BioLab Business Spring 2023

LAB PROFILE

Drögemöller Lab: Solving drug-induced hearing loss

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Researchers identify therapeutic target to prevent lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients

PRECISION MEDICINE

DIVersifying and personalizing TREATMENTS

Machine learning helping to predict the unpredictable

PUBLISHER & CEO Christopher J. Forbes cforbes@dvtail.com

MANAGING EDITOR Sean Tarry starry@dvtail.com

COPY EDITOR Mitchell Brown

CONTRIBUTORS Jana Manolakos Robert Price David Suzuki

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ACCOUNT mmignardi@dvtail.com

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ART DIRECTOR Sharon MacIntosh smacintosh@dvtail.com

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THE PRECIPICE OF PRECISION MEDICINE

There’sno doubt that we’re currently living in the true age of digitization—one that’s been accelerated over recent years via technological breakthroughs and adoption. And, given constant advancements within biomedicine, it’s no surprise that its convergence with the latest technologies is leading to mind-boggling discoveries and innovative solutions to help address challenges. As a result, research and study concerning precision medicine and the development of more personalized therapies and treatments has never been more intense, yielding some of the most incredible possibilities and unleashing boundless potential.

Without proper investment into the biomanufacturing and life sciences sectors, however, much of the possibilities and potential posed by precision medicine could go untapped. Within the Spring issue of BioLab Business magazine, we highlight the Government of Canada’s recently announced pledge to establish a network of new research hubs in order to strengthen the sectors and related research.

In an effort to uncover some of the incredible work that’s being conducted by scientists and technicians in laboratories across the country, we highlight the studies of Cam Meaney, a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo, and the ways in which precision mapping of tumour growth may pave the way toward more accurately projecting future accelerations, leading to much more personalized and improved treatment and care.

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We also feature the findings of a decade-long study conducted by 44 researchers representing 23 different institutions across Europe and Canada which reveals a link between genetic changes that occur in kidney cancer patients and the likelihood of the cancer recurring. Leveraging DNA sequencing techniques, it’s leading to a better understanding of the disease and the ways in which individual patients should be assessed and treated.

And, we explore the work being done at Vita Therapeutics—a cell engineering company that’s harnessing the power of genetics inside its neuro muscular platform to improve outcomes for muscular dystrophy patients, presenting incredible promise for future therapies to treat a range of degenerative muscle conditions.

As technology and medical research continues to advance at incomprehensible speeds, their confluence is sparking an exciting new age of life sciences. And, supported by biomanufacturing breakthroughs, it’s leading to a new way of approaching patient treatment and care.

Chris Forbes PUBLISHER & CEO

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Funded by the Government of Canada

BY DAVID SUZUKI WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM QUEBEC AND ATLANTIC CANADA DIRECTOR SABAA KHAN

IT’S TIME TO BREAK THE TOXIC CHAIN OF “FOREVER CHEMICALS”

significant harm in farming and fishing communities in the U.S., leading to a flurry of litigation and stricter regulation in a number of jurisdictions. The recent revelation that contaminated biosolids are being exported from the U.S. to Canada has raised concerns that we’ve fallen behind other jurisdictions in regulating this intergenerational, expansive and currently uncontrolled public health risk.

Tens

of thousands of hazardous chemicals flood the global market daily. We don’t fully know how most of them are affecting human health and the environment.

Scientific research has demonstrated, though, that widespread dispersion is causing significant health problems, including a “silent pandemic of neurodevelopmental toxicity”—that is, they’re affecting human nervous systems throughout the lives of those exposed, even before birth. Exposure can result in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, cancer, reproductive and immune system harm and more.

The chemicals we rely on in everyday life are also causing “catastrophic” declines in bird and pollinator populations, among others.

Globalized trade and supply chains make it difficult to map the range of toxic substances that manufactured products may contain. With multiple levels of subcontracting across continents and legal protections for confidential business information, it’s often difficult to know exactly what many commodities are made of, where they originated and what hazards they contain. Many multinational firms are unable to thoroughly trace their supply chains.

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS—often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily— are used in a broad range of industrial, commercial and personal health products, from cookware to clothing to construction materials, in part because of their water- and stain-resistant properties.

Not only do they take a long time to biodegrade, they also travel long distances through air and water and have been detected in the environment, animals and humans in almost all regions of the world. A U.S. study found them in the blood of 97 per cent of people tested.

Like other persistent organic pollutants, PFAS accumulate in the Arctic region, causing disproportionate toxic harm to communities far removed from their production and consumption chains.

Studies dating as far back as the 1960s found these substances to be harmful, which eventually led to many being phased out. But, as has been the case throughout our history of chemical use, they’re often replaced with other synthetic chemicals that pose similar risks to human and environmental health.

Forever chemicals in water bodies and “biosolids”—organic matter from wastewater treatment used as soil fertilizer—have caused

The European Union is considering a proposal to ban more than 10,000 PFAS, and the U.S. is also strengthening measures to address contamination and restrict uses. It’s crucial that Canada’s federal and provincial governments address the massive regulatory gap here. While the federal government holds jurisdiction over toxic substances and has committed to developing a report on the current state of these chemicals, expected to be published this year, provincial governments also have a key role to play in areas under their jurisdiction—for example, watershed and waste management, effluent discharges from industries and drinking water safety.

The recent international COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal underscored the need to reduce pollution from highly hazardous chemicals, an objective included under Target 7 of the resulting global agreement. Federal and provincial governments need to accelerate action on regulating and restricting PFAS to protect public and environmental health from these dangerous substances that have been rampantly commercialized without consideration for the long-lasting harms they pose.

Our current legal frameworks for chemical risk governance have proven to be ineffective and unable to keep up with the speed at which new substances are being introduced to the market. The reality is that chemical governance frameworks have been propelled mainly by economic objectives, not environmental or public health concerns. Ultimately, we need an alternative vision of chemical risk governance, one that not only integrates but prioritizes fundamental environmental principles and objectives, such as intergenerational equity and common concern for humanity.

Prioritizing profit and economic growth over human health and the environment is a shortsighted and increasingly costly way of living that threatens our very survival. The convenience offered by these chemicals is not worth the significant long-lasting dangers. It’s time to make “forever” chemicals a thing of the past.

Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Canada’s bioscience employers recognized for their commitment to diversity

BioTalent Canada—an organization that helps support the people behind life-changing science— recently announced recipients of its inaugural I.D.E.A.L. Bioscience Employer designation.

Recognizing entities within the Canadian bio-economy that embody the principles of ‘inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility leadership’ (IDEAL) throughout their operations and practices, the I.D.E.A.L. Recognition Program has been developed to encourage and facilitate the best practices required in order to promote growth and success in the country’s biotech sector.

Launched at the beginning of 2022, BioTalent Canada accepted applications from organizations of all sizes across Canada, evaluating them each through an impartial process to determine nine recipients to receive the I.D.E.A.L. Bioscience Employer designation. It represents a critical step in ensuring diversity within the sector. And, according to Rob Henderson, President and CEO of BioTalent Canada, it also represents a way forward toward future growth for Canadian Bioscience companies.

“Diversity is critical to attract and retain talent in Canada and is a key strategy cited in our Labour Market Research, particularly in our study of creating resiliency in the bio-economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic,” he says. “We developed the I.D.E.A.L. Bioscience Employer Recognition Program as the culmination of a study we conducted in partnership with the Future Skills Centre to showcase some of the great things happening and what’s possible when organizations make equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility a priority.”

Criteria used to evaluate the submissions included an organization’s

alignment of IDEA principles to their vision, values, strategies, and outcomes; leadership accountability for IDEA; and the priority the organization places on IDEA learning and awareness, among others.

Recipients of the 2022 I.D.E.A.L. Bioscience Employer Recognition Program include the following organizations (listed alphabetically):

AgriTech North: This organization based in Dryden, Ontario focuses on reducing food costs in northern Indigenous communities, holds daily discussions and learnings on IDEA topics, and is led by a chief executive who is Indigenous and differently abled.

BioCanRx: This cancer researcher headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario has made a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at its gender balanced board of directors. Additionally, BioCanRx runs an Indigenous Student Internship program and includes patient voices in all its research findings.

Health Cities: The Edmonton-based company is focused on providing health data to decision makers in Alberta. Health Cities promotes equity in healthcare and provides internships and apprenticeships for under-represented groups in the bio-economy. They also focus strongly on employee mental health.

Life Sciences Ontario (LSO): A Toronto not-for-profit that advances Ontario life sciences, LSO runs an internal/external committee focused on inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility leadership, and incorporates those principles into its strategic planning. The committee is comprised of members of the LSO board and external experts in IDEA.

Nicotine Dependence Service (CAMH): The Nicotine Dependence Service at the Centre for Addiction

and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto includes IDEA principles in its organizational charter. It also puts IDEA principles at the centre of the programs it offers to the public and consults with staff to develop their culture and values.

Origin Materials: This carbon negative materials company based in Sarnia, Ontario is adding IDEA components to its 2023 performance indicators for staff. Additionally, the company tracks gender diversity metrics and hired a consulting firm to conduct a survey to measure IDEA as their team grows.

Raft Brew Labs: Situated in Calgary, Alberta, Raft Brew Labs uses biotechnology to bolster small beverage producers in Canada and has created an inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility handbook through one-on-one conversations with team members and offers incentives to increase those principles among employees.

Shift Health: This organization integrates inclusion and diversity into its vision and mission and works with marginalized communities. The Toronto-based group also works to build awareness of the challenges faced by individuals with visual impairments and creates written content that is more accessible.

STEMCELL Technologies: This Vancouver-based maker of scientific instruments has a three-year strategy built around equity, diversity and inclusion. Its main pillars are to focus on gender equality, increasing the representation of underrepresented groups, and investing in Indigenous communities. They also conduct regular audits on their hiring, promotion and pay equity processes.

For more information about the I.D.E.A.L. Bioscience Employer Recognition Program, visit biotalent.ca

New bone imaging technique driving potential improvements to osteoporosis treatment

Led by Dr. David Cooper, the research team leveraged the use of the BMIT beamline of the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan in order to view the incredibly tiny pores inside cortical bone—the dense outer surface of bone that accounts for the majority of bone mass. These pores change over time, showing how bone tissue is continuously removed and replaced.

Using parathyroid hormone, the team of researchers stimulated bone in order to facilitate changes, tracking these changes over the course of a two-week period.

It’s estimated that somewhere in the region of 2.3 million Canadians are stricken by the often times debilitating effects of osteoporosis—a condition that results in undue physical anguish for those impacted by it, and billions of dollars of economic burden for the country.

However, a research team from the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan recently made a

significant breakthrough that could serve to be a real game-changer concerning the study and treatment of the disease. By developing a new and unique approach to imaging that enables the detection of alterations in bone tissue more quickly and efficiently than traditional bone densitometry scans, potential improvements related to drug treatments may be made possible.

Dr. Cooper , who’s been studying within this particular area for more than a decade, explains that by using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), researchers were able to, for the very first time ever, see the shapes of the cortical bone pores and track their changes over time. It’s a breakthrough that is set to establish a completely new way of looking at bone turnover, he says, adding that the speed at which detection in changes can be made could have a substantial impact on the ways in which drugs are used in the treatment of osteoporosis in the future.

Halifax bioscience labs receive $1.7 million in government funding

It was recently announced that the Atlantic Canada biosciences sector is set to receive a boost with an injection of $1.7 million in funding from the Canadian federal government.

The funding, as part of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s (ACOA) Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program, will serve to help Halifax startups get a leg up in their research and related work.

Three companies will share the funding. ClearDynamic, which developed a non-invasive remedy using microscopic glass balls injected into the bloodstream to block nerve pain in

joints, will receive $950,000. Agada Biosciences, which specializes in testing drugs for rare muscle diseases, will receive $500,000. And NovaResp Technologies, which designs and develops state-of-the-art AI-powered sleep apnea assistance software, will receive $250,000.

