Derrick Rossi Innovation Award Recipients

Chung-Wai Chow

Temerty Faculty of Medicine & Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Machine Learning Based System for Interpretation of Respiratory Oscillometry

Professor Chung-Wai Chow’s work is dedicated to improving equity and accessibility to pulmonary function testing for lung health. Despite advances in treatments, chronic lung diseases such as asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) remain the third-leading cause of death worldwide. This is due to the lack of patient access to PFTs, or Pulminary Function Tests that measure lung function. Oscillometry is an emerging PFT that has the advantage of portability, making it easily deployable in primary care or occupational health clinics settings. However, only a handful of specialists are trained to interpret oscillometry results.

Addressing this gap, Professor Chow’s research team has developed machine learning technology that interprets oscillometry results for clinicians. Developed using data from over 30,000 oscillometry tests, this tool can recognize abnormal findings, classifying them into lung function pattern categories characteristic to common lung diseases.

Molly Shoichet

Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering & Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Chase Biotherapeutics: Breaking barriers towards clinical translation for stroke recovery

University Professor Molly Shoichet’s research focuses on innovative drug and cell delivery strategies to overcome central nervous system-related pathologies in addition to 3D cell culture models for drug discovery in cancer. Her focus on strokes is due to their devastating effect on individuals and their families with few effective treatment options. More than 85% of stroke patients have no recovery options other than lengthy rehabilitation with limited results.

Revolutionizing treatment for stroke patients, the Shoichet lab invented a surgical treatment strategy for individuals requiring interventions beyond rehabilitation. Developed in collaboration with Professor Cindi Morshead’s lab, this treatment improves patient outcomes by using a regenerative approach to strengthen plasticity in brain models of stroke injury.

Peter Roy

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Developing Novel Pro-Insecticides to Kill Mosquito Vectors of Disease

Mosquito-borne diseases are a major global health concern, affecting over 300 million people and causing one million deaths annually. These diseases, including malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus, have been expanding geographically over the past decade due to climate change. Traditionally, small-molecule insecticides have been crucial in controlling mosquito populations and limiting disease transmission. However, mosquitoes have developed resistance to these chemicals through increased activity of cytochrome P450 enzymes, which help them break down and eliminate insecticides.

Addressing this problem of insecticide-resistance, Professor Roy’s lab has developed a novel cell-based screening technology called PEXIL that reveals compounds that can be transformed into lethal metabolites by the mosquito's P450 enzymes. In this way, the mosquito’s mechanism of insecticide resistance is turned against them.

Emma Master

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Upcycling underused and renewable plant biomass to biochemicals through integrated biotechnologies

Mounting environmental and political pressures are increasing societal interest in domestic manufacturing using renewable, sustainably sourced, and regionally available biomass feedstocks including underused residues from agriculture, agri-food and forest product sectors. In Canada alone, forest and agricultural sectors generate nearly 100 million tonnes of biomass residues. Today, such residues are left unused or underused as energy, resulting in a missed revenue opportunity and the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Transforming biomass residues to valuable biochemicals would open new economic opportunities for the forest, agricultural and chemical sectors, while reducing GHG emissions.

Addressing this opportunity, Professor Master’s lab created a technology that converts biomass residues from the forestry and biofuel sectors into biochemicals that have a growing market demand. An innovative enzymatic process converts hemicelluloses into glucaric acid, xylose and hydrogen peroxide, sought-after substances to produce chelators (binders that remove toxic metals from the body), cleansers, biopolymer precursors and food products.

Keith Pardee

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Distributed Biomanufacturing for Improved Access to RNA Therapeutics

Despite major advances in RNA therapeutics and vaccines, high costs and centralized production mean these innovations remain inaccessible to many, especially in remote Canadian regions and low- and middle-income countries. Distributed, small-batch RNA biomanufacturing offers a promising and scalable solution, enabling localized production to support rare disease treatments, personalized medicine and global vaccine equity.

In collaboration with Professors Bowen Li, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Lindomar Pena, of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Pardee and his team have developed an automated platform for small-batch RNA biomanufacturing, enabling local production of vaccines and other medicines, supporting treatments for rare diseases. This proof-of-concept device will be further engineered for automated synthesis and purification of an RNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for distribution.