Alumni

3D-printed soil? ��ɫֱ�� startup expands sustainable urban farming footprint in Toronto

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 15:07:18 +0000

3D-printed soil? ��ɫֱ�� startup expands sustainable urban farming footprint in Toronto

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 09/11/2024 - 11:07

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Leo Hua and Adnan Sharif show off fresh basil that was grown with Lyrata’s sustainable farming system at Toronto’s Casa Loma (photo by Liz Intac)

Tyler Irving

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Our Community

Alumni

Cities

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Startups

Sustainability

��ɫֱ�� Scarborough

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With new installations at Casa Loma and ��ɫֱ�� Scarborough, Lyrata is supplying freshly grown produce to local caterers and restaurants

A startup co-founded by a ��ɫֱ�� graduate student has its roots in an experience that is all too common for many of us.

He kept forgetting to water his plants.

“I was working in a plant immunity biology lab, so if I didn’t water them, I’d have no plants to do experiments with,” says Adnan Sharif, who is pursuing a master’s degree in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

He says his solution was inspired by his father.

“My dad is a mechanical engineering professor at a university in Japan, and he knows a lot about manufacturing materials with porous, three-dimensional structures,” he says. “That’s how I got the idea to make my own 3D-printed soil construct, which could retain water for a week or more.

“That way, I wouldn’t have to go into the lab and water the plants so often.”

The innovation – which Sharif came up as an undergraduate working in the lab of Keiko Yoshioka, a professor in the department of cell and systems biology in ��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science – is one of several that now underpins Lyrata, a startup that grows fresh produce for caterers and high-end restaurants across the Greater Toronto Area.

The company, which got its start in a greenhouse on ��ɫֱ��’s St. George campus, has recently expanded with operations at ��ɫֱ�� Scarborough and Casa Loma, a museum, event space and historic site in midtown Toronto.

Growing plants without soil, known as hydroponics, is a technique commonly used in greenhouses worldwide. But Sharif and his team see an opportunity to make the industry more sustainable, starting with the soil replacement that the plants grow in.

“The product that almost everyone uses today is basically the same as house insulation,” Sharif says. “It’s made from rocks that are mined in remote places and shipped hundreds of kilometres to a production facility, where they are heated to thousands of degrees in a giant furnace to make a porous, chemically inert material. This material then needs to be shipped again to where it’s needed, and when you’re finished, you throw it in the garbage.”

By contrast, Lyrata’s SmartSoil is 3D-printed using biopolymers such as polylactic acid, which is derived from corn. These materials can be locally sourced and require much lower temperatures to melt and form into porous structures.

When the growing cycle is complete, the product goes through a low-heat proprietary cleaning process and can be used again. Sharif says that SmartSoil has a total lifespan of about two years, after which it can be composted along with crop residue. Together, these changes greatly lower the carbon footprint of indoor farming.

In 2020, Sharif and his co-founders brought his idea to The Entrepreneurship Hatchery, ��ɫֱ�� Engineering’s startup incubator and one of several entrepreneurship hubs across ��ɫֱ��’s three campuses. Through the Hatchery’s Nest process, they were connected with business mentors, including alumnus Xavier Tang, a consultant and venture capitalist who still advises the company today.

Over the next few years, the team evolved, with some original members leaving and others joining. They include Leo Hua, who has been pivotal to speeding the development of 3D printable soil. The concept evolved, too, as the team realized that producing food was a better business for Lyrata than rather than selling their growth medium to other farmers.

The Hatchery team – in particular, Executive Director Joseph Orozco, Go-To-Market Lead Erika J. Murray and a team of work-study students, mentors and legal externs – helped Lyrata develop their technology and business. In 2022, the Hatchery provided $155,000 in seed funding, enabling the founders to be employed by their company and further supporting business development. The funding also enabled the company to rent greenhouse space on campus, where they began growing lettuce to provide to Spaces and Experiences at ��ɫֱ��.

Lyrata also developed something new: a modular unit that works exclusively with their SmartSoil and contains everything required to produce a variety of indoor crops – from lights and growth medium to irrigation systems.

“None of these technological and business developments would have taken place without the generous support of the over 50 Hatchery mentors, work-study students, and legal externs who contributed to our success,” says Sharif.

“Our current concept is what we call farming-as-a-service,” Hua adds. “The SmartGrow unit we developed is small enough to fit into a standard parking spot. Our clients sign a contract with us to place a unit on their site and we take care of everything from planting to harvesting.

“For a flat fee, they get a self-contained farm that provides a reliable quantity of their desired crop over a set period of time.”

In addition to providing a locally sourced, sustainable product, Sharif says the approach can also help mitigate fluctuations in the price of wholesale produce.

“In Canada, most of our lettuce comes from California, which has been dealing with drought and many other issues,” says Sharif. “Supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 were also a big challenge for restaurants, which have very thin margins to begin with. At one point, the price of lettuce increased by a factor of six, so you can imagine the effect that would have.”

So far, Lyrata has produced more than 15 different types of crops, including basil, parsley and mizuna, also known as Japanese mustard greens.

Support from the ��ɫֱ�� Engineering community has been key to Lyrata’s success.