The bioscience sector in the Atlantic provinces is a robust one, employing more than 10,000 people, according to Statistics Canada. Funding of this nature goes a long way toward ensuring the growth and success of those contributing to vital research and study.

Daniel Boyd, Founder of ClearDynamic, and MP Andy Fillmore.

Photo by Mathieu Hebert

Longitudinal erosion rate (LER) assessment based on synchrotron radiation (SR) micro-CT and micro-CT co-registered scans. Image courtesy of Canadian Light Source

ORIGINAL PROTEINS GENERATED FROM SCRATCH USING AI

With the help of Salesforce Research, scientists recently created an AI-powered system that’s able to generate artificial enzymes from nothing. And, the results are incredible. In fact, according to researchers, laboratory tests proved that the newly created enzymes work as well as those found in nature, despite the fact that their artificially-generated amino acid sequences were characteristically apart from any known natural protein.

The AI program, called ProGen, was developed by Salesforce Research and uses next-token prediction as a means by which to assemble amino acid sequences into artificial proteins. According to scientists involved in the project, the breakthrough is set to revolutionize the half-century-old field of protein engineering by significantly facilitating the development of new proteins that can serve a number of different purposes, from use within therapeutics to contributing to the process of degrading plastics.

The ProGen program was developed as a natural language model to read and write language text. However, it was discovered that it also displayed the ability to learn at least some of the underlying principles of biology, presenting the opportunity to leverage the program for different effects.

In order to do so, scientists simply fed the amino acid sequences of 280 million different proteins of all kinds into the machine learning model, allowing a couple of weeks for it to dissect all of the information. Shortly thereafter, the scientists primed the model by inputting 56,000 sequences from 5 lysozyme families, in addition to contextual information about the proteins.

What resulted was the generation of over a million sequences in a remarkably short amount of time, from which the researchers selected 100 to test. Of these 100 proteins, 5 artificial proteins were chosen to test in order to compare their activity to enzymes found in the whites of chicken eggs. Testing revealed that sequences between the artificial and natural enzymes were only around 18 per cent identical. However, it was also proven through study that the AI-generated enzymes showed activity even when as little as 31.4 per cent of their sequence resembled any known natural protein.

It’s a breakthrough that shows tremendous potential and limitless possibilities with respect to the study of functional proteins, signalling a new era of protein design.

Brain shielded and monitored by newly discovered anatomy

The most complex part of the human body, the brain continues to reveal its wonders and incredible capabilities to the scientists and researchers who study its form and function. In fact, it’s been discovered that a component of the brain anatomy, which until now was completely unknown, serves as a protective barrier as well as a platform from which immune cells surveil the brain for infection and inflammation.

This type of study of the living human brain at such a granular and detailed level has been made possible by recent advances in neuro-imaging and molecular biology, enabling boundless opportunities to continue furthering our understanding of the brain. And, this latest study, put forward by the labs of Maiken Nedergaard, co-director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester and the University of Copenhagen and Kjeld Møllgård, M.D., a professor of neuroanatomy at the University of Copenhagen, has helped to identify a new layer within the brain dividing the space below the arachnoid layer, the subarachnoid space, into two compartments, which researchers have called SLYM (Subarachnoidal LYmphatic-like Membrane).

The discovery made by Nedergaard and Møllgård is a significant one when it comes to the study of the brain, particularly with respect to bettering our understanding of the diseases that impact the organ. It could lead to a more comprehensive interpretation of conditions such as multiple sclerosis, central nervous system infections, and Alzheimer’s, how their symptoms might be triggered or worsened by abnormalities in SLYM function, and ways by which treatment for symptoms can be enhanced.

MANAGING BRAIN DISORDERS WITH NEURO-CHIPS

The future for people suffering with brain disorders just became a little brighter thanks in no small part to a discovery made by researchers at the University of Switzerland’s Integrated Neurotechnologies Laboratory.

Combining low-power chip design, machine learning algorithms, and soft implantable electrodes, the team, led by Mahsa Shoaran and Stéphanie Lacour, was able to produce a neural interface which identifies and suppresses symptoms of a range of neurological disorders.

The pair developed a closed-loop neuromodulation system-on-chip that they’ve called NeuralTree which can recognize and address symptoms of disease.

By leveraging a 256-channel high-resolution sensing array and high-powered machine learning processor, a plethora of biomarkers can be extracted and classified from real patient data, leading to increased rates of accuracy when it comes to predicting symptoms before they occur. These neural biomarkers, which are patterns of electrical signals that are understood to be linked to certain neurological disorders, are extracted from brain waves and analyzed to determine whether or not, for instance, a person might be susceptible to an impending epileptic seizure, Parkinsonian tremor, or other type of attack. If any such symptom is detected, a neurostimulator is activated, sending an electrical pulse to block it.

The innovation is state-of-theart, to say the least, and is making waves throughout the brain disorder research community, presenting an incredible opportunity to continue broadening our understanding of brain disorders and improve the ways by which we treat their symptoms.

DEVELOPING CAPACITY AND ACCELERATING PRODUCTION

Establishment of new research hubs to further strengthen Canada’s biomanufacturing and life sciences sectors

BY SEAN TARRY

To continue to protect Canadians and to build a resilient biomanufacturing ecosystem, our government is taking every action possible to be equipped with the best tools. We’re proud to foster the research needed to produce cutting-edge discoveries and products in our very own labs that will help us build a stronger, more robust life sciences sector that responds to the needs of Canadians for decades to come.

—The Honourable François-Philippe Champagn

Thehistory of Canadian biomanufacturing and life sciences is a storied one. From the work and research of Frederick Banting and Charles Best, under the leadership of John Macleod, concerning early advancements related to the understanding of diabetes, to current labours conducted by Dr. Chil-Yong Kang and his team at the University of Western Ontario on their breakthrough Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trial preventive vaccine for HIV, and scores of accomplishments in between, the list of Canadian credits within the fields is lengthy. However, it’s been well established that the areas of study have lacked the appropriate funding necessary to meaningfully propel research forward. In light of this, the Government of Canada recently announced the establishment of new research hubs to accelerate Canada’s vaccine and therapeutics production, significantly strengthening the country’s biomanufacturing and life sciences sectors, in efforts to protect Canadians against any and all future health threats.

It’s an announcement of funding that’s being applauded by many within and around the biomanufacturing and life science fields, and has been hailed by some as the much-needed springboard from which the sectors can advance and grow. In fact, according to The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, it’s funding that could serve to provide a catalyst for continuous expansion and progress within the areas well into the future.

“To continue to protect Canadians and to build a resilient biomanufacturing ecosystem, our government is taking every action possible to be equipped with the best tools,” he says. “We’re proud to foster the research needed to produce cutting-edge discoveries and products in our very own labs that will help us build a stronger, more robust life sciences sector that responds to the needs of Canadians for decades to come.”

It’s funding that no doubt has been facilitated by impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic and the disruptions, disturbances and devastation that it caused throughout the world. And it’s funding that’s been injected directly into pointed efforts to scale up domestic biomanufacturing capacity, which has been on the decline in the country over the course of the past half-century or so. It’s representative of a commitment by the federal government to rebuild a strong and competitive biomanufacturing and life sciences sector by strengthening the ecosystem’s foundations via the research and talent of Canada’s postsecondary institutions and hospitals, and by fostering increased collaboration with innovative companies.

The rebuild is of critical importance, says The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Canada’s Minister of Health, who adds that the investment ensures that the country’s health researchers and practitioners are equipped with the resources necessary to deliver positive results.

“The health and safety of everyone in Canada is a top priority for our government,” he asserts. “To modernize and advance work in the areas of vaccines and therapeutics, we must continue to invest in health research—that is what these hubs will help us achieve. Together, with experts, provinces and territories, and other partners, we will keep strengthening our preparedness for possible future pandemics.”

In order to create the infrastructure necessary to accelerate vaccine and therapeutics production, the Government of Canada is investing $10 million in the creation of the following 5 research hubs:

• CBRF PRAIRIE Hub, led by the University of Alberta

• Canada’s Immuno-Engineering and Biomanufacturing Hub, led by The University of British Columbia

• Eastern Canada Pandemic Preparedness Hub, led by the Université de Montréal

• Canadian Pandemic Preparedness Hub, led by the University of Ottawa and McMaster University

• Canadian Hub for Health Intelligence & Innovation in Infectious Diseases, led by the University of Toronto

As part of Stage 1 of the integrated Canada Biomedical Research Fund (CBRF) and Biosciences Research Infrastructure Fund (BRIF) competition, investments are a significant portion of the focused effort being placed on bolstering research and talent development efforts within the country which will be led by institutions, working in close collaboration with their partners. Combining the acumen of academia, industry and the public and non-profit sectors, says Ted Hewitt, Chair, Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat; President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Chair, Canada Research Coordinating Committee, the hubs will serve to improve Canada’s pandemic readiness and the overall health and wellbeing of Canadians.

“The Canada Biomedical Research Fund highlights the importance of multidisciplinary research in addressing critical challenges of importance to the wellbeing and prosperity of Canadians,” he points out. “The research hubs announced today are critical in our national quest to establish a strong Canadian presence in the bioindustry sector and, particularly, domestic vaccine production. We congratulate the leadership of these important research hubs, and look forward to working with them as they work to realize Canada’s full potential as a global leader in biomedical innovation.”

The multidisciplinary research that Hewitt refers to will be bountifully evident within the operations of the hubs, serving to accelerate development of advanced vaccines and therapeutics and diagnostics, while also going a long way toward supporting the vital training necessary to foster the next generation of skilled talent. In addition, the hubs are also going to serve to accelerate the development of cutting-edge research into commercially viable products and processes.

It’s all part of the government’s CBRF-BRIF strategy, which has thus far included the following investments made toward the growth of Canada’s life sciences firms:

Canada Biomedical Research Fund

$250 million to create a program to support high-risk, applied research, training and talent development partnership projects. Administered by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) on behalf of the three federal research funding agencies: SSHRC, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Biosciences Research Infrastructure Fund

An investment of $500 million to support the biosciences infrastructure needs of postsecondary institutions and affiliated research hospitals. This fund is administered by the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

In addition, over the course of the past 2 years, the federal government has committed to investing a further $1.8 billion toward 33 different projects within biomanufacturing, vaccines and therapeutics.

All told, the investments and commitment made by the government has helped to quickly develop a framework on which the future of Canada’s biomanufacturing and life sciences sectors will be built. Reenforcing a robust ecosystem of multidisciplinary research and collaboration, the strategy, says Roseann O’Reilly Runte, President and CEO, Canada Foundation for Innovation, will contribute substantially toward protecting the country’s population against potential threats down the road, while enabling the flexibility and agility to respond swiftly and decidedly to said threats

“Collaboration enables timely and thoughtful responses to the many urgent needs caused by the global pandemic, and allows us to plan,” she explains. “Whether between research teams, across disciplines, or among institutions and industry sectors, the Biosciences Research Infrastructure Fund complements the efforts of the research hubs. The fund encourages collaboration and addresses infrastructure needs in institutions and research hospitals, to support pandemic preparedness and responses to emerging health threats.”

THE HUBS OF BIOMANUFACTURING AND LIFE SCIENCE IN CANADA

These research hubs—each a coalition of research unto themselves— are multidisciplinary in nature and will serve to strengthen Canada’s biomanufacturing and life sciences sectors and support critical research towards the advancement of pandemic readiness and response initiatives, including the acceleration of the production of vaccines and therapeutics.

THE CBRF PRAIRIE HUB

Protecting Canada by Building on Excellence in Pandemic Preparedness. Led by the University of Alberta to accelerate the development and commercialization of vaccine, antiviral and diagnostic countermeasures for potential pandemic pathogens.

