Turning scientific discoveries into clinical applications can take many years of development and testing. That is why Commercialization at UHN has established the Accelerator Fund (AF), which provides financial and business development support to help promising technologies reach their full potential. Advancing research and clinical innovations through the AF is a joint effort between UHN researchers and business development experts from the Commercialization at UHN team, facilitating their market entry as new medical services, devices, or therapies.
The AF has two streams: the Innovation Accelerator and the future Clinical Accelerator. UHN Commercialization is thrilled to announce the first recipients of funding from the Innovation Accelerator stream.
Congratulations to the following UHN researchers who have received a total of $750,000 in internal funding to advance their work toward commercialization:
● Dr. Sarah Crome (Toronto General Hospital Research Institute): This funding will help support progress on a novel cell therapy to prevent or treat graft versus host disease following stem cell transplant to improve clinical outcomes.
● Dr. Shinichiro Ogawa (McEwen Stem Cell Institute): This funding will help in developing a stem cell-based, functionally complete, vascularized liver tissue for regenerative therapy in patients with liver failure.
● Dr. Pamela Ohashi (Princess Margaret Cancer Centre): Funding will go towards work on the development and pre-clinical validation of a novel cell therapy agent to be used for cancer immunotherapy.
Thanks to a generous partnership with UHN Foundation and The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, the Innovation Accelerator stream provides a maximum of $250,000 in funding per project—helping take promising novel technologies further towards commercialization and future patient impact.
Learn more about the winning projects here.