For example, it was a ��ɫֱ�� Engineering alumni connection that recently led to Lyrata launching an installation at the historic Casa Loma museum and landmark in Toronto.

“Lyrata’s competitive edge is that they provide an on-site, full service and they do not take up very much space,” says Nikol Watlikiewicz, Casa Loma’s horticulture and grounds manager. “In a small corner of our potting shed, we were able to build two grow units that provide a good yield weekly, without having to train our staff on the complicated system.

“Growing indoors gives us the stability and control that traditional agriculture does not. It’s an excellent example of how engineers can help solve the global food crisis with innovative thinking.”

In August, Lyrata launched another growing unit at ��ɫֱ�� Scarborough, located within the Harmony Commons Dining Hall.

The priority for the next few years is growing Lyrata’s crop offerings and client base with ongoing support from The Hatchery. The incubator has facilitated graduate student placements through Mitacs, with matching funds. It also backed a recent $167,500 project with the Ontario and Canadian governments through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership program to further advance the yield and efficiency of the SmartSoil system.

“The fact we’ve been able to come this far in such a short time is in large part due to the help we’ve had from ��ɫֱ�� Engineering, and especially the Entrepreneurship Hatchery,” says Sharif.

“Whether it was getting seed funding, finding mentors, hiring work-study students or making important connections through their alumni network, we wouldn’t be here without their support.”

Get That Hope: Alumna and former ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga instructor premières latest work at Stratford Festival

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 15:27:55 +0000

Get That Hope: Alumna and former ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga instructor premières latest work at Stratford Festival

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/29/2024 - 11:27

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Andrea Scott says she wrote her latest play, Get That Hope, after seeing Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, asking herself, “Why don’t we have plays like this about Black Canadian families?” (photo by Helen Tansey)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

Theatre

��ɫֱ�� Mississauga

Subheadline

Andrea Scott's play tells the story of a Toronto family in the lead-up to a Jamaica Independence Day celebration

Andrea Scott has never forgotten the moment when her dreams of becoming a writer were quashed.

It was during a Grade 9 English class.

“I remember proclaiming something I felt was very literary and my English teacher shot me down so quickly,” says the ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga alumna and former instructor at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga. “It killed my desire to be a writer and I’ve never forgotten her.”

The death of Scott’s writing ambitions would prove to be premature. She just wrapped up a contract writing for Disney and recently her play Get That Hope, which tells the story of a family in the lead-up to a Jamaica Independence Day celebration, made its debut at the Stratford Festival.

Scott’s journey to becoming an award-winning playwright and screenwriter began when she temporarily gave up on writing in high school, and turned her attention to the stage. She received an honours bachelor of arts degree in theatre and drama studies through ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga’s joint program with Sheridan College, with a minor in English.

She later earned a master’s degree in drama through ��ɫֱ��’s School of Graduate Studies and the Faculty of Arts & Science. 

She recalls being “an annoying theatre kid” at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga, but says she had many professors who encouraged her and gave her a well-rounded theatre education.

“It is good to have a three-dimensional education regarding the ‘why’ of certain stories and the historical context,” Scott says. “I have a lot of those books still on my shelf because they inform how I write.”

Following graduation, she pursued an acting career in Toronto. As she auditioned for TV shows, she noticed a theme: Black characters often supported the protagonist – who was usually white – and didn’t have robust stories of their own.

When she auditioned for the role of a grieving mother who had lost her son to gun violence, she turned her attention back to writing.

“I was like, ‘Yeah ... I could write better than this,’” Scott says.

She wrote her first play, Damaged, a one-woman show that debuted at b current’s rock.paper.sistahz festival. Her second play, Eating Pomegranates Naked, was included in the SummerWorks Performance Festival.

It was a turning point for Scott.

“There were people lining up to see the play who did not know me and had never heard of me, and that felt very validating,” she says, adding that the play also earned her the RBC Arts Professional Award. “That was the moment where I realized, ‘Maybe I could do this.’”

Scott continued to achieve success with her plays, including Better Angels: A Parable, Don't Talk to Me Like I'm Your Wife (produced by her production company, Call Me Scotty Productions) and the award-winning Controlled Damage. She also taught playwriting to undergraduate students in ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga’s department of English and drama.

In 2020, Scott worked in the writers’ room on the CBC/BET production The Porter. Following that, she worked on Murdoch Mysteries for three seasons and wrote four episodes.

“Murdoch Mysteries was a huge achievement for me,” Scott says. “I never assumed that I would ever get a job quite like that.”

Scott recently wrote for the upcoming Disney series High Potential, which stars Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) with Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas as showrunner.

“The first time that I got to walk into the Disney lot, it just did not seem real,” she says. “It was a dream come true.”

On Aug. 10, Scott made her Stratford debut with the world première of Get That Hope. She says she was inspired to write the play after seeing Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

“All I kept thinking was, ‘Why don’t we have plays like this about Black Canadian families?’” she says.

Scott is working on a new play called Truthfully Jackie about Jackie Robinson’s time playing for the Montreal Royals in 1946.

While she has seen success throughout her career, Scott says she has also faced challenges – including not being taken seriously enough.