CANADA’S IMMUNO-ENGINEERING AND BIOMANUFACTURING HUB

Engineering Immunity for Pandemic Response. Led by The University of British Columbia to help develop next-generation immune-based therapeutics that can be manufactured domestically using the latest innovations in biomanufacturing in response to pandemics.

EASTERN CANADA PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS HUB (ECAPPH)

Led by the Université de Montréal to increase the agility, connectivity and growth of the biomanufacturing and life sciences sectors to ensure that Canada is prepared for future pandemics and public health crises.

CANADIAN PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS HUB (CP2H)

Led by the University of Ottawa and McMaster University to facilitate research and biomanufacturing innovations to help Canada produce vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics ahead of future pandemics.

CANADIAN HUB FOR HEALTH INTELLIGENCE & INNOVATION IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES (HI3)

Led by the University of Toronto to advance the concept of “personalized and precise medicine” to influence the development of vaccines, therapeutics and other public health interventions.

Predicting with precision

Machine learning maps pathways of tumour growth

BY ROBERT PRICE

Tumours grow in funny ways for lots of reasons. Brain geometry and skull density play a part in determining where a tumour decides to grow. Gravity, too, gives them direction: humans spend most of their lives on two feet, so tumours often tend to reach down into the brain. Add to these factors the complexity produced by blood vessels and how tumours access nutrients and oxygen and their structure—and future structure—boggles the mind.

The unpredictability of tumour growth has long been a challenge for oncologists. If clinicians could determine in which direction and at what rate a tumour is most likely to grow, they could craft more precise treatments and time interventions to maximize damage to the cancer. While not exactly the holy grail of cancer research—that would be

“the cure”—precision mapping of tumour growth is a step towards better treatment, if not the grail, and one made by advances developed by researchers in Canada.

Mapping the Brain

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a particularly nasty— and common—type of brain cancer. Survival time is around two years, tumours are hard to treat with drugs, and surgery is difficult since the fast-growing tumours can grow in parts of the brain that are impossible to reach.

In a new paper published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, Cam Meaney, a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo working in the field of mathematical oncology, along with his colleagues, has demonstrated that

mathematical models can predict the progression of GBM. In the study, the researchers took diffusion weighted imaging of brain tumours and fed these into a machine learning algorithm called “the proliferation-invasion model (PI)” that made predictions using patient-specific parameters to deliver patient-specific projections of the future growth of the tumour.

The work began with what Meaney calls “fake brains”— synthetic, computationally generated brains that allowed the researchers to study tumour growth. The researchers— Cameron Meaney and Mohammad Kohandel at the University of Waterloo, and Sunit Das and Errol Colak at the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital—then applied the model to the clinical data of five patients diagnosed with GBM.

Using the modelling, the researchers were able to “derive evidence-based estimates for each of the PI model parameters and predictions for the future progression of the tumour, along with estimates of the parameter uncertainties.”

How the research plays out in the lab involves studying MRI images of brain scans and other inputs that are then fed into the algorithm coded in Python. (Samples of this code are available to researchers on Meaney’s GitHub page.) A range of inputs and possibilities are added to the scenarios—like the size of the brain, the size of the tumour, its placement, and other factors related to the patient’s health—and the machine “grows” the tumour on the screen through a series of iterations.

The algorithms have proven to be “extremely accurate within percentages of a percentage” at predicting growth of

Mathematical oncology is a burgeoning field dedicated to taking theoretical mathematics out of the esoterica of the university and using mathematical tools and artificial intelligence to optimize drug sequencing, drug combinations, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy in cancer treatment.

computationally-generated tumours, Meaney says. As for how these predictions will work on real patients, he says the work is developing. “It’s very difficult to assess true accuracy in a clinical setting, but based on the sort of roundabout methods that we tend to use in the field for assessing that, it’s quite accurate.”

As a tool, deep learning, also called machine learning, can

do more sophisticated calculations than any previous and tedious ways that researchers modelled tumour growth. “There were methods to get estimation parameters before, but they were a little, I don’t want to say primitive, because they’re quite complex, but they certainly did not incorporate anywhere near the amount of information that was available,” explains Meaney.

Personalizing Medicine

The study shows that mathematical tools can allow for more personalised predictions of brain tumour progression that were otherwise impossible. Instead of basing predictions on groupings of demographics, these tools allow researchers and clinicians to tailor their understanding of the disease patient-to-patient. As a tool for disease management, accurate predictions have the potential to transform treatment

plans for some patients if clinicians are able to understand how big a tumour might get, how aggressive treatment should be, what sort of treatments to deploy and when, and more. To take one example, intertumoural pressure, the level of fluid pressure in the tissue, happens to be a key biomarker in patient prognosis, but it’s challenging to estimate, even though the phenomenon is well-understood. “But with a method like this,” says Meaney, “there is a path to estimating that pressure in a patient-specific way.”

The current study didn’t include any treatments. “We were just doing the sort of characterization of the tumour itself,” explains Meaney. “The logic we’ve demonstrated in this work could totally be extended to include treatments, and that is something we’re actively looking into. That’s the obvious next step with this work.”

Teams

Work like this study highlights the highly collaborative nature of fields like mathematical oncology, which relied on the work of mathematicians, a surgeon, a radiologist, and computer scientists. “No one does any of this stuff alone,” says Meaney. “It’s extremely interdisciplinary.”

The work also reinforces the benefit of bringing quantitative researchers into other fields, like biology, where once upon a time they were strangers. “Quantitative sciences in, not only oncology, but medicine in general, are of tremendous benefit,” says Meaney. “And it’s obvious to those in the field that the more we go in this direction and incorporate these sorts of tools in our analyses, the better understanding we will have with these diseases and the better we’ll be able to treat and prevent them.”

New Tools, New Discoveries

Mathematical oncology is a burgeoning field dedicated to taking theoretical mathematics out of the esoterica of the university and using mathematical tools and artificial intelligence to optimize drug sequencing, drug combinations, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy in cancer treatment. Quantitative medicine, of which mathematical oncology is but a small subsection, is growing quickly as a field as more companies recognize the muscle power quantitative modelling teams can bring to biologists and experimentalists trying to answer difficult questions.

Cam Meaney, a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo working in the field, says mathematical oncology is a product of the rapid development

of the physical sciences in the 20th Century. Relativity and quantum theory and many other discoveries, can be largely attributed to the invention of sophisticated quantitative tools. Here in the 21st century, the same thing is happening in the biological sciences, as new quantitative tools, like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and diagnostic tools, improve predictions and make advances possible.

“And so for us doing that kind of research, it oftentimes feels like a lot of easy pickings,” says Meaney. “You stumble across problems and it’s just like, oh wow, I can’t believe this hasn’t been investigated quantitatively in a more comprehensive way, and yeah, those investigations, for the most part, have really borne awesome fruit.”

Genes helping to predict the recurrence of kidney cancer

DNA sequencing supporting a greater understanding of the disease and ways to treat patients

BY SEAN TARRY

DNA sequencing has come a long way over the course of the past 50 years or so. From its earliest breakthroughs with Walter Fiers’ sequencing of the DNA of a complete gene in 1972 to the completion of The Human Genome Project in 2003 and the very latest in targeted DNA sequencing, it’s an area of research and study that’s elevated our understanding of life and the ways to properly preserve it to levels not thought of prior. And, most recently, after a lengthy study into kidney cancer, sequencing has revealed a much more effective way to predict the likelihood of the disease recurring in patients.

Developing a greater understanding

The study, which spanned the better part of a decade, was conducted by a team of 44 researchers representing 23 different institutions across Europe and Canada, successfully links the genetic changes that occur in kidney cancer directly to patient outcomes and results. It’s a breakthrough within the area of kidney cancer research that could pave the way toward even greater understanding of the disease. And, according to the study’s CO-lead investigator Dr

Vasudev,

Naveen

Associate Professor and Honorary Consultant

in Medical Oncology in the Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James’s, it’s an understanding that could also lead to more personalized treatment for patients suffering with the disease.

“Accurately determining the risk of recurrence is very important,” he says. “As well as helping us identify how often patients need to be seen by their doctors, it helps us to decide who to treat with immunotherapy. This treatment has recently been shown to reduce the chances of the cancer coming back but can cause side-effects. The danger currently is that some patients may be over-treated, so being able to better identify patients at low risk of recurrence is important since they could be spared more treatment.”

DNA sequencing critical

The breakthrough was made by leveraging DNA sequencing techniques to study changes in the DNA of more than 900 kidney cancer samples, identifying 4 groups based on the mutations in 12 specific genes within the DNA. In addition, considerations were made based on whether or not patients had experienced a recurrence of the disease before. Results revealed that an overwhelming 91 per cent of patients within one of the mutation groups managed to avoid recurrence five years after their surgery. These patients, the study proffers, may not require as much treatment. Whereas, 51 per cent of patients within another mutation group were found to have remained disease-free during the same amount of time, suggesting that this group requires a more aggressive treatment regimen.

by which doctors determine the risk of recurrence, which include studying features like the size of the tumour and how aggressive it appears under a microscope, many are suggesting that a more accurate assessment has been required for some time. And, based on findings within the recent study, Yasser Riazalhosseini, Assistant Professor of Human Genetics, and Head of Cancer Genomics at the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Institute of Genomic Medicine at McGill University, says that this latest breakthrough could be the right solution.

“Our research shows that it may be possible to improve the way we determine risk in each patient by looking at the genetic mutations present in their cancer,” he explains. “Mutation analysis using DNA sequencing is already being used to help patients with other types of cancer and could be readily applied to patients with kidney cancer.”

Outdated methods

It’s estimated that more than 400,000 people around the world are diagnosed with kidney cancer each year, including 8,100 diagnoses occurring in Canada. Given the fact that a discouraging 30 per cent of localized kidney cancers recur after post-surgery, combined with outdated methods

More personalized treatment

And, adds the study’s CO-lead investigator, Vasudev, the timing of the research team’s findings couldn’t be better, providing a glimpse into the potential to apply them toward creating more personalized care and treatment for patients suffering from kidney cancer.

“Development of new treatments for kidney cancer has lagged behind other cancers and we largely continue to adopt a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Genomics—the study of genes and how they interact with each other—is a key area of development in patient care. Here we show how genomics might be applied to patients with kidney cancer, potentially creating more personalized treatment options for thousands of patients each year.”

Predicting loss

Medical genomics researchers aim to reduce impact of drug-induced hearing loss

BY ROBERT PRICE

Thesituation is all-too-common and tragic. A middle-aged mother receives a diagnosis: She has ovarian cancer. The news knocks her over. It’s the hardest news that she and her family have ever faced. But they are determined. She will fight it, so she starts chemotherapy. Chemotherapy helps beat back cancer, but a side-effect of Cisplatin, one of the drugs,

sideswipes her efforts: She’s lost some of her hearing. It started with a ringing in her ears, and now she has trouble hearing high-pitched frequencies. The cancer’s in remission. That’s good. But she feels diminished. She can’t hear everything she used to hear. And for somebody who loves music, the loss causes her great anguish.

Computational analysis helping to lessen the severity of drug-induced hearing loss.. Photo courtesy of the Drögemöller Lab.

This story isn’t unusual. Cisplatin has shown to be efficacious in fighting cancer but can cause hearing loss in up to 80 per cent of people who take the drug—a side effect that can devastate people already dealing with the devastations of cancer. Research indicates that genetics plays an important role in determining who is at risk of drug-induced hearing loss, with up to 50 per cent of hearing loss attributed to genetics. Young patients are particularly susceptible to hearing loss caused by the drug, and the effects can become a significant challenge for the many children who are treated with Cisplatin before they’ve developed language skills.

