Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay Cell and gene therapies are a game changer for patients. As academics and industry have been saying for years now, these therapies offer the promise of cures for previously incurable diseases and disorders. There were over 1,000 clinical trials underway worldwide at the end of the first quarter of 2019.[1] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved 17 products, making it the “leader” in this area so…

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Science doesn’t usually get a lot of attention during elections, and we think that this needs to change. That’s why, on August 8th, a coalition of science groups, including Evidence For Democracy, the Toronto Science Policy Network (TSPN) and the Science & Policy Exchange, launched a national non-partisan #VoteScience campaign to advocate for science during the upcoming federal election. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through some of the #VoteScience actions you can take…

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Search #VoteScience on Twitter to discover which candidate posted this pro science selfie Canadian science groups and a non-partisan organization that promotes the “transparent use of evidence in government decision-making in Canada” have come together to launch a national campaign before Canadians go to the polls this fall to elect their federal representatives. The #VoteScience campaign, organized by Science & Policy Exchange, Toronto Science Policy Network and Evidence for Democracy, and supported by other science-focused…

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Matthew Mistry is a Market and Equity Analyst at CCRM, where he conducts investment diligence, market analyses, participates in company creation activities and supports strategic business development. He joined CCRM from the Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO) where he was involved in supporting health science companies gain access to private and public capital, providing strategic business advice, investor readiness coaching, and pitch review and evaluation of high potential health science technologies in the province of…

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ComSciConCAN featured pop talks, where attendees had one minute to share their research in an accessible and engaging manner. The audience could raise JARGON or AWESOME cards in response. Credit: Zachary Guy. On July 18th, 50 graduate students (including yours truly!) descended upon McMaster University to attend the first national ComSciConCAN: a three-day science communication event consisting of four panels, six workshops, one keynote and over 25 different experts, with the aim of empowering graduate…

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Cancer is the leading cause of death in the world. Julio C. Valencia, NCI Center for Cancer Research, CC BY-SA  Synthetic biology is an exciting discipline that, according to SynBio Canada, “represents a maturation of genetic engineering and biotechnology.” Medicine by Design names synthetic biology as an engineering design principle that will help accelerate breakthroughs in regenerative medicine. So how is synthetic biology having an impact now? The article below, by Chris Barnes and Alex Fedorec…

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Recipient locations and destinations from one year of GoFundMe crowdfunding campaigns for stem cell treatments for neurological diseases and injuries. (Source: Drs. Snyder and Turner) Jeremy Snyder, PhD, is a Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Leigh Turner, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Center for Bioethics, School of Public Health and College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota. You can find them on Twitter @jeremycsnyder and @LeighGTurner…

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Eleni Kanavas is the Acting Communications Specialist at CCRM. She has more than eight years of corporate communications experience working in the academic and health science fields. She graduated with an Honours BA in Journalism from the University of Toronto and an Ontario College Advanced Diploma in Journalism from Centennial College. Eleni previously worked at Sunnybrook Research Institute and the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus. Science and tech-based art, or “sciart” for short, has changed the scientific…

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Slide by Dr. Alicia Wanless at CPRS’ annual conference, June 2019. Propaganda is everywhere these days. Even (especially?) at a conference for public relations professionals. La Generalista, aka Alicia Wanless, was the opening keynote speaker at the recent Canadian Public Relations Society’s (CPRS) “Evolving Expectations” annual conference, held this year in Edmonton, Alberta. Dr. Wanless, a researcher at King’s College London, is an expert on information and propaganda, areas of study that are crucial to…

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There’s a new blog in town and it’s in direct competition to Signals. Or is it? In our information saturated world, there is a great deal of competition for your attention. In 2015, Netflix users had streamed 42.5 billion hours of video and its users collectively spent 140 hours a day watching content from a library of 5,599 titles as of 2018, a drop from 2014 when it had 8,000 titles (source Netflix, uNoGS and…

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