“I’m a woman, I’m a Black woman, and I’m really tiny – like five feet tall. But I have this voice, and I try to use it to make sure people take me seriously,” she says, adding that her advice for budding writers is to not take criticism to heart.

“Reacting emotionally to something that was maybe constructive criticism won’t help you,” Scott says. “Also, write and write and write – and don’t close off any kind of source material that you can be inspired by. You never know where it might come from.”

Get That Hope runs until Sept. 28 in the Stratford Festival's Studio Theatre.

Canada Post stamp honours the late Norman Jewison, one of the country's most celebrated filmmakers

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 13:00:56 +0000

Canada Post stamp honours the late Norman Jewison, one of the country's most celebrated filmmakers

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 08/27/2024 - 09:00

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(source photo by Peter Bregg for HELLO! Canada)

Joe Howell

Topic

Our Community

Alumni

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

A ��ɫֱ�� alumnus, Jewison served as chancellor of Victoria University in the ��ɫֱ�� from 2004 to 2010

Canada Post recently honoured acclaimed Canadian filmmaker – and ��ɫֱ�� alumnus – Norman Jewison with the recent release of a commemorative stamp.

Jewison, who died in January at age 97, was one of Victoria College’s most distinguished graduates. He was nominated for best director three times at the Academy Awards: for In the Heat of the Night (1967), Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Moonstruck (1987).

He also served as chancellor of Victoria University in the ��ɫֱ�� from 2004 to 2010, with the Jewison stream of Vic One, the award-winning first-year program at Victoria College, named in his honour.

“As Canadian as maple syrup, as Canadian as a Prairie sunset, and now we have as Canadian as Norman Jewison on a stamp – which may be the winning entry,” said comedian Rick Mercer during an unveiling event on July 24.

The event was hosted by the hosted at the Canadian Film Centre (CFC), which was established by Jewison in 1988 and serves as an incubator for Canadian film talent.

Mercer, who was joined at the launch by director and ��ɫֱ�� alumnus David Cronenberg, later told CBC News that Jewison was a “class act” who “believed in young people.”

Cronenberg, meanwhile, told the audience that, “When saying goodbye, [Jewison] would always say ‘stay strong,’ because he knew how much strength you needed to do what we did.”

Paul Gooch, a professor emeritus of philosophy who was president of Victoria University during Jewison’s time as chancellor, was among the attendees at the unveiling.

“It was quite joyful because Norman was such a wonderful guy and people wanted to tell stories about his life,” said Gooch. “All of the speakers referred to the fact that he was a storyteller and didn’t want to preach, despite being very concerned about social justice issues.

“He was great on human follies and the prejudices that we have.”

Gooch recalled Jewison’s remarkable support of young people. “As chancellor, he loved to interact with the students,” said Gooch. “He had something he did occasionally called ‘chat with the chanc,’ where he would have a group of students over to his place on Gloucester Lane and just sit around talking.”

Professor Emerita Pauline Thompson and Professor Emeritus Paul Gooch (supplied image)

Jewison is the fourth Victoria College graduate to be recognized with a stamp by Canada’s postal service in recent years, joining Margaret Atwood, Northrop Frye and Donald Sutherland. He was closely involved with the stamp’s creation and personally chose the image, which was taken at the CFC in 2007 by Peter Bregg for HELLO! Canada.

“After the photo appeared in Hello!, Norm called me up and asked if he could use it elsewhere,” said Bregg. “I said, ‘Yes,’ with pleasure. For three or four years after that he’d send me a litre of maple syrup from his farm as a thank you, which I found quite sweet, no pun intended. I’ve seen the photo everywhere since then.”

“Because the launch event was held at the CFC, the post office had the idea to let people recreate the original photo,” added Bregg. “You got a five-by-seven-inch print of yourself in Norm’s seat taken from the same angle.”

Jewison’s commemorative stamp is now available online and at Canada Post locations across the country.

'I came for that theatre'; Why the late Donald Sutherland championed ��ɫֱ��'s Hart House Theatre

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 13:04:15 +0000

'I came for that theatre'; Why the late Donald Sutherland championed ��ɫֱ��'s Hart House Theatre

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 08/26/2024 - 09:04

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(photo by Carlos R. Alvarez/WireImage/Getty Images)

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Subheadline

The esteemed actor and ��ɫֱ�� alumnus also created the Donald Sutherland Award for Best Performance

The late Donald Sutherland was not only an esteemed actor and alumnus of Victoria College – he was a fierce and lifelong champion of the ��ɫֱ��’s Hart House Theatre.

Known for roles in M*A*S*H, the Hunger Games, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and others, Sutherland stepped up in support of the campus theatre 24 years ago when it was facing possible closure.

With the help of fellow alumnus Lorne Michaels, creator and producer of Saturday Night Live, Sutherland became co-chair of the Friends of Hart House Theatre, which was colloquially known as the“Save Hart House Theatre Campaign.”

As part of his efforts, Sutherland penned an eloquent and heartfelt letter to then-theatre manager Janet Bessey that emphasized the theatre’s impact on his life and the lives of so many others.

“It’s a theatre. It smells. It hears. It sings. It’s a theatre with arms that embrace you, comfort you, push you, and applaud you. It gives birth to people who make theatre. It nurtures them. It guides them. It sets them free and they wear the mantle of that theatre for the rest of their lives,” he wrote.