One person who hopes to solve the problem of drug-induced hearing loss is Dr. Britt Drögemöller, an assistant professor in the department of Biochemistry and Medical Genetics at the University of Manitoba and Canada Research Chair in Pharmacogenomics and Precision Medicine. Her lab works on identifying specific genetic variants that can help predict who’s going to experience hearing loss caused

by Cisplatin and use that information to develop strategies to prevent it, such as using order protectants that, when taken in combination with Cisplatin, can help to prevent hearing loss without affecting the anti-cancer activity of the chemotherapy.

Two Approaches

Drögemöller uses two approaches in her studies to reduce the potential for hearing loss. In the first approach, her team collects genetic information for individuals who are receiving Cisplatin. They genotype the patients for around 400,000 genetic variants and then compare these variants to five million other variants spread throughout the genome. From this huge comparison, the lab identifies genetic variants that they think explain why some people experience the hearing loss. In the end, the lab produces a polygenic risk score, a measurement of a patient’s risk of hearing loss due to Cisplatin.

Leveraging genetic information leading to the identification of variants that can help predict hearing loss. Photo courtesy of the Drögemöller Lab

The analysis is all performed computationally, explains Drögemöller. “We can generate data really quickly these days and get a whole lot of data back all at once and get predictive information.”

The second approach uses a new technology called single cell sequencing to examine which cells might be at risk of death during chemo. Drögemöller came by this approach when she noticed Cisplatin causes gene expression changes in the ear. The problem is that it’s difficult to study changes in gene expression in the inner ear—the tissue in the inner ear is difficult to reach and the cells that make up that part of the ear’s structure are heterogeneous and complex. In fact, the most important cells in the inner ear—the hair cells that are dying because of Cisplatin treatment—only make up 1 to 3 per cent of all the cells in the ear. Until recently, researchers haven’t been able to look at these cells very easily. With Single Cell Sequencing, Drögemöller can generate gene expression information for each individual cell in the ear.

That’s exactly what her team is doing. Using mouse models of Cisplatin-induced hearing loss, she’s performing single cell sequencing on the mice to identify specific changes in gene expression that occur and hopefully understand what changes happen in the ear because of Cisplatin.

An Open Lab

Drögemöller describes her lab as “basically a computational lab.” A bank of computers conducts the analyses, and in the near future she hopes to bring in equipment that will allow her lab to perform the single cell sequencing experiments in-house.

The software driving Drögemöller’s analyses are all open source. That’s one of the great things about her field, she says, since it improves access to information. “The bioinformatics community is really big on making things easily accessible and shareable,” she says. This philosophy of open science— one where researchers around the world can all use the exact same programs, and share their code and analyses—means that somebody else can repeat the experiment without having to buy or license software. The goal of this openness is reproduction and confirmation of results. “We share all we use so that other people can repeat the analysis, and make sure that everything’s reproducible.”

This attitude has a revolutionary tinge to it, since many researchers still hold their discoveries close until they feel secure enough in their careers and businesses to disclose what they’ve found. Drögemöller says this attitude of secrecy is shifting, but slowly.

“I think there’s certainly a mentality that we need to share information and we need to make whatever we can share as easily accessible as possible. But for sure not everyone thinks like that,” she says. “I don’t think that’s really for the greater good. Especially in human genetics research, we need to have as much information as we can get. And the only way we can do that is by collaborating and sharing samples.”

Scaling back into larger knowledge

Drögemöller’s work scales back into a larger set of knowledge that has the potential to advance research across a range of situations. Hearing loss is a side effect of many drugs. Once she has her model set-up, she sees many easy ways to apply it

The bioinformatics community is really big on making things easily accessible and shareable... We share all we use so that other people can repeat the analysis, and make sure that everything’s reproducible… Especially in human genetics research, we need to have as much information as we can get. And the only way we can do that is by collaborating and sharing samples.

to other drugs. “We even think that there’s common mechanisms behind drug-induced hearing loss,” she explains. “We’re interested to see if we see the same pathways involved in hearing loss when we look at other drugs. Or is it completely different if you have a different drug?”

Her team is also interested in understanding how age-related hearing loss comes about. More than 50 per cent of people over the age of 70 experience age-related hearing loss. Researchers are starting to see an overlap when they look at the genes and pathways that are involved in Cisplatininduced, toxicity-related, or other forms of hearing loss. “If we can understand the biological mechanisms underlying hearing loss in general, we can really move forward to create strategies to prevent hearing loss from different drugs and from different environmental factors,” she explains.

In the long-term, Drögemöller’s work has the potential to add precision to medical interventions related to hearing loss. “In terms of precision medicine, the ultimate aim of this research is to generate genetic information for each individual and use that individual genetic information to predict how individuals will respond to different treatments before we apply them,” she says.

One day, researchers will be able to use a saliva sample or blood sample to collect genetic information from an individual before that person is prescribed Cisplatin, study the information to see how likely the patient is to experience hearing loss, and then use that information to develop new strategies and to create treatment plans suited to the individual.

“There are actually options these days where, for specific groups of patients, you can change the treatment plan slightly,” says Drögemöller, “and this is particularly helpful if you know that that patient's at high risk of hearing loss.”

The sort of work Drögemöller is doing has other potential benefits, drug development in particular. Drug development is difficult. It’s like panning for gold: nuggets do appear, but most often that glint in the water is fool’s gold or a reflection of the sun. But the likelihood of success increases by about two-fold when genetic information, like knowing specific genes or pathways that contribute to specific diseases, is taken into account. Drögemöller’s approach generates knowledge about the biology underlying drug reactions and hearing loss, and this knowledge can help to guide how clinicians treat these side effects and even how researchers develop drugs.

The Future

The field of biochemistry and medical genetics have developed rapidly since Drögemöller started in the field, and these developments hold enormous potential for improving lives.

“When I started my research, I could only look at one genetic variant at a time,” she says. “Now we’ve got whole genome sequencing. We can look at sequencing in single cells. We can manipulate specific mutations.”

But the room to improve the precision of instrumentation is vast. Drögemöller says it’s still hard to work with sensitive samples, like cells in the inner ear. “We can do it, but we have to be very, very careful.” Technology that improves access to

hidden parts of the body will energize research. When looking at things like gene expression, or epigenetic changes, technologies that are more robust and less influenced by the process to get the samples that will give researchers much more accurate data. “Which would be amazing,” she says.

“I think we’re getting there,” she adds. “The developments that have happened already, just while I’ve been in the field, are amazing.”

The speed of development, however, has slowed. Funding is scarcer than it was. Researchers are proposing safer projects most likely to receive backing. High-risk projects—those don’t get much attention. And that’s a problem, says Drögemöller, since it slows innovation across many disciplines.

But for now, Drögemöller says the recent innovations in her field have carved out an exciting space that researchers still haven’t fully exploited.

“Before we couldn’t even look at a lot of these things. And now we have the tools to do it, and I think it’s just a matter of mastering those tools and making sure they give us new insights into things.”

Lab Staff, Lab Funding

Drögemöller’s lab focuses predominantly on genetics, but the associates in the lab possess a range of skills that Drögemöller needs to perform the sensitive studies at the heart of her research. The geneticists in her lab collaborate with audiologists to understand the clinical side of how hearing loss actually occurs. Her interdisciplinary lab also employs experts in computation and biology. Drögemöller’s lab has received funding from CIHR, NSERC, local funding from Research Manitoba, the Health Sciences Foun dation, and the Tri Council.

ABOUT DR. DRÖGEMÖLLER

Britt Drögemöller, originally from South Africa, is Assistant Professor in the department of Biochemistry and Medical Genetics at the University of Manitoba and Canada Research Chair in Pharmacogenomics and Precision Medicine. She started her studies in the field of pharmacogenomics, a field that attempts to understand how genetic variants contribute to treatment outcomes. During her post-doc, she started working on the specific adverse drug reactions, an investigation that led her to look broadly at hearing traits. Today, her primary focus is human genomics, with a particular interest in using genetic information to understand why people respond differently to therapeutic treatments.

VITA THERAPEUTICS: reengineering cellular medicine

Cell engineering company is harnessing the power of genetics to improve outcomes for muscular dystrophy patients

BY SEAN TARRY

Douglas Falk, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Vita Therapeutics. Photo courtesy of Vita Therapeutics

Cellular research and engineering are not new practices to those working within the fields of bioscience. Yet, it’s an area of study that’s witnessed an explosion of sorts over the course of the past 20 years or so as a result of a confluence of scientific evolution and technological advancement. It’s a confluence that continues to intensify, yielding a number of innovations and breakthroughs all over the world as scientists put forward efforts to improve the outcomes of patients living with disease, to alleviate or eradicate altogether the symptoms that they suffer. One such organization is Baltimore, Maryland-based cell engineering company, Vita Therapeutics, which uses induced pluripotent stem cell technology to engineer specific cell

types designed to replace those that are defective in patients.

Founded out of the labs of Dr. Gabsang Lee and Dr. Kathryn Wagner at Johns Hopkins University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute in 2019 by Douglas Falk, MS and Peter Andersen, PhD, Vita Therapeutics is comprised of a team of dedicated scientists collectively striving to advance treatments in multiple indications within its cell therapy platform. And, although its work might indicate boundless potential for the application of this type of technology, the company’s initial focus is on developing restorative therapies for a number of localized muscular dystrophies, starting with the treatment of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.

Innovative technologies

Vita leverages its neuro-muscular platform which is driven by a cutting-edge pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) technology and combined with CRISPR-based genome editing, essentially allowing scientists to extract a blood cell from a patient and reverse engineer it down to its stem cell state. It then applies its patented protocol, turning the stem cell into a satellite cell. It’s a process and combination of technologies that Vita’s Co-Founder Falk explains is helping the company advance its research and development of therapies that present a great deal of promise for those living with muscular dystrophy.

“Satellite cells are the very foundation of muscle biology,” he says. “Every

Work being executed at Vita Therapeutics is helping to revolutionize treatments for patients suffering from muscular dystrophy. Photo courtesy of Vita Therapeutics

single day, despite the activity that we’re undergoing, our muscles cells get injured through a natural process called muscle homeostasis. But when our muscles get injured, a signal is sent from the muscle itself to the satellite cell, prompting the development of another satellite cell in addition to the creation of myoblasts which fuse together to either repair or replace the damaged muscle. It’s the way most healthy people are able to continue doing what they do every day because, although our muscles are constantly being damaged, they’re constantly being repaired. Unfortunately, patients who suffer from muscular dystrophy are born with very specific genetic mutations that essentially cause their satellite cells to be defective and unable to repair or replace the injured muscle. What Vita has done is, for the first time, recreated a healthy human satellite cell. And what we’re hoping to do is deliver them to as many muscular dystrophy patients as possible.”

Life-changing approach

Falk goes on to explain that part of the benefit of the work that Vita is currently doing around limb-girdle muscular dystrophy is the fact that it can also be applied moving forward to all other forms of the disease, accelerating the advancement of its research and development further. He describes it as an incredibly exciting time for the company and a significant opportunity to help change the lives of so many people for the better.

“There aren’t any curative treatments for muscular dystrophy patients,” he says. “There are only supportive treatments like anti-inflammatories. So, right now, there’s nothing currently available to help these patients who are suffering from a progressive disease that continues to worsen, degrading their muscles over time. They’re really simply trying to manage the disease which leads to a very debilitating lifestyle. What we’re trying to do is help these patients repair and replace their

damaged muscles to a restorative state and help drastically improve various functionalities within their lives.”

Expanding focus

There’s also the benefit of a longer runway, points out Falk, when focusing on improving the lives and conditions of people living with muscular dystrophy in that there are 9 types and somewhere in the region of 30 different sub-types of the disease. It gives the company, he says, ample time to perfect their technology and application of it before broadening and expanding their focus to include other diseases within the scope of their treatment.

