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IMMpress Volume 13 Issue 3 – From Bench to Business
“Bench” to “Business”. “Academia” versus “Industry”. These terms are often written side-by-side as an act of juxtaposition, with an intention tohighlight differences over similarities. Yet “Bench” and “Business” are co-dependent entities,with one thriving due to the success of the other. Without the rigorous experiments conducted atthe bench, ideation and subsequent commercialization of life-saving therapies would…
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Letter from the Chair, Dr. Jennifer Gommerman – Volume 13 Issue 3, 2025
This newest IMMpress Magazine issue, “From Bench to Business”, focuses on scientificentrepreneurship, recent discoveries, and job opportunities within our field. This was a verycomprehensive issue that should be required reading for anybody engaged in research. I think I’lldrop off a copy at the Rotman School of Management so they can have an inside view of…
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Letter from the Editors – Volume 13 Issue 3, 2025
Will I be able to get a job in the future? This is a question that every grad student asks themselves as they move closer to the date ofgraduation. In the current global economy, employment prospects are looking more dire thanever before. And yet, as immunologists, we are fortunate to be a part of a…
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Featured Articles
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The Story of Ozempic
Drug discovery is a game of long odds: only one in ten thousand lab discoveries survives the gauntlet from benchtop to prescription pad. Stranger still is the fate of a hormone discovered in a deep-sea creature and lizard venom, now reborn in the age of social media as a global weight loss icon – something
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From Inbox to In Silico: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Drug Development
Monday morning begins: you open Outlook, fix a sentence in Word, skim a new paper, and accidentally drift onto social media where yet another “personal assistant” pops up. The recent surge of generative and natural language processing models has created the sense that artificial intelligence (AI) is capable of addressing every problem we face. Naturally,
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Funding Canadian Biotech: How Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Public Programs Shape Our Innovation Ecosystem
1. VC vs. PE: What’s the Difference? Every biotech company begins its journey with an idea, long before it earns a single dollar. To survive those early years, it needs quite a lot of capital and relies on outside investors. Two groups provide most of that financial support: venture capital and private equity. Although they
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Alumni Interview
Juan Mauricio Umaña: The path from a Master’s degree to Principal Research Associate at BlueRock Therapeutics
Today we’re joined by Juan Mauricio Umaña, a Master’s Immunology Program and Mallevaey lab alumnus. Juan has worked at BlueRock Therapeutics for over six years, first beginning as an Associate and later growing into his current role as Principal Research Associate. His work is split between the wet lab- where he leads experimental design- and
Articles
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Biotech success story: Where collaboration meets competition
When we observe the previous winners of the Nobel Prize, it becomes immediately apparent that open collaboration, and a drive to improve humanity’s fight against disease are important factors of conducting impactful science. Sharing her views on the future of…
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Building your curriculum vitae: what can you do now to improve your future job prospects?
The curriculum vitae, or CV, is a document that all academics have prepared numerous times during their careers. Latin for “course of life,” the CV is a detailed professional summary of all academic qualifications, work experience, and career-related achievements that…
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CAR-T Therapy: When medical breakthroughs bear steep price tags
In 2010, five-year-old Emily Whitehead was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a type of cancer that affects white blood cells. After years of intense chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, and repeated relapses that seemed to defeat all hopes for remission,…
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Congratulations you’ve graduated…now what??
In 2024-2025, there were 3,183 graduate learners in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine; just shy of 50% of these are enrolled in a PhD program. Upon finishing their degrees, these graduates will join fellow alumni that make up 9% of…
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Doctored (2025) by Charles Piller
Spending days, weeks or even months working on an experiment, aiming for perfect results makes science feel like art. Just as painters obsess over every brushstroke to create a masterpiece, scientists execute protocols meticulously to generate data that is clean…
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From Coast to Coast: Canada’s Growing Immunology and Biotechnology Landscape
Canada is a country defined by its sheer size, which gives rise to diverse landscapes and distinct regional cultures. From the wet and temperate mountains of British Columbia, across the open plains, to the densely populated cities of Ontario and…
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Mitacs: From Academia to Innovation
For many students and post-doctoral fellows, the leap from the lab to the world beyond academia can feel uncertain. How do you take your research skills and apply them to solve real-world challenges? Closing this divide is Mitacs, a national…
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Spinning Out: Highlighting companies that bridge the translation gap from academic discovery to biotechnology innovation
The field of biotechnology, or more commonly known as “biotech”, implements the use of living organisms to develop applications intended for improving human welfare. Medical biotech companies pursue or license in scientific discoveries to produce tangible benefits for healthcare such…
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Surviving as a PhD Student in a Shaky Economy
It is a strange time to be in graduate school. Between inflation, trade disputes, and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the world feels like it is shifting faster than any of us can keep up. Many young adults are…
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The endless possibilities beyond traditional wet lab
Perhaps you have just started graduate school, or perhaps you are almost done. Regardless of when you started or why you chose this path, at some point you may wonder, “What’s next?” Maybe by this point, you have decided that…
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The high cost of being one-in-a-million: Pharmaceutical industry makes billions from therapies to treat rare diseases
A patient living with a rare disease – defined as one that affects 1 in every 2,000 people 1– may understandably feel isolated. The number of patients that share their symptoms and struggles is inherently small. However, with around 7,000…
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THINKING OF STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS?
Starting out can often feel overwhelming, but with the right mindset and preparations you can set yourself up for success. Here’s a handy checklist to guide you through the early stages of starting a business: DO’s 1. Make a solid…