He added that Hart House Theatre was among the reasons he applied to ��ɫֱ�� in the 1950s.

“When I came to Toronto forty-seven years ago, I came for that theatre. Expressly for that,” he stated in his correspondence with Bessey.

“I’d never been inside a theatre before; I’d never even seen a play. I knew nothing but that I was an actor. I’d not played yet but that’s what I’d come to do,” he elaborated. “That theatre was where some messenger from some advisory council somewhere told my open-faced father and my stunned-in the-headlights self that that was [the] place to go if that indeed was what I wanted to do. It was.”

The correspondence, later published by a newspaper, caused a ripple effect. “Through Donald Sutherland’s personal generosity and leadership, hundreds of donors came forward and ensured that Hart House Theatre would remain a vital crucible for student artists,” says Peter Wambera, Hart House’s associate director of advancement.

Sutherland’s very first acting experiences were at ��ɫֱ��. During his undergrad years, he participated in several theatrical productions staged by Hart House Theatre, UC Follies and Victoria College Dramatic Society.

His first acting role at Hart House Theatre was in James Thurber and Elliott Nugent’s The Male Animal (1953), which was well-received. He also earned excellent reviews from both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail for his role as Stephano in Hart House Theatre’s production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Other Hart House plays in which he was involved include Darkness at Noon, The Troublemakers and The School for Wives.

Sutherland also spent many of his summers acting at the Straw Hat Players, a theatre company founded by members of Hart House Theatre, along with its then director Robert Gill.

Donald Sutherland, centre, in "The School for Wives" in 1956 (photo courtesy of Hart House Theatre Archives)

Sutherland, a Companion of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (Film), graduated from ��ɫֱ�� in 1958 with a degree in engineering and drama. In 1998, he received an honorary degree from ��ɫֱ�� in recognition of his acting career and his championing of social issues. Hart House co-signed the nomination, recalls then-Warden Margaret Hancock.

His support of Hart House Theatre never wavered. In 2014, through a generous donation, he created the Donald Sutherland Award for Best Performance.

“Donald Sutherland’s gift, the creation of the award, not only reflected his own unforgettable experiences at Hart House Theatre and how profoundly he valued this theatre, but it also guaranteed that there would be a permanent award to acknowledge outstanding student acting,” says Doug Floyd, Hart House’s director of theatre and performance art. “This is an extraordinary legacy that we cherish at Hart House Theatre. It will inspire and support students for many generations.”

Each year’s recipient of the Donald Sutherland Award wrote a letter summing up their experiences at the Hart House ��ɫֱ�� Drama Festival. Updates were shared with Sutherland, would often respond with a letter of his own.

Hart House Theatre plans to dedicate the fall 2024/2025 season to Sutherland in a gesture of gratitude.

Reel impact: How a ��ɫֱ�� alum brought free films to Toronto parks each summer

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 14:54:03 +0000

Reel impact: How a ��ɫֱ�� alum brought free films to Toronto parks each summer

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 08/16/2024 - 10:54

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��ɫֱ�� alumna and TOPS founder Emily Reid, right, poses with Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow during a TOPS screening this summer (photo by Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias)

Topic

St. Michael's College

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'There are times when I get caught up in the planning and the numbers of it all – but that goes away at showtime. When I look out and see such an impressive crowd, it's very touching and I feel enormously proud of it'

For more than a decade, the Toronto Outdoor Picture Show (TOPS) has been a staple of the city's summer scene. Whether it’s a cultural touchstone film or something more obscure, the screenings bring thousands of people together.

And it’s all thanks to ��ɫֱ�� alumna Emily Reid.

“TOPS exists at the intersection of community, culture, cinema, public spaces, accessibility and affordability, providing programming that is available to everyone regardless of financial means,” says Reid, who is the artistic and executive director of TOPS.

The venture began humbly in 2011, just a few months after Reid earned her master of arts degree from the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Cinema Studies Institute.

The first screening billed as, “Movies in Christie Pits”, was a small, potentially one-off event, but Reid was determined to tap into something the city craved.

“I think there is such a strong desire for gathering and fostering cultural experiences together,” she says.

Within a few years, however, the park was packed every Sunday night – so Reid added more shows at more locations. After rebranding as Toronto Outdoor Picture Show and registering as a not-for-profit, Reid started running TOPS on a full-time basis.

“I didn't expect it to pay much, and I was right about that. It took quite a long time to take a salary,” says Reid. “And there are times when I get caught up in the planning and the numbers of it all – but that goes away at showtime. When I look out and see such an impressive crowd, it's very touching and I feel enormously proud of it.”

TOPS registered as a charity in 2020, which helped secure new government grants and sponsorship opportunities. This growth made it possible for Reid to hire more full-time staff and purchase better AV equipment to make the organization nimbler and more autonomous.

Thousands of people flock to Toronto parks every summer to catch Toronto Outdoor Picture Show (photo courtesy of TOPS)

Lights, camera, education

Growing up in the 1990s in small-town Quebec, the only movies Reid could watch were the ones she rented from the local video store. Her favourites included A League of Their Own and Strictly Ballroom.