“Next steps for us is to continue to focus on treating the different types and sub-types of muscular dystrophy,” he says. “But we believe that there are a number of different degenerative muscle conditions that we can target as well. Focal muscular atrophy is a disease that we talk about quite often. Unfortunately, there are two challenges

“Next steps for us is to continue to focus on treating the different types and sub-types of muscular dystrophy. But we believe that there are a number of different degenerative muscle conditions that we can target as well.”

with this disease, one of them impacts the nerves and another the muscles. We’d only be able to tackle the muscle component, but is still something that would lead to improved lives for those patients. Patients who have suffered traumatic injury are also great candidates for our treatment. We try not to get too excited about the possibilities, as great as they might be. Right now, we’re lazer-focused on treating muscular dystrophy.”

Exciting time for biotech

One can easily see when speaking with Falk how difficult it must be for he and

his team to contain their enthusiasm. Vita’s technology is a great example of the developmental advances and scientific breakthroughs that are happening all around us every day, enabling and supporting our growth and evolution as a species, and continuously serving to raise the bar concerning future work and innovation.

“It’s such an interesting and unique time to be involved in the biotech industry,” asserts Falk. “More than 90 per cent of all therapeutics that have been developed to date can only mitigate symptoms. Vita has several different technologies already that can take that

one step further and, instead of just mitigating symptoms, actually start to restore functionality that’s been taken by a disease. We’re at a crossroads where more technology is going to be developed and introduced that aims for a much higher bar than most historical therapies. We’re delivering personalized cell therapies to patients, correcting their genetic mutations ex vivo before differentiating it into a healthy human satellite cell. We’re the first to combine all of the technologies that we use into one approach. And I think we’re on the precipice within biotech where the way we think about treating patients is going to drastically change for the better.”

Enabling advancement

Falk raves about the team of scientists and advisors at Vita that contribute so much toward achieving the company’s goals and objectives. He refers to their work as “critically important” with respect to ensuring Vita’s high level of execution, pointing to the layers of experience that they’re afforded, employing professionals with management, scientific, manufacturing and regulatory backgrounds. However, when it comes to enabling something as ambitious as Vita’s cellular therapies vision to move forward, he says that finding the right investors is often the difference between success and failure.

“Without our investment partners, we wouldn’t be here, and wouldn’t be given the opportunity to advance this technology” he states. “Two of our larger partners in Cambrian BioPharma and Solve FSHD have shown a lot of faith and belief in the team and what we’re doing to try and treat the symptoms of muscular dystrophy and other degenerative muscle conditions. And when you can align the vision, a great team and generous partners, it really does help everyone involved move in the same direction and achieve some really great things.”

Harnessing the confluence of science and technology is the foundation of Vita Therapeutics' breakthrough. Photo courtesy of Vita Therapeutics

BREAKING DOWN

INFECTION-PROTECTING BIOFILM

RESEARCHERS HAVE IDENTIFIED A PROMISING THERAPEUTIC TARGET THAT MAY LEAD TO IMPROVED TREATMENTS FOR LUNG INFECTIONS

BY SEAN TARRY

Even for the healthiest people, lung infections can range in severity, bringing with them nasty symptoms that can disrupt anyone’s daily routines, including chest pain, fever, nausea and changes in mental awareness. However, for patients suffering with cystic fibrosis,

contracting a lung infection can be dangerous and, at times, deadly. It’s the reason why a recent discovery made by researchers at the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children is being heralded as one that poses the potential to change and save lives.

Lab group that supported the identification of a promising therapeutic target that could help treat lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients.

Photo courtesy of Canadian Light Source

Promising discovery

The discovery, made by Andreea Gheorghita, PhD candidate in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto and Dr. Lynne Howell, Senior Scientist in the Program of Molecular Medicine at The Hospital for Sick Children and Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, involves the identification of a promising therapeutic target that could help treat lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients.

“Individuals with cystic fibrosis have an impairment in their lungs where they have a hard time clearing out the mucus that accumulates within the lungs,” says Gheorghita.

Preventing the impairment

The impairment that Gheorghita refers to is a Pseudomonas—a type of bacteria, or germ, that’s commonly found within the environment in soil and water—of which there are many different variations. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the variation that most often causes infections in humans, often resulting in infections that propagate within the

blood or lungs. In the lungs, the bacteria festers, resulting in a breeding ground for opportunistic infections like pneumonia to spread within individuals suffering from weakened immune systems or other health concerns. For individuals living with cystic fibrosis, recurring infections caused by Pseudomonas accelerates poor health that often requires hospitalization, causing significant lung damage, and worse.

“Because of the impaired ability to clear mucus in the airways, these lung infections can become very persistent and prolonged, which eventually leads to lung tissue damage, loss of lung function, and eventually can cause patient mortality,” explains Gheorghita.

Alleviating damage

To aid in the discovery, the research team leveraged the CMCF beamline at the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan in order to properly visualize the interaction between two important proteins that are critical in Pseudomonas’s ability to create biofilm. The biofilm, which is essentially a sticky secretion that

allows the bacteria to affix itself to the lungs, erects a barrier of sorts that makes it extremely difficult to treat with antibiotics, further weakening an individual’s immune system and ability to stave off the infection. It’s a discovery, says Howell, that could serve to alleviate the symptoms and damage caused by lung infections in patients with cystic fibrosis.

“If we can try to prevent the biofilm and the bacterial pathogenic infections, we would have an opportunity to prevent the lung damage.”

Influencing future therapeutics

She goes on to explain that the discovery is also important in that it provides another great example of the opportunities present for the advancement of new drug therapies, suggesting that the proteins in biofilm production are great targets for them given the fact that, if attachment of the bacteria can be stopped, the efficacy of antibiotics can be enhanced, and the patients’ immune system can be left to effectively fight the infection.

Gheorghita and Howell are currently focussed on conducting follow-up studies to further bolster their research and are hopeful that their work and findings may lead to the development of new therapeutics and treatment in the future.

Andreea Gheorghita and Dr. Lynne Howell. Photo courtesy of Canadian Light Source

Andreea Gheorghita. Photo courtesy of Canadian Light Source

Offering accurate and precise quantification with flexibility

The CFX Opus Deepwell Dx Real-Time PCR System is the latest addition to the Bio-Rad portfolio of real-time PCR instruments. The system offers accurate and precise quantification with flexibility for reactions up to 125 µl in a 96-well format for quantitative PCR (qPCR) diagnostic assays. The CFX Opus Dx Real-Time PCR System is also available in a 96- and 384well reaction block format. All systems in the CFX Opus Dx Real-Time PCR family are open platforms that can multiplex up to five targets to enable efficient IVD assay development and diagnostic testing. CFX Opus Dx Real-Time PCR Systems offer easy-to-use desktop management and analysis software with integrated security features for electronic signature, audit, and user control. www.bio-rad.com

Monitoring made easy and reliable

The SensoScientific Sub-1GHz series nodes—long-range, low-power data loggers—can be placed directly inside a storage unit, warehouse, refrigerator, or other desired location while maintaining connectivity to the 900 MHz gateway. Devices store up to 4,000 readings locally and transmit data to the FDA 21 CFR Part 11 (ERES) validated SensoScientific Cloud for full audit traceability. Sub-1 GHz nodes come equipped with a solid thermal buffer. Whether you are seeking to monitor temperature, humidity, differential pressure, or a combination of parameters, this powerful sensor can document environmental conditions for two separate parameters simultaneously. An optional external wireless display satisfies all CDC and VFC data logger requirements, showing current, minimum, and maximum readings, battery, and alarm status. www.sensoscientific.com

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The Thermo Scientific Glacios 2 Cryo-Transmission Electron Microscope (cryo-TEM) allows users to easily collect near atomic data from a broad range of biological targets. Compared to the previous generation, the Glacios 2 Cryo-TEM delivers higher throughput and makes cryo-EM more accessible. It features an integrated Thermo Scientific Falcon 4i Direct Electron Detector, Thermo Scientific EPU Software, and a new full enclosure, which combine to enhance image quality, automate data acquisition, and simplify work. The Glacios 2 Cryo-TEM is ideally suited for single-particle analysis, cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), and micro-electron diffraction (MicroED). www.thermofisher.com/ca/en/home.html

Detecting microbial contamination in pharmaceutical water

The 7000RMS by Mettler Toledo is an online water bioburden analyzer for real-time measurements of microbial contamination in pharmaceutical waters. This at-line analyzer offers a rapid microbial method solution for controlling water systems. Delivering continuous monitoring of water with results every two seconds, it leverages advanced lazer-induced fluorescence and Mie scattering technologies to count microorganisms present in pharmaceutical grade water systems, providing a history of trends in water systems prior to an out-of-specification event, helping to find the root cause of contamination. www.mt.com/ca/en/home.html

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High-performance, chemical-resistant hoods

UniFlow Laboratory Fume Hoods by HEMCO are the most complete line of fume hoods in the industry. UniFlow AireStream low flow high performance fume hoods feature an exclusive all composite resin construction that is chemical resistant, flame retardant, lightweight, and meets UL 1805, SEFA 1, ASHRAE 110, and ANSI Z9.5 standards. These hoods have a molded one piece seamless composite resin interior fume chamber that has all coved corners and is white for superior light reflectivity. Available in sizes from 30˝ to 96˝ wide and in depths of 24" to 48˝, and in CAV (air bypass) or VAV (restricted bypass) models. A wide selection of accessories and services are optional to meet exact user requirements. www.hemcocorp. com/fumehoods.html

Making constant improvements to vapor sorption analyzers

The Discovery SA by TA Instruments is one of the most productive Dynamic Vapor Sorption (DVS) Analyzers in the world. The instrument’s sophisticated humidity chamber design and symmetric microbalance provide industry-leading stable baselines and weighing resolution, offering precise data for sorption analysis on small material quantities and/or on hydrophobic samples. In addition, a humidifier autofill pump and autosampler help program experimental queues of up to 10 to 25 samples. And, the 21 CFR Part 11 compliant TIROS software and app-style touchscreen offer a special user experience across the entire workflow right from instrument control, method setup and experiment, to data evaluation.

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SCIENCE HELPING TO ENSURE SAFER FOODS

When it comes to protecting the health and wellbeing of a population, few considerations can be more important than ensuring the safety of the food that people are eating. As a result, those operating within the food industry, from manufacturers and processors to foodservice providers, are under constant scrutiny as it relates to their levels of cleanliness and the safety of their products.

With this in mind, within the Spring issue of Canadian Food Business magazine, we focus our attention on the science behind food safety and some of the innovations being developed in order to support the efforts of those operating within the industry.

It’s no secret that any misrepresentation of food that’s found out by consumers will likely result in quite a bit of negative public response and backlash. In spite of this, opportunism along the supply chain remains a prevalent concern for many. We take a look at ways in which misrepresentation can impact businesses and consumers, and the need for tighter global supply chain practices to eradicate the problem.

As part of the scope of food safety, the cleanliness of restaurants and quick serve establishments are also of critical importance. And, at the core of restaurant cleanliness and food safety is handwashing—a significantly uncontrolled practice within any establishment. We feature CleanBands and its Founder and CEO, Dave Iwonkow, who’s developed a smart wearable device supported by digital sensor technology meant to aid in the assurance of handwashing compliance.

And, what could be more important to meat processors and their customers than understanding exactly what’s in the product that they’re providing. As such, we highlight P&P Optica—a developer and provider of proven automated solutions for meat processing plant inspections—and the ways in which its Smart Imaging System is helping to more accurately identify foreign objects in meat while also understanding its chemical composition in-stream, aiding meat processors’ efforts to ensure consistent safety and quality for their customers.

In an age that’s being defined for many industries, at least in part, by general instability and uncertainty, food purveyors and their partners are putting forth an incredible amount of effort to ensure that the food Canadians eat is safe. And, given continued advancements in science and technology, the support that the industry needs to satisfy these assurances is becoming increasingly available, laying the foundation for greater food safety and quality in the country.

