UNews - Aubrey Demchuk

U of L students turn research ideas into a company that's generating buzz

caroline.zentner — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 21:02:46 +0000

A group of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge graduate students is patenting a process that harnesses the power of the body’s own cells to repair scar tissue in the brain – thereby opening up a new world of possibilities for treating stroke and traumatic brain injury.

Aubrey Demchuk and Scott Wong use a transmission electron microscope to obtain an image of a cell nucleus

The students, who just recently formed Nomadogen Biotechnologies Inc., have created a combination genetic and cellular therapy dubbed Nomadocytes, which utilizes patient-derived cells to non-invasively deliver therapeutic molecules to brain cells affected by injury or disease.

The group recently won two of three categories at the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge presented by Community Futures Lethbridge Region, earning the top award in the Technology and Innovation Business Stream and Student Business Stream.

“This research is very exciting,” says Zak Stinson, a Regina, Sask. native who came to the U of L in 2011 to complete a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Neuroscience. He is now working on his Master of Science with a major in Neuroscience degree under the guidance of Dr. Bruce McNaughton and is based out of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of California-Irvine. “Neurodegenerative disorders are devastating to patients, families and the economy. There is massive unmet need for new, better treatments for things like stroke, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease, and this need is only going to increase as the population ages.”

The beauty of Nomadogen’s technology is its relative simplicity and non-invasive nature.

“Nomadocytes are a naturally occurring type of brain cell that we can derive from bone marrow cells, modify for our own purposes, and re-administer without any invasive neurosurgical procedures,” explains Aubrey Demchuk, a Lethbridge native who recently completed a Master of Science degree with a major in Neuroscience at the U of L. “We are simply adapting a small communication vesicle produced by these cells so that they are attracted specifically to areas of the brain that are damaged, basically anything with scar tissue from either stroke or traumatic brain injury, and using them to deliver a therapeutic message.”

Zak Stinson

The cells naturally migrate to these damaged areas in the brain before releasing a vesicle that contains a specifically designed DNA molecule. This molecule is taken up by the scar tissue and, when the DNA is expressed, converts the scar tissue back into functional neurons.

The group’s pre-clinical trials in cell culture models have been extremely encouraging and, by fall 2015, testing will move into rodent models.

“If the cells behave in a living brain as we predict they will, the therapeutic potential for Nomadocytes is massive,” says Stinson.

Because the technology they have created is an easily adaptable platform, a litany of other neurodegenerative disorders could potentially be treatable and the therapy could even conceivably be used to target peripheral injuries, such as tissue damage in a limb.

Demchuk, Stinson and partners, Scott Wong and Evan Caton, met as part of the U of L’s award-winning iGEM program and quickly found a synergy in their thinking.

Evan Caton

“The four of us have different but complementary backgrounds in genetics, neuroscience, and biochemistry and together we generated a number of ideas that fit together very nicely,” says Demchuk. “At the end of the iGEM season, we had collectively invested a lot of time and thought into this project and wanted to pursue it further, if only because the research seemed promising. The company was kind of an accident that came out of it.”

She admits that, as scientists, they never thought about the business side of their technology but were encouraged by faculty members within the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN) to incorporate and then patent their technology. With guidance from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ-Industry Liaison Office and assistance from technology advisor Bill Halley and the Regional Innovation Network Southern Alberta (RINSA), among others, Nomadogen is generating significant industry buzz.

“It is very exciting because we are already much more successful than we had ever hoped,” says Demchuk. “We came in with very low expectations and so far we have had a lot of people interested and invested in our idea.”

CCBN renovation creates enhanced research area

trevor.kenney — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:42:32 +0000

The Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN) has undergone some major renovations in the past few months to improve the space where world-renowned research is being conducted.

The former in situ lab at the CCBN was quickly outgrowing the needs of the expanding Polaris Brain Dynamics Research Group at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. But thanks to funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, a new, larger lab and animal facility – an addition of 224-square metres – has been built to better suit researchers' needs.

The new lab is a modern space with the capacity to operate multiple workstations simultaneously. Previously, researchers would have to travel from room to room to gather supplies or use a particular piece of equipment, while changing lab coats and other protective gear between rooms.

Research technician Aubrey Demchuk prepares an experiment in the CCBN's new in situ lab that offers much more space than the previous lab.

Research technicians Valérie Lapointe and Aubrey Demchuk, who help to manage the lab and assist undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and principal investigators with their research, say the extra space has greatly improved their working conditions.

"The room where we were doing the experiments before was very tiny. We could only work with a few people at a time, and we'd kind of walk on one another," says Lapointe, who was part of the planning and design process for the new in situ lab. "It's nice that it is bigger and that everything is here in one room."

"We're really lucky to have as much space as we have now," says Demchuk.

Dr. Bruce McNaughton, Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) Polaris Research Chair, says many projects were put on hold until the new lab could be built.

"We now have an outstanding neural imaging facility for both live animal imaging and quantitative microscopy. As well as an integrated center for neuroscience data analysis, with workstations connected to our parallel supercomputing facility," he says. "These new facilities will enable a big increase in lab productivity and the output of high quality basic and preclinical neuroscience."

When it came to building the lab, most of the work was in the details, says project manager Brad Robinson.

"You can see, the counters are just full of lab equipment, so I had to do elevation views of each wall and know where each piece of equipment was going, where the plug was going, where the data plug was going, where the light switches were going, where the thermostats were going and so on. I had to know where everything needed to be logistically to create a well-organized, functioning lab," he says.

The rodent research facility at CCBN also received an overhaul. It now features 45 animal experiment/research rooms, six surgery suites, a quarantine room, seven animal housing rooms, an MRI room, an MPE (multiphoton electron) microscope room and an optical imaging room equipped with specialized LED surgical lights and Nederman gas extractor arms that can be placed almost anywhere near a surgery table to exhaust vapours.

Making renovations to the CCBN's animal facility wasn't without its challenges. Construction work can severely impact research. Simply drilling a hole into the drywall contaminates a room. The preparation and planning to shut down an area of the facility can take longer than the actual construction work, but if the proper precautions are not taken, the entire animal facility could be contaminated and thousands of hours of research work would be lost.

"Shutting down parts of the building to tie the new infrastructure into the existing infrastructure was a real team effort," says Robinson.

This story first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

UNews - Aubrey Demchuk

U of L students turn research ideas into a company that's generating buzz

Related Topics

CCBN renovation creates enhanced research area

Related Topics