Scientists at Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) are inventing the future of healthcare by developing innovative tools and devices that aim to solve some of healthcare’s most complex challenges. By working with trusted partners in both public and private sectors, our scientists can identify, innovate and protect new technologies, and bring discoveries to the medical marketplace so they reach and benefit more patients. From bench to bedside, Sunnybrook inventors are working to trailblaze patient care one idea at a time.
All inventions come from asking a question. In their lifetime, two in five Canadians are expected to be diagnosed with cancer, a disease in which abnormal cells grow and invade other parts of the body. But what if we could reprogram the body’s own cells so they could fight cancer cells?
Dr. Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker, senior scientist in the Biological Sciences and Odette Cancer Research Program, is researching T-cell development and Notch signalling and its therapeutic implications in the treatment of leukemia. T-cells, made in the thymus — a small organ in the upper chest, are a type of white blood cell that play a vital role in immune response, targeting and attacking viruses, bacteria and importantly, cancer cells.
Dr. Zúñiga-Pflücker is the scientific co-founder of Notch Therapeutics, an SRI spin-off company designing and manufacturing off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells from pluripotent stem cells, which can be used as therapies to target and fight cancer. Notch Therapeutics’ CAR T-cells are genetically modified so they can be used by universal recipients, and act as a tumor-targeting mechanism in patients with leukemia. These therapeutics have the potential to provide a more precise treatment to cancer patients, with less side-effects than current therapies like chemotherapy and radiation. The name Notch Therapeutics comes from the technology’s foundation in Notch signalling research. The Notch signalling pathway is critical in cell-to-cell communication, helping to control organ and tissue development and gene expression.
What inspired you to become an inventor and create new medical technology?
All inventions arise from basic scientific questions and endeavours. My inspiration for Notch Therapeutics came from doing fundamental discovery work in developmental immunology and from finding out how things work.
In my case, I had questions about how we could generate T-cells from stem cells, like how the thymus makes it happen. We then applied that knowledge into developing clinically relevant tools for fighting cancer with CAR-T cells.
What advice would you give to someone interested in launching a health-care company to commercialize their discoveries?
Start by focusing on a key biological question and pursue fundamental discovery work. This will lead to new opportunities to apply the research into something that can be commercialized and serve more communities.
Many people are interested in the final stages of launching companies, but none of it can happen without the initial discoveries. The interest and focus should be in creating new knowledge, the rest follows from this inventive step.
How has Sunnybrook enabled you to make your technology a reality?
Pursuing commercial goals is not what discovery research is about. Without discovery, you cannot have the new knowledge required for turning new technologies into a reality, which serves to validate the process. I am grateful that SRI supports this entire arc, from discovery to clinical translation to commercialization. SRI provides the infrastructure and climate to enable fundamental basic biological discovery research, which plays a key role in making the initial findings that lead to technological advances that can later be commercialized.