In 2022,

Science

For further information, contact sbrowne@dvtail.com

Sean Tarry EDITOR

Technology

Food Business magazine

the Canadian Institute of Food

&

(CIFST) and Canadian

launched a partnership to create a platform for leading experts, innovators and scientists to showcase the latest trends, knowledge and developments that are changing the face of Canada’s food industry today.

Next generation of food safety

By Jennifer Ronholm and Xiaonan Lu, Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry, McGill University

Ashuman beings, we each require daily nourishment. However, food consumption has never—and can never —be completely risk-free. In Canada, Health Canada is responsible for establishing thresholds of acceptable risk that correlates to a desired level of consumer protection. Since scientific knowledge is constantly evolving and novel foods are continually introduced to the marketplace, existing thresholds must be regularly adjusted. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is responsible for enforcing safety thresholds established by Health Canada. Together these institutions run programs to improve food safety, such as guiding industry in applying hazard and critical control point (HACCP) principals to prevent food borne illnesses and improving food traceability so that sources of infection can be determined quickly and accurately.

New era of food safety—smart food safety

The new era of smarter food safety blueprint was developed by the US FDA a few years ago and it is centered around four core elements, namely tech-enabled traceability, smarter tools and approaches for prevention and outbreak response, new business models and retail modernization, and food safety culture. Working together, these elements will aid in creating a safer and more digital, traceable food system. This new generation of food safety embraces advanced technology, big data, digital tools, and automation that can facilitate

rapid, accurate, sensitive monitoring of the food supply chain in a user-friendly manner. The ideal smart food traceability system can track the location of any food, the ingredients it contains, and packaging at any location in the supply chain from producers to consumers. There will be a database about the product in the traceability system. If food recalls are required, a traceability system will aid in quickly identifying the source of contamination, enabling parties to take effective recall actions to protect consumers from the contaminated food.

Introduction of whole genome sequencing and next generation sequencing for food safety

In Canada, the decision to recall food items is science-based and made using three equally weighted streams of evidence: 1) Epidemiology, 2) Microbiology, and 3) Food Safety Investigation. Within the microbiology stream of evidence, the phylogenetic relatedness of all food and clinical isolates within the investigation must be established. This information is used to understand the likely food-hazard combination that is responsible for the outbreak. Whole genome sequencing, paired with bioinformatic analysis and interpretation, has now been established as the gold standard with which to establish the phylogenetic relationship between isolates. Starting from an isolated colony, a genomic sequence can be

produced in two to three days. Older technologies allowed phylogenetic relationships to be established based on tens of datapoints, at most, and this resulted in problems with both over- and under-discrimination. However, whole genome sequencing allows the comparison of thousands of core-gene sequences in a few hours—allowing a certainty in phylogeny that was never before possible.

Introduction of novel sensing techniques for food safety

Sensors have been massively developed for rapid diagnostics of food chemical and microbiological hazards. A specific sensor ideally includes a separation element and a detection element. The separation element allows recognition and separation of the target compounds/microbes from the complicated food sample matrices. Then, the detection element achieves sensitive and rapid detection via generating a signal as readout. Separation element is more critical than detection element as the interference from food sample matrices is highly challenging. Compared to the classical biomedical sample matrices (blood, urine, sputum, body fluids), food sample matrices are more complicated, especially solid foods such as meat and fresh produce. The effective separate elements for construction of a sensor include, but are not limited to, antibody, aptamer, and molecularly imprinted polymers.

IoT, cloud computing and artificial intelligence for food safety

With the advancement of the Internet-of-Things (IoT), more data on food can be transmitted and processed in real-time. IoT allows things and objectives to be connected anytime and anywhere. It is growing rapidly and will become popular in food safety. To effectively use these data, machine learning is highly demanded. On the other aspect, cloud computing enables users to perform complex computation without the expense of maintaining costly hardware and software. It helps store, share, manage, and analyze the data from food sensors and identifiers, which are accumulated along with the movement of food in the supply chains. Particularly, the fifth-generation (5G) network as a new generation technology has more bandwidth, enables real-time data transfer with

low latency, and supplies gigabit connections without location restrictions.

FSMA and HACCP for the food industry

HACCP has been widely accepted and applied by the Canadian food industry. It has been effectively functional in responding to various chemical and microbiological contaminants in the agri-food commodities. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is still relatively new to Canadian food producers as it has been transforming the food safety system by shifting the focus from responding to foodborne illness (HACCP) to preventing it. FSMA is enacted in response to significant changes in the global agrifood system and in our understanding of foodborne illnesses and their consequences to our consumers. For example, we now realize that preventable foodborne illnesses are a critical public health issue and also a threat to the economics of the agri-food system.

Improving food safety

While consuming food will never be risk-free, modern safety management practices like HACCP, paired with new technologies like IoT, food traceability, and whole genome sequencing are being used to improve risk management and improve the safety of the food supply. It is important to remember that risk analysis and risk mitigation are science-based processes, any approach to managing the food supply chain will also involve other concepts such as culture, values, and consumer preferences. Technologies can be developed and deployed to improve food safety without having to limit food choices to manage safety.

Jennifer Ronholm and Xiaonan Lu

Maple Innovation Challenge winner announced

They can, at times, find themselves in a bit of a sticky situation, but the team of 14 jurors charged with judging the Maple Innovation Challenge recently named a winner.

After some tasty sampling, on Monday, February 6, the competition’s grand prize was awarded to Yuchen Bai and Arianna Sultani of Team ‘Novaland’ University of Guelph with their maple innovation of chickpea pancake mix.

A competition created for food science and culinary arts students across Canada; through a collaboration between QMSP, The Maple Treat Corporation and the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology, winners receive $1,500 cash courtesy of the Maple Treat Corporation and a one-hour consultation with a Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN) Regional Innovation Director.

For more information about the Maple Innovation Challenge, visit https:// mapleinnovationchallenge.ca/

Brand refresh for agriculture and agri-food products

The Government of Canada recently announced the launch of a Canada Brand refresh for agriculture and agri-food products in international markets.

Unveiled by The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Canada’s Minister of Agriculture and AgriFood, the refresh represents a modernization of the Canada Brand program, in addition to a new digital toolkit meant to help Canadian agriculture and agri-food businesses showcase their products in global markets.

Launched in 2006 by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canada Brand refresh includes a new logo, modernized graphics and branded taglines, refreshed marketing messaging; a revitalized photo library; a revamped client portal system; and, a revamped marketing toolbox with video content, animated graphics, GIFs and digital stickers. It’s all part of what Bibeau considers a significant support for Canadian producers, placing them in good stead for the future.

“Canadian agriculture and agrifood products enjoy an excellent reputation internationally, and this updated brand will be a powerful tool for our Canadian agriculture and agrifood exporters in highly competitive markets. They are a powerful driver of our economy, and we will continue to help them unlock new markets and opportunities.”

Team 'Novaland': Arriana Sultani and Yuchen Bai.

What that dog doin’?

The Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays, just received an upgrade for the upcoming baseball season in the way of a new porch called ‘hot dog headquarters’ courtesy of iconic Maple Leaf Foods Inc. brand Schneiders.

In conjunction with the launch of ‘hot dog headquarters’, which will be located

Preventing food fraud

The Government of Canada continues to intensify its commitment toward eliminating the sale of misrepresented

on the stadium’s 200 level, overlooking right field, Schneiders will also make its limited time footlong hot dogs available at stores across Canada.

The porch, which can accommodate up to 150 people, welcomes fans to visit and try the delicious hot dog menu selections only available for concession at

section 209.

“We’re excited to partner once again with the Toronto Blue Jays,” said Casey Richards, President and Chief Growth Officer, Maple Leaf Foods. “The Schneiders Porch is designed true to the brand’s authentic recipes, high craftsmanship standards, and irresistible taste.”

food in the country. And, it was recently revealed within the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) Food Fraud Annual Report that the federal government successfully prevented 100,000 kg. of fraudulent food from being sold last year.

This year’s report includes results from the testing of 844 samples, identifying 6 categories of foods that are most commonly misrepresented. Testing showed an overall compliance rate of 92.7 per cent for fish, 77.5 per cent for honey, 99.1 per cent for meat, 86.9 per cent for olive oil, 64.3 per cent for other expensive oils, and 90.8 per cent for spices.

The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health, applauds the CFIA’s efforts in combatting food fraud, and in protecting Canadian businesses and their consumers.

“Our government takes food fraud seriously,” he says. “When food is misrepresented, it prevents consumers from making an informed choice, and can create an uneven, unfair market. This report highlights the excellent work being done to protect consumers and food businesses from this deceptive practice.”

Kid-approved breakfast and snack food

Nola Baking Co. recently announced the launch of its simple, healthy and delicious kid-approved breakfast and snack foods.

The launch, in partnership with Sesame Street, is aimed at making fueling kids with healthy foods fun and delicious, and includes Nola’s Powers Pancakes and Boost Bars, available in delicious flavours and fun Sesame Street packaging featuring iconic characters like Elmo, Cookie Monster and Big Bird.

Developed in collaboration with nutritionists and food scientists, Nola’s Power Pancakes and Boost Bars are packed full of nutrients to keep kids growing strong, while being gluten-free, vegan and free of refined sugars and artificial preservatives.

Hot dog headquarters at The Rogers Centre in Toronto

Opportunism in the food industry— can we learn from Walmart’s global sourcing practices?

By Juan Marcelo Gómez and John G. Keogh

In a post-pandemic world, global food ecosystems exposed numerous supply chain risks that arise from the complexities in the governance of global sourcing. Many businesses have increased their global sourcing reach to satisfy diverse and growing consumer demands. Economic benefits may be more significant for companies that can fulfil demand based on good governance practices combined with supply chain due diligence and logistical agility. But there are both a food safety and reputational risk involved as supplier opportunism

is intricately linked to various types of frauds, deception, and ethical and moral lapses. Opportunism is defined as self-interest seeking with guile or pursuing self-interest benefits, such as shirking responsibility for food safety, cheating or withholding information from the buyer.

In Walmart’s 2020 annual report, many global sourcing issues are considered operational risks. Walmart notes, “We expect our suppliers to comply with applicable laws, including labour, safety, anti-corruption and environmental laws, and to otherwise meet our required supplier standards of conduct.”

Post-contractual (ex-post) issues relate primarily to hidden actions or behaviours of the supplier that lead to moral hazard. As opposed to (ex-ante) or pre-contractual issues, which relate to instances of hidden information or distorted information exchange that can lead to a situation called adverse selection. In the latter, the falsehoods are discovered ex-post. Many risks in global sourcing can be related directly to the unobservability of the actions and behaviours of suppliers. These risks are consistent with the operational risk statements mentioned in Walmart’s annual report. To reduce these risks, mechanisms that improve transparency and trust in global food ecosystems must be prioritized.

Adverse Selection

Supplier management and onboarding could be considered a relatively mature academic research and industry practice area. However, supply chain risk management lacks consensus in the literature. The risk of adverse selection is created when a potential new supplier purposefully hides or provides false information before signing the supplier contract. For example, a new overseas supplier may deliberately withhold information about their company operations from the buyer or purposefully share fraudulent, incomplete, or inaccurate information. This may include false claims of resource competence, including the firm’s technical knowhow, the provision of fake or lapsed certifications such as fake food safety laboratory test results, or false claims of organic, kosher or halal. New suppliers may have improperly implemented food safety management protocols which could result in frequent product safety recalls. They may have insufficient or outdated machinery and tooling, undeclared subcontracting, precarious financial situations, or a bad credit rating—these are just some of the potential problems.