Reid was infatuated with film but realized she wasn’t a born filmmaker. Her true calling was in film curation and supporting other people’s artistic goals. She knew ��ɫֱ�� could open the right doors and give her the experience she needed to make an impact.

“Toronto always sounded like a mythical place to be,” says Reid. “I knew its reputation as a city of cinephiles and a city of festivals; I’d never been to the Toronto International Film Festival.”

For the practicum requirement of Reid’s master’s degree, she worked at Toronto’s historic Revue Cinema, where she pitched and curated her first film series. She also learned the ins and outs of film sourcing, marketing and event production – all essential skills for her future startup.

��ɫֱ�� played a pivotal role in expanding Reid’s industry network. She formed close bonds with the 13 people in her cinema studies cohort, some of whom later became her collaborators at TOPS.

Felan Parker, associate professor, teaching stream, in the Book & Media Studies program at St. Michael's College, is a TOPS co-founder who has served several terms on the board of directors and regularly contributes to festival programming.

“Emily is the driving force behind TOPS, having taken it from humble beginnings to what is easily the biggest and best outdoor movie event in the city,” says Parker. “She is probably the most fastidious person I know, and community-oriented public arts is her passion and vocation.”

There’s a strong connection between ��ɫֱ�� and TOPS, which draws more than 30,000 movie-goers each year (photo courtesy of TOPS)

Parker and Reid have teamed up to build strong ties between ��ɫֱ�� and TOPS. The organization has hosted numerous for-credit undergrad interns.

Isabella Brown, for example, is a ��ɫֱ�� graduate who joined TOPS as an intern and is now the organization's program administrator.

Despite TOPS’ success, Reid is tasked with overcoming existential threats year in and year out, citing underfunding of the arts. She says government grants are shrinking while inflation is rising.

“We lost all our sponsorship funding in the first week of the pandemic. And most of that has never returned, even though our festival is so much bigger, so much more successful than it was in 2019,” says Reid.

But Reid is hopeful that TOPS will continue hosting outdoor film screenings for many years to come. She knows the value it brings to the city she now calls home.

“When we hear that some arts entity is calling it quits, that doesn't mean something else won't come in its place. But it takes at least a decade to create something impactful. And we don’t live in a time where there are many resources available to create new things,” she says, adding that TOPS is grateful to the patrons who keep the festival running summer after summer.

“We need to preserve what we love and what we value as the cultural fabric of this city.”

��ɫֱ�� researchers develop AI model to predict 'very dynamic' peptide structures

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 12:54:41 +0000

��ɫֱ�� researchers develop AI model to predict 'very dynamic' peptide structures

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/15/2024 - 08:54

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PhD Graduate Osama Abdin and Professor Philip M. Kim developed a deep-learning model that can predict all possible shapes of peptides, which are are of keen interest to researchers who are developing therapeutics (supplied image)

Anika Hazra

Topic

Breaking Research

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Alumni

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

The new model expands on the capabilities of Google DeepMind's AlphaFold, the leading AI system for predicting protein structures

Researchers at the ��ɫֱ�� have developed a deep-learning model that can predict all possible shapes of peptides – chains of amino acids that are shorter than proteins, but perform similar biological functions.

Called PepFlow, the model combines machine learning and physics to model the range of folding patterns that a peptide can assume based on its energy landscape.

Peptides, unlike proteins, are dynamic molecules that can take on a range of conformations. They are involved in many biological processes that are of keen interest to researchers who are developing therapeutics.

“We haven’t been able to model the full range of conformations for peptides until now,” said Osama Abdin, first author on the study and recent PhD graduate of molecular genetics at ��ɫֱ��’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research. “PepFlow leverages deep-learning to capture the precise and accurate conformations of a peptide within minutes.

“There’s potential with this model to inform drug development through the design of peptides that act as binders.”

The study was recently published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.

A peptide’s role in the human body is directly linked to how it folds since its 3D structure determines the way it binds and interacts with other molecules.

“Peptides were the focus of the PepFlow model because they are very important biological molecules and they are naturally very dynamic, so we need to model their different conformations to understand their function,” said Philip M. Kim, the study’s principal investigator and a professor at the Donnelly Centre. “They’re also important as therapeutics, as can be seen by the GLP1 analogues, like Ozempic, used to treat diabetes and obesity.”

Peptides are also cheaper to produce than their larger protein counterparts, said Kim, who is also a professor of computer science in ��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science and a professor of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

The new model expands on the capabilities of AlphaFold, the leading Google DeepMind AI system for predicting protein structure. It does this by generating a range of conformations for a given peptide. Taking inspiration from highly advanced physics-based machine learning models, PepFlow can also model peptide structures that take on unusual formations, including the ring-like structure that results from a process called macrocyclization. Peptide macrocycles are currently a highly promising venue for drug development.

“It took two-and-a-half years to develop PepFlow and one month to train it, but it was worthwhile to move to the next frontier beyond models that only predict one structure of a peptide,” Abdin said.

There are, however, limitations given that PepFlow represents the first version of a new model. The study authors noted a number of ways in which PepFlow could be improved, including training the model with explicit data for solvent atoms, which would dissolve the peptides to form a solution, and for constraints on the distance between atoms in ring-like structures.

