The dotLab™ System

On November 27, Axela (a MaRS tenant and Venture Group client) was featured along with Dr. Alex Levin from Sick Children’s Hospital on a CTV Canada AM special series, “Canadians on the Cutting Edge.”

The interview highlights Axela’s dotLab™ System which detects protein biomarkers related to Shaken Baby Syndrome in emergency rooms. These markers may also be of value in the diagnosis of other spinal and brain injuries. Axela is working with collaborators at health research facilities across North America including McGill University, Johns Hopkins, the National Institutes of Health and others to help address key diagnostic challenges in diseases like cancer and cardiology.

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Last night’s Entrepreneurship 101 speaker, Dr. Michael May, talked about the importance of persistence — never letting a “no” stop you. One of the webmail questioners complained about being turned down for funding numerous times and asked about when to give up.

Question of the week:
How many times have you been turned down?

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Medical Journals: relics of the past?

What lies ahead for patients and practitioners as the world of information technology converges ever deeply with the art and science of medicine and research?

That was among the questions informing a lively conversation last week between Dr. John Hoey, former editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and Dr. Richard Smith, former editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal and author of The Trouble with Medical Journals (2006).

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Entrepreneurs aren’t the only ones who take on risk in a start-up

I recently caught the following headline in a Tech Crunch article: ‘Facebook Stealing Googlers At An Alarming Rate’ which goes on to discuss Facebook’s poaching of top-notch talent from the search beast in order to boost their (fad) business. One employee is quoted as saying: “it’s not just about the money. Entrepreneurs want to work at the hottest place on earth and right now that’s Facebook.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, isn’t Zuckerberg the genius entrepreneur here? Who’s this dude? Since when did entrepreneurs work for other people?

This reminded me of the importance of the entrepreneurial employee in a new venture or any other innovative or creative business.

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Will Facebook Apps become useful?

I must confess that I am not an early adopter of latest gadgets and technologies.

In Forrester’s methodology of consumer segmentation I would probably fall into the “technology pessimist” category. To me, Facebook is just a “necessary evil”: a way to keep up with a group of friends who have already moved there. But I am very interested in Facebook as a pop culture and a business phenomenon (well, the latest price tag on Facebook is also very intriguing: “Trying To Justify That $2 Billion Pricetag, Facebook Expands Beyond Students” and “ Face value: Book value“).

I am most fascinated, however, by the platform potential of Facebook, as a technology on top of which others can build new software tools and businesses. Facebook has yet to prove that it can evolve beyond multiplayer scrabble and create environments where businesses would want to play.

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Human embryo photo: Dr David Becker, Wellcome Images

Earlier this week, the Berlin wall of stem cell research came crashing down.

Yamanaka and colleagues published a report showing that they could obtain cells exhibiting all the qualities of human embryonic stem cells from adult human skin cells. This raises the possibility that human stem cells could be isolated in a way that avoids the ethical concerns regarding use of early human embryos.

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Last night’s Entrepreneurship 101 class heard from Mr. Seymour Schulich, a self-made Canadian billionaire. Mr. Schulich made much of his fortune in mining companies, but he told the class that we are living in a different world now: what he did wouldn’t necessarily work now.

Question of the Week
How are you going to make your first billion: in resources or in high tech?

Downloads and Resources

• Webcast
• Class information
• ENT101 Facebook Group

Click to download the article

Peter A. Singer, interim director and professor of medicine at U of T’s McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health here at the MaRS Centre, wrote in the National Post that MaRS could be a model for improving economic and social conditions in Africa.

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Toronto General Hospital, circa 1913

The newly launched MaRS website features a “History of the MaRS Heritage Building.” As many of us still remember, the MaRS Heritage Building was formerly the “College Wing” of the Toronto General Hospital. Aside from being an architectural tour de force at the time, this building has a special history in the field of medical research.

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The December issue of Portfolio, Conde Nast’s glossy new business magazine, features a think-piece that turns MaRS’ innovation theory on its head. While MaRS supports innovation by assisting in the creation and growth of technology-based companies, Andy Grove makes the argument that it’s the big guys like Apple or Wal-Mart that really innovate.

To read more, see: Think Disruptive