX logoScarX Therapeutics, a spin-off company created by MaRS Innovation and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), was profiled by Business Without Borders on September 25, 2012.

Sean Fine‘s article examines the strategic funding partnership MI pursued with NovoTek Therapeutics Inc. (NovoTek) in China to develop the anti-scarring cream, which was discovered by researchers at SickKids.

A multibillion-dollar market may await ScarX, a Toronto biomedical start-up, but first it had to figure out how to finance the development of its unique cream that reduces scarring after surgery.

Its answer to the shortage of Canadian venture capital in life sciences turned out to be a partnership with a drug company in China.

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