Yet, even as a first version, the researchers say PepFlow is a comprehensive and efficient model with potential for furthering the development of treatments that depend on peptide binding to activate or inhibit biological processes.

“Modelling with PepFlow offers insight into the real energy landscape of peptides,” said Abdin.

The research was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

'Etched my name in history': Kylie Masse talks to CBC about winning bronze at Paris Olympics

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 18:13:25 +0000

'Etched my name in history': Kylie Masse talks to CBC about winning bronze at Paris Olympics

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 08/09/2024 - 14:13

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(photo by Jack Guez/Getty Images)

Topic

Global Lens

Alumni

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Subheadline

��ɫֱ�� alumna is the first Canadian swimmer to win an individual medal in three consecutive Olympic Games

With the Paris Games set to wrap up with Sunday's closing ceremony, ��ɫֱ�� alumna Kylie Masse says she’s proud to have secured her place in history as the first Canadian swimmer to win an individual Olympic medal in three consecutive Games, CBC reports.

Masse, who graduated from the ��ɫֱ�� Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education in 2019, took home the bronze in the women's 200-metre backstroke final in Paris last week, adding to her impressive medal collection.

Masse first ascended the podium during her Olympic debut in Rio in 2016, clinching bronze in the 100-metre backstroke. She earned both individual and team accolades at the previous Summer Games in Tokyo, capturing silver in the women’s 100-metre and 200-metre backstroke events, alongside a bronze in the women’s 4x100-metre medley relay.

In addition to her third-place win in Paris, Masse also achieved fourth-place finishes in the 100-metre backstroke and 4x100-metre team medley.

"To really be on the podium here was my goal," Masse told CBC. "But it's also such a dream to … know that I've kind of etched my name in history."

Masse was joined by four fellow Varsity Blues alumni at the Summer Games, including badminton star Michelle Li, volleyball player Heather Bansley, and track and field competitors Jazz Shukla and Lucia Stafford.

��ɫֱ�� talent will also be on display at the upcoming Paralympic Games, which run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8, with former Blues rower Alina Dumas representing Brazil as the coxswain of its PR3 coxed four crew.

��ɫֱ�� team takes top spot in self-driving car challenge for 6th time in 7 years

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 17:42:55 +0000

��ɫֱ�� team takes top spot in self-driving car challenge for 6th time in 7 years

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 08/07/2024 - 13:42

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As part of the competition, the ��ɫֱ�� team’s autonomous vehicle had to react to obstacles such as a fake deer moving across the road (photo courtesy of aUToronto)

Safa Jinje

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Artificial Intelligence

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

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Research & Innovation

Self-Driving Cars

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UTIAS

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"Each time we saw an obstacle – a stop sign, a red light, the railroad bar coming down – and the car reacted by stopping and then continuing, we let out a big cheer or a sigh of relief"

A team from the ��ɫֱ�� has placed first for sixth time in seven years in a North American self-driving car competition.

After finishing in second place last year, the aUToronto team returned to the top spot at the 2024 SAE AutoDrive Challenge II, which was held in June at the Mcity Test Facility in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The aUToronto team competed against nine other teams from across Canada and the United States.

“Through the AutoDrive Challenge, we are preparing the next generation of engineers to head into the industry, to keep pushing towards the challenging goal of reaching Level 4 autonomous driving,” says Tim Barfoot, a professor at the ��ɫֱ�� Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and one of the team’s academic advisers.

“The team did another excellent job this year.”

The team approached the competition by going back to first principles to ensure they had a reliable and robust system, says Kelvin Cui, a ��ɫֱ�� Engineering alumnus and the team’s principal.

He joined aUToronto last fall after five years with the ��ɫֱ�� Formula Racing team, where he founded the “driverless” division.

“We looked at what was going to get us the most points at competition and made sure that we were not overbuilding our system and adding too much complexity,” he says.

This meant pushing for additional testing time at UTIAS and achieving more than 900 kilometres of system testing prior to the competition.

The team placed first out of 10 teams from institutions across the United States and Canada (photo courtesy of aUToronto)

A partnership with the AutoDrive team from Queen’s University was instrumental to aUToronto’s preparation. The aUToronto team drove Artemis, their autonomous vehicle, to Kingston, Ont. to assess the system at Queen’s testing facility, which features intersections and electronic streetlights.

“We added radar to our vehicle as a new sensor, so we needed to be aware of all the sensor failure modes,” says third-year Engineering Science student Robert Ren.

“A lot of our testing time went into making sure that including radar didn’t break anything else in our system, and that it could handle any sensor failure cases.”

Including radar sensors in the vehicle’s perception system allowed it to measure the motion of objects directly, which is not possible with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors. 

“Radar can help with adverse weather object detections,” adds Ren. “So, if the vehicle is operating under heavy rain or fog, the LiDAR is going to be limited, but the radio waves from radar can help the vehicle see what objects are in front and what objects are moving. This enables it to make good decisions when driving in uncertain scenarios.” 

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In an event where both LiDAR and radar sensors fail, the aUToronto system can still rely on visual cameras to perform object tracking. This made the team’s object tracker much more robust compared to last year when the team experienced sensor failure during a dynamic event.

