R & D NEWS

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MaRS Centre Open for Business
The long wait is finally over.
After years of planning and construction, the doors of the MaRS (Medical and Related Sciences) Centre are officially open. A part of the not-for-profit MaRS Discovery District, the centre is located in the heart of Toronto, Ont. and is designed to serve as a gateway for health-related research, development and commercialization efforts across the province.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty attended the opening, stating that the new centre will facilitate innovation and economic growth in the province. The Ontario government contributed $50.5 million to the centre.
The 700,000-square-foot facility has been fully leased to a wide variety of tenants such as biotechnology firms, research centres, technology transfer organizations, venture capitalists, lawyers, accountants and networking organizations. A second 800,000-square-foot phase of development is slated for completion in 2008.


BC Innovation Council Rewards SFU Researcher
B. Mario Pinto, PhD, a professor of chemical biology and vice-president of research at Burnaby, B.C.-based Simon Fraser University, has been recognized with a Frontiers in Research Award from the BC Innovation Council (Vancouver, BC).
The award acknowledges Pinto’s work synthesizing complex carbohydrate molecules. Pinto’s research goals include developing drug candidates for Type 2 diabetes and metastatic cancer, as well as vaccines for viruses such as HIV-1 and Streptococcus Group A and B.
Pinto received the award at a ceremony at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver on October 17.

Stem Cell Pioneers Win Lasker Award
It’s better late than never.
Nearly 40 years after conducting their groundbreaking stem cell research, James Till, PhD and Dr. Ernest McCulloch have been awarded the prestigious 2005 Albert Lasker Award, the United States’ answer to the Nobel Prize.
During their collaboration in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the University of Toronto (U of T) (Toronto, ON) researchers laid the groundwork for several important discoveries by identifying and establishing the properties of stem cells in the blood-forming system.
Their discovery transformed the field of hematology and elucidated the principles of bone marrow transplantation, while setting the stage for
all modern-day stem cell research. Minister of Health Ujjal Dosanjh, Minister of Industry David Emerson, and Canadian Institutes
of Health Research (Ottawa, ON) president Dr. Alan Bernstein were among those to publicly congratulate the two award winners.
Till, 74, and McCulloch, 79, received the award at ceremony held this September in New York City. Both men currently work as senior scientists at the Ontario Cancer Institute at Princess Margaret Hospital (Toronto, ON) and are professors emeritus at U of T.

McMaster Opens New Research Centre
The ribbon has been cut on the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery (Hamilton, ON).
Located at McMaster University, the multi-purpose research and teaching centre houses researchers in the fields of genomics, molecular medicine, gene therapeutics and cancer and stem cell research. The building also serves as the new home to McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote school of medicine.
Made possible by a record-breaking $105-million private donation from its namesake, the centre includes lecture halls, a three-storey atrium with a winter garden, and a vector production laboratory, the first of its kind at a Canadian university.
Several dignitaries attended the centre’s opening ceremonies, including DeGroote, McMaster president and vice-chancellor Peter George, PhD and Mick Bhatia, PhD who will head the facility’s new Institute for Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Research.