Moral hazard

For businesses, post-contractual opportunism creates a moral hazard. When such ex-post opportunism occurs, the supplier’s and the buyer’s interests diverge for various reasons. This could include situations where the supplier feels mistreated and perceives a substantial power imbalance with the buyer. As a result, suppliers may act in their self-interest and knowingly deceive buyers by supplying low-quality products or unsafe ingredients, blending non-organic and organic products, and sourcing from unapproved upstream suppliers and or shirking their moral and ecological obligations such

as engaging in deforestation causing habitat loss, or engaging in forced labour or child labour. They may be involved in animal abuse or various forms of corruption or bribery of public officials to maximize their profits. Opportunism can be interpreted as food fraud or economically motivated adulteration when there is a deliberate misrepresentation, dilution or substitution of a food ingredient or product against the agreed expectations of another party.

The globalization of food chains has created a lucrative food fraud opportunity. While it is challenging to estimate the global burden of food fraud, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) website indicates that up to ten per cent of food traded could be subject to various types of fraud. In 2019, the CFIA blocked over twelve tonnes of adulterated honey from entering the Canadian market. Food fraud is alive and well, and Canadian taxpayers are investing over $5 million a year to enhance market surveillance activities.

We theorize that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses in the food industry experienced supply interruptions and massive product and economic losses, while recent increases in inflation across global markets have provided fertile ground for opportunism. The fact that opportunistic behaviour in the food industry appears to be a lucrative business has increased the attention of organized crime regimes to use the food chain as a space to be explored and exploited. Collaboration between governments, enforcement agencies, businesses and researchers are essential as innocent consumers are increasingly exposed to human health and safety risks. This creates challenges for regulatory controls that, while they aim to achieve compliance and enforcement, are reactive at best. In a recent publication on food fraud in Canada by the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, it was noted: “A 2019 survey of Canadian food business operators highlighted that 56 per cent of respondents were confident they could address food fraud vulnerabilities, but only 33 per cent indicated their business was safe from food fraud.”

The time is ripe for business leaders to step up their efforts in gaining better insights into risks while improving governance practices across global food trade sourcing practices. The focus should be on supply chain due diligence, good governance and reducing the risk of supplier opportunism by implementing proactive supplier controls, which could include unannounced audits. Reducing the risks to the health and safety of consumers must be a priority alongside enhancing transparency and trust across all global sourcing processes.

Could we learn from Walmart’s global supply chain governance practices?

While problems in the global food chain are abundant, good examples of trade governance, such as those outlined by Walmart in its annual report, may assist other business leaders in modelling policies and controls that are adequate in practice and uphold higher trading standards for the benefit of consumers. In doing so, Walmart has continuously stepped up its efforts to address critical areas of vulnerability, which

have increased transparency across stakeholders, as we have previously argued.

Walmart has instituted a global policy which enables a system of controls managed by its anti-corruption compliance programme. The system aims to prohibit anti-regulatory business practices by adopting an in-source and integrated ethics and compliance organization, including anti-corruption, training and communication, licenses and permits, management of third-party risks, and data analytics.

Walmart’s ethics and compliance organization comprises a global to local market team that routinely conducts cross-disciplinary and geographical assessments across the business, including a community of subject matter experts to share best practices. Anti-Corruption compliance focuses on third-party providers by assessing unaddressed risks and aligning organizational process assets, while anti-corruption training is provided internally and externally to third-party providers available in many languages. In addition, third parties, or intermediaries, are required to adopt anti-corruption practices and undergo routine site and financial audits across international markets. From a monitoring perspective, Walmart has implemented a centralized system to comply with licenses and permits at global and local levels. This has increased risk reduction through the implementation of safeguards and improved workflow. Analytical systems use collected data at different transactional and functional levels while incorporating business intelligence approaches such as screening external public data to manage unassessed risks, including litigation and sanctions, proactively. The integration of ethics and compliance has enabled Walmart to create a process that is guided by transparency across the organization to proactively identify and mitigate risks while at the same time engage a learning organization through continuous improvement.

In conclusion, in its 2022 annual report, Walmart understands that there isn’t room for opportunism in its increasingly globalized business and that misrepresentation to its customers can have significant adverse and cascading effects on the brand, its reputation and ultimately, its financial performance.

About the Authors:

Juan Marcelo Gómez is a trusted advisor in the private and public sectors. He is an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University for The Ted Rogers School of Management in Retail Management. He specializes in supply chain and procurement and risk and regulation of complex trade systems.

John G. Keogh is the Managing Principal at the supply chain advisory and research firm Shantalla Inc. He provides confidential advisory and research on supply chain technologies, industry standards, food ecosystems transparency and trust. John is a professor of practice at the McGill University Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics (MCCHE) and sits on the board of directors at the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology (CIFST).

Giving safety the green light

Atlantic Canada-based company leveraging technology to help enhance food safety

By Sean Tarry

Dave Iwankow, CEO of CleanBands, sporting the innovative foodservice technology.

Photo courtesy of Dave Iwankow

Alothas changed in and around the foodservice industry over the course of the past three years or so. Impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic, which have disrupted and disturbed virtually every sector around the world, just about turned restaurant and hospitality operations on their heads. Public health restrictions and protocols significantly diminished opportunities for foodservice operators to continue servicing guests while severely shaking people’s collective confidence concerning entering establishments. However, as we now seem to be entering something of a post-pandemic era, opportunities have returned for restauranteurs to cater to their visitors. And, according to Dave Iwankow, CEO of CleanBands—a company that’s designed a revolutionary system that helps ensure hygienic excellence for foodservice staff—it also presents them with the chance to assure their guests of the cleanliness and safety of their visit.

unobtrusive for both the person wearing them as well as guests of an establishment. And, most importantly, supported by sensor technology that’s deployed at designated handwashing sinks, the bands will let everyone know when it’s time for the individual wearing them to clean their hands. If the face on the band is yellow, it means that 25 minutes have passed since the individual’s last handwashing, serving as a prompt to wash their hands soon. If the light turns red, it means that too much time has passed in between handwashes, and that the individual must stop everything that they’re doing and wash their hands. When handwashing, the band’s face will turn blue and remain so for at least 20 seconds of washing. And, when the face on the band is green, it means that the individual’s hands have been properly washed for the appropriate amount of time.

Quantified results

It’s a simple yet ingenious invention that could serve to differentiate the establishments using them from their competitors who don’t. And, as Iwankow points out, CleanBands can also ensure that one of the two pillars of food safety is met, allowing restaurateurs to monitor compliance among their staff, and guests to dine with the peace-of-mind that those serving them their food are following handwashing protocol.

“When it comes to food safety, handwashing is something that’s most often been taken a little bit for granted,” he says. “And that’s because it’s always been assumed as part of the basic standards of a restaurant or other foodservice establishment. Everyone expects that there aren’t any rats or bugs. That’s what we have health inspectors for. And the same could traditionally be said about handwashing—everyone just assumed it was happening. However, the reality of it is that handwashing is very poorly controlled, and it’s a concern among today’s consumer that’s been brought into the spotlight of late as their awareness around cleanliness and safety has been heightened since the onset of the pandemic. In light of this, I saw an opportunity to develop a way by which those working within the foodservice industry could prove to their guests that their food is being handled with the utmost of cleanliness.”

Ensuring handwashing

The opportunity that Iwankow refers to parlayed into the development of digital bands that foodservice staff wear on their wrists like a bracelet. They’re dynamically assigned to staff when they start their shifts, are worn by those individuals for the duration of their shift, and are returned to their charging stations after use, remaining at the restaurant. A minimal design and lightweight feel means that they’re

“The two most important aspects that help ensure food safety are temperature control and handwashing,” he explains. “If a restaurant owner can manage those two things, then the risk of foodborne outbreaks within their establishments decreases significantly. Temperature has historically been relatively easy to control—you stick a thermometer in and monitor the temperature reading. Today, there are systems that allow kitchens to put their temperatures online, allowing chain establishments to know exactly what temperature their soups are at all of their locations across the country. Until now, there’s been nothing equivalent when it comes to handwashing. With CleanBands, handwashing is quantified in order to alert managers that training is being followed and that their staff are doing what’s required to reduce risk for customers.”

Setting a standard

When it comes to customer safety and the things that foodservice establishments need to be doing to reduce risks, there can be a pretty hefty price to pay for those who shirk their responsibilities. In fact, in 2020, Chipotle Mexican Grill was ordered to pay US$25 million in order to resolve criminal charges levied against the American fast food giant over accusations of serving tainted food and general uncleanliness, much of which was related to a lack of handwashing discipline. In response, Chipotle’s corporate decision-makers developed a sheet that managers of the restaurant’s locations must sign at the end of each shift, confirming that all staff washed their hands according to the company’s protocol. Iwankow argues that it’s a measure that just isn’t enough.

“ Handwashing compliance while wearing CleanBands is visible and provable. And, our hope is that their use will broaden over time."

“Introducing a control that’s simply a sign-in sheet where managers initial their confirmation of handwashing isn’t actually a control at all,” he asserts. “Handwashing compliance while wearing CleanBands is visible and provable. And, our hope is that their use will broaden over time. We’re focusing at the moment on the larger chains that have multiple locations, like Tim Hortons and A&W. We want to prove our concept and the efficacy of our bands at foodservice establishments that have a lot of counter traffic. And, as the use of CleanBands hopefully becomes widespread, with their efficacy recognized by the industry, we’d love to help set a standard for handwashing whereby foodservice locations can proudly post their handwashing compliance rating on their front doors.”

Capturing opportunities

The opportunity to roll this type of technology and control out within a number of other sectors is not lost on Iwankow who sees the possibilities. For now, however, CleanBands is only entering the field-testing stage and has been deployed

within a number of local Charlottetown, PEI establishments. But, when discussing the future of the company and the technology that can play such a critical role in the assurance of food safety within the foodservice industry, the CleanBands Founder and CEO has some aggressive plans and ambitious targets.

“We’ve had a lot of interest from a number of different restaurant brands both in Canada as well as the United States. Right now, we’re trying to get our bands into as many restaurant locations as possible within Charlottetown to allow us the chance to perfect our technology. And, by the middle of the year, we expect to be able to expand beyond the Atlantic region and start working on more of a national basis. Looking ahead to the next few years, we’re going to continue speaking with and introducing our technology to as many of the big brands as possible. The quick serve food industry in North America is represented by around 2,000 or so brands operating at least 100 locations. So, it’s going to be about capturing as many of those opportunities as possible in order to scale up use of our solution.”

CleanBands technology works to ensure the cleanliness of foodservice staff. Image courtesy of Dave Iwankow

What’s in your meat?

STATE-OF-THE-ART AUTOMATED SOLUTION HELPING MEAT PROCESSING PLANTS MORE ACCURATELY INSPECT FOR SAFETY AND QUALITY

By Sean Tarry

Forthose operating within the meat processing sector, there are few things more important than ensuring the safety and quality of the product that leaves their facilities on their way to store shelves. Perhaps the most critical aspect of providing this assurance for consumers is possessing the ability to identify foreign materials in the meat that’s being processed. However, it’s increasingly becoming just as important to be able to confirm the quality of the product as well. In fact, according to Heather Galt, VP, Customer Experience and Strategy at P&P Optica—a developer and provider of proven automated solutions for meat processing plant inspections—it’s the single biggest potential differentiator among competitors, and of utmost importance in the minds of consumers.

“Finding anything in a product as a consumer can be extremely off-putting,” she asserts. “And, when a company has to make the announcement of an unfortunate recall, there is often quite a bit of negative exposure, especially when it's caused by the presence of foreign materials. So, this is an area of paramount importance for meat processors, both from a detection and prevention perspective. It’s an ongoing priority for the industry whose operators are constantly looking for newer, more effective ways to keep foreign materials out of their stream of products with a focus on ensuring that clean product leaves their doors on their way to stores and eventually the consumers’ home.”