Brian Cheong, a ��ɫֱ�� Engineering master’s student who has been a member of aUToronto since 2021, acted as technical director of the autonomy team this year – part of a new leadership structure introduced by Cui.  

“In the past, it was a lot of work for our team’s principal to keep track of all the systems,” Cheong says. “So instead of having to work directly with all 15 sub teams, Kelvin created groups of sub teams that we called stacks, and each stack had a director.”

The restructuring and technical innovations paid off, with aUToronto completing its first clean sweep in the AutoDrive Challenge II, placing first in all static and dynamic events, including the concept design presentation and intersection challenge.

“The intersection challenge was a big highlight for us,” says Cheong. “Kelvin and Robert were in the car, and I was on the sidelines watching with the rest of the team. Each time we saw an obstacle – a stop sign, a red light, the railroad bar coming down – and the car reacted by stopping and then continuing, we let out a big cheer or a sigh of relief.

“And then we were all silent as the car approached the final obstacle, which was a deer. We watched as Artemis slowed down to a stop and the deer moved by. Then we screamed and cheered, and we could hear cheering from inside the car.”

“Our success is entirely a team effort,” adds Cui. “It was not smooth sailing before the competition. The only reason we won is because everybody put in so much effort to test our vehicle every day.

“That’s how we were able to get this reliable system across the line.” 

What makes a chess move brilliant? Researchers use AI to find out

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 17:25:51 +0000

What makes a chess move brilliant? Researchers use AI to find out

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 08/07/2024 - 13:25

Cutline

��ɫֱ�� Engineering researchers Kamron Zaidi, left, and Michael Guerzhoy, right, use game trees and deep neural networks to enable chess engines to recognize brilliant moves (photo by Safa Jinje)

Safa Jinje

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Breaking Research

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Artificial Intelligence

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

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AI system developed by ��ɫֱ�� researchers is being used to study human creativity and make a chess computer that is more entertaining to play against

Researchers at the ��ɫֱ�� have designed a new AI model that understands how humans perceive creativity in chess.

In a recent paper presented at an international conference, researchers in ��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering describe how they used techniques such as game trees and deep neural networks to enable chess engines to recognize brilliant moves.

The development could lead to chess engines that can find the most creative and clever path to victory in game, rather than just making moves to maximize win rates. That, in turn, could have implications for other AI systems tasked with creative endeavours.

“A chess move can be perceived as brilliant, or creative, when the strategic payoff isn’t clear at first, but in retrospect the player had to follow a precise path in gaming out all the possibilities to see so far into the future,” says paper co-author Michael Guerzhoy, an assistant professor, teaching stream, of mechanical and industrial engineering and engineering science who wrote about the research on his Substack.

“We wanted our system to understand human perception of what constitutes brilliance in chess and distinguish that from just winning.”

Most of the current research into chess AI is focused on enabling moves that create a higher chance of winning. But this doesn’t always make for an exciting game.

Skilled human chess players, on the other hand, can play in a more dramatic or imaginative way by making moves that may break traditional rules –for example, sacrificing a piece in a way that may initially look like a mistake, but ultimately, paves the way to a win.

A chess board depicts a move from the “Game of the Century” in 1956, when future American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer (black) sacrificed his queen in a move that was celebrated as brilliant (photo by Safa Jinje)

The team worked with Leela Chess Zero, a top chess engine that learns through self-play and has played over 1.6 billion games against itself. They also employed Maia, a human-like neural network chess engine developed by ��ɫֱ�� computer science researchers.

“We used the two neural network chess engines to create our game trees at different levels of depth in a game,” says paper co-author Kamron Zaidi, a recent ��ɫֱ�� Engineering graduate.

“Using these game trees, we extracted many different features from it. We then fed the features into a neural network that we trained on the Lichess database of online chess games, which are labelled by human users of the database.”

A game tree in chess represents the current state of a chess board along with all the possible moves and counter moves that can occur. Each board position is represented as a node and the game tree can be expanded on until the game is either won, drawn or lost.

The researchers began with small game trees then slowly increased the size, adding more nodes to the tree. They found that when the neural network looks at all the game tree features and makes a prediction as to whether the move is brilliant or not, it reached an accuracy rate of 79 per cent using the test data set.

The research – based on Zaidi’s undergraduate engineering science thesis, which was supervised by Guerzhoy – was presented at the International Conference on Computational Creativity in Jönköping, Sweden.

“There were people from all over the world presenting research on more traditional aspects of creativity, but we were all focused on the same thing, which is, ‘How can we use AI to enhance our interactions and understandings of creativity?’” says Zaidi. 

The work has also received media coverage in outlets, including New Scientist, where English chess grandmaster Matthew Sadler says that a model that can understand brilliance could be used as a training tool for professionals and potentially lead to a more entertaining engine opponent for amateur players.

The team sees their system as having broad applicability when it comes to perception of creativity and brilliance.

“One of the biggest areas that is of interest to me is characterizing what we perceive as creativity,” says Guerzhoy.

“Not just in board games but in other creative endeavours, including music and art, where there is a formal framework and rules that need to be followed. Highly creative work involves planning in advance and gaming out the possibilities.