Smart Imaging System

It also happens to be an area of intense focus for P&P Optica and the technology-enabled equipment that it develops for use by those operating within the meat processing industry. The company’s patented Smart Imaging System, which combines hyperspectral imaging, artificial intelligence and machine learning, is able to identify the chemical composition of products in-stream while detecting the presence of low-density foreign materials as well. It’s a ground-breaking advancement within the realm of meat inspection that Galt says stands P&P Optica apart from others within the inspection solution space.

“Processors understand that foreign materials, especially those of low-density like plastics, are really hard to find within their product with existing solutions,” she explains. “X-rays are able to spot high-density materials, and metal detectors can detect metal. But there are a lot of other materials within processing plants that can go undetected, even with those solutions in place. Because we use chemistry we’re able to identify each and every piece of foreign material within a meat product, regardless of its composition.”

An incredibly powerful tool

Galt goes on to explain that by combining hyperspectral imaging, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to understand the chemical composition of meats, it

The PPO Waterfall Configuration, part of PPO’s Smart Imaging is designed for double-sided inspection, with multi-rejection mechanisms. Image courtesy of P&P Optica

also enables processors to control the quality of their product as well. For instance, P&P Optica’s technology is able to identify muscle myopathies like woody breast in chicken, while measuring a meat’s lean point, moisture, pH level and more. And, it’s all done in-stream, in real-time, without compromising the detection of foreign materials.

“Because our system is equipped to detect foreign materials and assess quality characteristics at the same time, collecting and processing an unparalleled amount of information concerning food chemistry, in real time, it makes it an incredibly powerful tool for processors.”

Leveraging data

Beyond the actual inspection for foreign materials and analysis of chemistry composition of product, during which P&P Optica’s Smart Imaging System makes over 16 million decisions every minute, identifying issues in real time, pixel by pixel, it’s continuously learning and improving. Driven by machine learning, performance of the system is constantly optimizing for faster, more accurate results. And, incidents that are captured by the company’s system are stored and presented in PPO Insights—a dashboard where users of the solution can review and analyze particulars concerning their plant’s inspections. It’s all part of what Galt refers to as a “comprehensive suite” of inspection services made possible by P&P Optica’s advanced system.

“Certainly for meat processors, our system offers all of the capabilities they require in order to ensure that their name is consistently on a foreign-material-free, top quality product,” she says. “It also dramatically reduces the chance of a recall becoming

necessary, saving the credibility of companies and enhancing the perception of their brands in the minds of their consumers. In the end, satisfying the consumer and ensuring an excellent and safe product is the objective for those working within the meat processing industry. And, given the increased expectations of today’s consumer, those processors who can do this most consistently will differentiate themselves from their competitors who cannot.”

Digitizing and automating

Given the range of benefits that P&P Optica’s Smart Imaging System offers its users, it’s easy to understand the confidence with which Galt speaks of its capabilities and possibilities. And, looking ahead, she’s just as optimistic about the plans the company has to broaden its focus and the extent of the technology’s potential where food safety and quality is concerned, suggesting that the system will soon provide even greater use and benefits for the industry.

“One of the most important parts of our strategy moving forward is to take that chemical data that we get from the facilities that we’re working with and help them use it beyond the incident itself. If a piece of plastic is found on the line, the priority is to remove it. The next priority is to ensure that the same incident doesn’t happen again by learning how to better manage suppliers and processes, and by identifying patterns that suggest areas for improvement and figuring out ways those improvements can be made. It’s how processors can start to digitize their plants, use more automation and leverage the resulting data to continue making enhancements to their operations.”

A fresh peel

The Wyma Vege-Peeler peels a variety of vegetables that are auger-fed into a drum and sprayed with either fresh or recycled water. With custom-designed brushes that can be adjusted to control speed, peeling action is accurate and effective. Yielding losses as low as 5 per cent on certain vegetables, the Vege-Peeler improves the appearance of fresh vegetables, resulting in more premium packed produce and an increased presence on retailers’ shelves.

www.wymasolutions.com/

Compact and portable depositor

Featuring an ergonomic hand-held nozzle with food grade hose, small footprint and 4” swivel castors, sanitary, all-stainless-steel construction, and optional tray to keep your buckets off the floor, the Unifiller iSpot Depositor is userfriendly, compact, portable and versatile. In addition, cleaning it is quick and easy, making product changeover more efficient.

www.unifiller.com/

Starch yield maximizing rasper

Given that the yield of a rasper determines to a large extent the overall yield of an entire starch operation, the SiccaDania rasper has been designed to efficiently rupture cell walls, yielding the maximum amount of starch from the root. The product obtained after the rasper can be considered a mixture of pulp fibres, fruit juice and starch, making rasping a one-pass operation.

https://siccadania.com/

Precise pumping

Provisur Technologies’

Weiler AccuPump is a positive displacement, lobe style pump designed to quickly and precisely feed chub packaging and loafportioning machines. As its name implies, it is precisionengineered to provide accurate targeted weights by reducing product giveaway. Its gentle, lowtemperature positive pumping action preserves particle definition and protects product quality. Two models are available to suit capacity needs.

www.provisur.com/en/

Production amplifying pepperoni peeler

Ushering in a new era in pepperoni peeling, the Kohler Automatic Peeler separates meat sticks from their casings in the blink of an eye. Best suited for use with long sticks of pepperoni, salami, and sausage, a quick release system allows for continuous, non-stop peeling within an entirely hands-off process from start to finish.

www.kohlerindustries.com/

Custom-designed homogenizer

Custom-designed to each specific use-case, Anderson Dahlen SPX Gaulin Homogenizers can be used across a wide range of materials, with a spectrum of pressures up to 8,700 psi. These tailored homogenizers serve to meet safety and efficiency needs, whether working in biotech, food, dairy, chemical, pharma, cosmetics, or other industries.

https://andersondahlen.com/

A clean take on conveyor systems

Tri Mach’s Ever-Kleen Sanitary Conveyor Systems are passive transfer conveyors that are easy to disassemble and clean, resulting in increased productivity and the highest levels of food safety. Conveyor systems are custom-designed and fabricated to suit exact specifications and are easily integrated with existing equipment to help improve operational efficiencies.

www.tri-mach.com/

Kneading help?

ROSS/AMK Kneader Extruders combine the efficiency of a double arm sigma blade mixer with the convenience of an extrusion screw for the mixing and discharging of heavy viscous materials exceeding 10 million cP. During the mixing cycle the blades rotate toward each other while the mixing constantly feeds new materials into the mixing blades. After the mixing/kneading cycle is complete, the screw directions are reversed to extrude the finished product from the mix zone out through a discharge die and on to further processing or packaging. www.mixers.com/

What a grind

MPBS Industries’ TALSA W130-U2 Commercial Meat Grinder features stainless steel construction, removable stainless-steel head, feed screw, and ring, a feed screw extraction wrench, lubricated metallic gearbox, sealed base, thermally protected motor and safety switch under the tray, taking the grind out of meat grinding. https://mpbs.com/

Boom… roasted!

Heat and Control’s Rotary Dryer Roaster is a high volume, energy-efficient continuous multi-zone convection system that provides optimal drying/ roasting in a gentle, and sanitary manner. First-in, first-out production and even heating with a smart, step-spiral, and flighted drum design achieves uniform drying and roasting. Ideal for use with nuts and dough-coated nuts, seeds, jerky, meat chips and protein-based snacks, pet treats, pellet snacks and pork rinds. www.heatandcontrol.com/

The evolution of Canada’s Food Guide

Guiding the food selections of Canadians through the years and multiple iterations

By Sean Tarry

For more than 80 years, Canada’s Food Guide has been the authority with respect to guiding the food choices of Canadians from coast-to-coastto-coast. There have been a total of nine iterations of the Guide developed through the years, including the most recent edition which was released in 2019. And, it’s undergone a number of different name changes and makeovers. However, what’s remained the same is the publication’s purpose: to guide the food selections and promote the nutritional health of Canadians.

Introduction of the Guide

First introduced in 1942 as Canada’s Official Food Rules, it served as a means to guide Canadians across the country concerning proper nutrition during a wartime period when rations were not uncommon. Identifying six food groups (Milk; Fruit; Vegetables; Cereals and Breads; Meat, Fish, etc.; and Eggs) and the recommended daily servings, authors of the publication were forced to base its “rules” on 70 per cent of the dietary standard in light of limited access to certain foods. Just two years later in 1944, the publication was renamed Canada’s Food Rules which included an expansion of the Meat and Fish food group to include cheese and eggs, in addition to a recommendation to use iodized salt.

Early changes

Subtle but important changes were made to the Rules in 1949 based on feedback and insights provided by teachers across the country who had amassed a breadth of experience using the publication within their curriculums. For

instance, “at least” was added to the Milk group to accommodate the greater energy needs of some individuals. And, advice about fish oil was replaced with a recommendation for a Vitamin D supplement since dietary surveys of children had uncovered inadequate intakes of the vitamin.

Industry evolution

An updated version was not developed for another 12 years, when in 1961 it was again renamed, this time becoming Canada’s Food Guide. And, as a result of an evolution of methods related to food processing, storage, and transportation, the types of food that were available to Canadians throughout the year began to evolve as well. For instance, citrus fruit made its debut in the Guide as a result of a boom in the development of highways throughout the continent, allowing for the transport of new foods into the Canadian market.

Impact of diet on cardiovascular health

More than a decade-and-a-half passed before the next iteration of the Guide was published in 1977. This version didn’t contain too many changes of significance. But it did pare the number of food groups down from five to four with the merging of fruits and vegetables into the same group. In 1982, however, following the submission of the landmark Report of the Committee on Diet and Cardiovascular Disease to Health Canada, a revision to the Guide was prompted in order to take into account the relationship between a healthy diet and the prevention of heart disease and other chronic diseases.

Dietary philosophy shift

The 1992 updated edition, which was named Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating, marked a new era in the Guide’s nutritional direction. It was accompanied by a shift in philosophy which embraced a total diet approach when choosing foods rather than the traditional foundation diet concept. The total diet approach brought with it wide ranges of serving suggestions from the four food groups to reflect the varying energy needs for different ages, body sizes, activity levels, genders and conditions such as pregnancy and nursing.

All-in-one tool

The penultimate updated edition of the publication released in 2007 saw another name change, this time titled Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide. Designed as an all-in-one tool, this version of the Guide served to address some of the challenges that were identified in the previous iteration while building on its strengths, including its consistency

with current science. In addition, for the first time, the 2007 Guide was translated into 10 different languages in addition to English and French. A tailored Food Guide for First Nations, Inuit and Métis was translated into Cree, Ojibwe and Inuktitut. in addition to English and French. And, a significant online component was developed which included a range of resources and tools.

Today’s Guide

The current iteration of Canada’s Food Guide, released in January 2019, maintains the purpose that it’s been intended to serve all along, recommending that Canadians eat a variety of healthy foods every day, including an appropriate amount of vegetables, fruits, protein foods, and whole grains. It also suggests that people adopt water as their drink of choice in order to properly and effectively quench the body’s metabolic functions. In addition, the Guide makes the following recommendations concerning health behaviours and habits related to eating:

• Be mindful of eating habits

• Cook more often

• Enjoy food

• Eat meals with others

• Use food labels

• Be aware of food marketing

• Limit foods high in sodium, sugars or saturated fat

• Involve others in planning and preparing meals

• Notice when you are hungry and when you are full

• Serving size vs. proportion

Addressing the last point (serving size vs. proportion), the current Guide includes an updated approach concerning recommended servings. Rather than recommending specific servings of food from the four food groups, a proportional diet is suggested, which contains 50 per cent of an individuals daily calories coming from vegetables and fruits, 25 per cent from whole grain foods, and 25 per cent from protein foods.

Maintained purpose

Canada’s Food Guide continues to evolve, as it has done for more than eight decades now, adapting recommendations based on a number of different factors and variables. And, through its evolution and adaptations, it’s maintained the same overarching purpose focused on guiding Canadians’ food choices while promoting the nutritional health of everyone in the country.

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