“But everyone I’ve talked to since the paper came out wants to know when they can play against our brilliant chess engine. So, I think making that possible is the obvious next step for us.”

From high school dropout to managing partner: The inspiring journey of ��ɫֱ�� alum Eugene Choi

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 15:36:42 +0000

From high school dropout to managing partner: The inspiring journey of ��ɫֱ�� alum Eugene Choi

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 07/12/2024 - 11:36

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Eugene Choi, who completed the Academic Bridging Program at Woodsworth College on his way to earning a bachelor of arts and MBA at ��ɫֱ��, poses next to his engraved granite paver at Kings College Circle (supplied image)

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Faculty of Arts & Science

Woodsworth College

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Choi credits the Academic Bridging Program at Woodsworth College with setting him on the path to higher education and professional success

Eugene Choi was in high school when his mother contracted SARS and his father was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Amid a challenging time for his family, Choi made the difficult decision to drop out of school and began working various part-time jobs, from flipping burgers to ringing up sales.

While he did what he had to do to support himself and his family, Choi felt he had more potential but wasn't sure how to resume and further his education. Then, one day, his father showed him a newspaper ad for the Academic Bridging Program at the ��ɫֱ��'s Woodsworth College. The program offers prospective students who don't meet admission requirements a path to qualifying for degree programs in ��ɫֱ��'s Faculty of Arts & Science.

Today, Choi is managing partner of Blue-Mark Management Consultants, a leading Toronto consultancy firm – and he credits the Academic Bridging Program for setting him on the path to higher education and professional success.

“All the people who managed Woodsworth’s Academic Bridging Program were very pleasant to work with and very caring about everyone who went through the program,” says Choi, who completed the program before going on to earn an honours bachelor of arts with a double major in philosophy and the ethics of law. “They support you through the whole process and they know there's a number of reasons why people need this type of program. They just want you to succeed.”

Eugene Choi participating in the Rotman Design Challenge in 2018 (supplied image)

Choi’s education was derailed after his mother, a nurse at Scarborough Grace Hospital, caught SARS while caring for a patient amid the early days of the SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003. When his father began to show symptoms, he got tested as well – while the SARS test came back negative, he was diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer.

"My mom catching SARS was a blessing in disguise because we were able to find that lung cancer,” says Choi, noting that lung cancer often isn’t detected until it’s too late. “They're both fully recovered now, but as you can imagine that was a pretty difficult time. So, I dropped out of high school and started working at whatever part-time gigs I could get.”

The Academic Bridging Program at Woodsworth enabled Choi to further his studies by bridging the gap between his prior education and the skills required for first-year university courses – allowing him to transition into an undergraduate program.

Eugene Choi at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand (supplied image)

After graduating, Choi started with his own projects until he eventually secured a role as a business analyst with Travelers Canada.

Over time, however, Choi began to see the need to advance his education further. “I realized – as I started to manage projects and took on more of a strategic role – that I didn't have the financial language to speak with the leaders in the company,” he says.

That realization prompted him to return to ��ɫֱ��, this time to pursue a master of business administration (MBA) at the Rotman School of Management. “[Rotman] is the top program in the country, and it was the one I could most easily do part-time while continuing my career,” he says. “Having the familiarity of home and the ability to keep working as I did was quite beneficial.”

Today, Choi works with medium-to-large sized firms at Blue-Mark, advising them on organizational design and effectiveness, strategy and planning, operating models and complex change implementation.

“We help with organizational effectiveness issues. So, mostly things to do with people in the organization,” says Choi. "We help our clients figure out when the interaction is not working right or why they're not getting the results they're looking for. Is there something around how their teams are working together, or how their people are being trained?”

Choi says his undergraduate education in philosophy has served him well in management consultancy. “Philosophy, in simple terms, is breaking down arguments. That thought process of taking a problem and breaking it down and analyzing its component parts – and then putting it back together again to come up with the new solution – is the basic thought process that you need in every single engagement you have with a client,” says Choi.

“It's basic problem solving and critical thinking types of competencies. I use it every single day with every single problem I come across.”

As Choi has advanced in his own career, he has also made sure to give back and help others. He has served on numerous non-profit boards, including at Kennedy House, which provides youth services in the Toronto area, and Mackenzie Health Volunteer Association. He is currently serving on the board of directors for the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto.

“Most of my non-profits have been involved with at-risk youth,” he says. “I understood the feeling of being lost after dropping out of high school, so I wanted to do my best to give back to those who are facing tough situations.”

Choi is also a dedicated mentor at ��ɫֱ��. He volunteered for the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Backpack-to-Briefcase (b2B) program, which connects recent grads with experienced alumni, and is a mentor for the Alumni-Students Mentorship Program at Woodsworth College. He also became a member of the ��ɫֱ�� Alumni Association in 2023.

“The aspiration is to get to a point in my career where I can take a step back from the day-to-day running of the business and bring my talents to other causes, so I can have an impact on our world,” he says.

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Andrea Smitko

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What makes a chess move brilliant? Researchers use AI to find out

From high school dropout to managing partner: The inspiring journey of ��ɫֱ�� alum Eugene Choi