GREAT News
This March and April 2015 – Policy Entrepreneurship Program
Jumping Through Hoops? Overcoming Policy Barriers and Institutional Hurdles that Prevent Your Research from Achieving Its Full Impact
The combination of speaker sessions and hands-on workshops will provide tools that will enable researchers to develop responsive strategies to address the policy and regulatory challenges involved in conducting research, securing funding, and mobilizing research outside of the lab.
Key Objectives
a. Diagnose the Problem
b. Consolidate Your Value Proposition(s)
c. Map the Landscape
d. Build a Responsive Strategy
e. Articulate the return-on-investment your project will generate to all relevant stakeholders (“benefits to Canada”)
Intended Audience
University of British Columbia-based scientists and researchers including Principal Investigators, Laboratory Technicians, Post-Doctoral Researchers, Graduate/Undergraduate Students, and Research Associates (including Project Managers and Research Grant Facilitators). For more information, register here.
GREAT Partner Project News
Introducing Watershed Metagenomics’ New Research Coordinator
genomics.entrepreneurship@UBC would like to welcome Dr. Cletus D’Souza, Research Coordinator for the Watershed Metagenomics project!
Dr. D’Souza has 26 years of experience in diverse research areas that include microbial development and pathogenesis, bioinformatics of gene expression in the brain, bioinformatics of fungal genome analysis, and clinical research in integrative medicine. He strongly believes in the importance of bridging the gap between research and evidence-based practice through sound research studies and effective knowledge translation. Dr. D’Souza joined the Watershed Metagenomics project because of its tremendous potential to offer new insights on the effects of microbial communities in our watersheds and how water quality can be monitored for pollution.
AdapTree Wraps Up Phenotyping
In a post on the Aitken Lab Blog, The Modern Forest, AdapTree project manager Pia Smets recounts the months-long process of performing measurements of 6000 seedlings! As Pia describes, this was no mean feat: “We had sun, we had fog, we had beautiful autumn days and we had rain. Now, we don’t exactly melt from a little rain. But shoving wet plants in wet paper bags which are marked with sticky labels of moderate stickiness is asking for trouble.” Congratulations to the AdapTree team on this accomplishment. Read more about it here.
TAIGA Video Preview
Watch this teaser clip of Dr. Richard Hamelin, Principal Investigator at TAIGA, explaining how genomics tools can prevent the spread of devastating invasive species.
Dr. Hennie van Vuuren, ‘The Wine Doctor’ Featured in Vancouver Magazine
Among UBC’s libraries, none is so beguiling as the one belonging to researcher Dr. Hennie van Vuuren. In his bespoke bottle bunker, he grapples with allergies, biofuels, and time itself. UBC is home to many a strange room, but few are so unexpected as the Wine Library. Tucked away discreetly in the basement of a nondescript building, painstakingly designed, the library is capable of housing up to 22,000 bottles in strictly controlled conditions. Read more.
Wine Research Centre
As we mentioned in our January newsletter, the Wine Research Centre is welcoming a new addition to its team and saying goodbye to a much-loved team member. Here are Samantha Turner and Zaira Petruf at Dr. Hennie van Vuuren’s recent event to celebrate Samantha’s contributions to the Wine Research Centre. We at the GREAT Program are honoured to have the opportunity to work with Samantha as a partner, and we wish her all the best in her new role at Harvard University!
Samantha & Zaira
Entrepreneurship News
Our fourth cohort of the Lean Launch Pad for Genomics and Life Sciences got underway on February 23rd!
Instructors Iain Verigin, Paul Cubbon and Blair Simonite lead this cohort of eight keen teams with the support of e@UBC’s committed mentor network. Their diverse venture ideas range from a system that produces high-value wax esters in the bacterium RHA1 for use in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and lubricant industries, to a therapy for autoimmune disease treatment using anti-scarring drug/modalities and drug cell therapy. We will be following these teams’ journey through the accelerated Lean Launch Pad training over the next five weeks. Stay tuned for team updates and interviews.
Iain Verigin with the Rhyme Biotechnologies team
Intern Updates
The Creative Team
Our Creative Team has been hard at work on a number of video and animation projects for our partner projects. Here is a peak behind the scenes at our recent interview with the TAIGA team in the beautiful Forest Sciences atrium here at UBC. The full video is coming soon – stay tuned.
Behind the scenes with Dr. Richard Hamelin’s interview.
In addition to intern Katie Verigin’s ongoing collaboration with Metamixis and the Lignin project, Katie recently produced a Sketchnote to document the Lean Launch Pad training sessions. The LLP program is fast-paced and demanding, so this rapid, ‘real time’ synthesis is complementary to the hands-on approach of the training, and serves as a useful summary of lessons from Day 1.
For more information on our Internship Program, please visit the Internships page or contact us.
Recent Events
GREAT Program Showcase Event Videos & Photos
Thank you for attending the 2015 GREAT Showcase Event, 400 Seconds of Passion for Entrepreneurship! We had a great turnout. We would like to express our gratitude to our 2015 presenters, our PechaKucha coach, and our partners and funders for their support in making the event a success.
The winners of the coveted stuffed krill are Jennifer Thompson, Laurie McBeth and Marie-Claude Fortin. The winner of the Beaty Biodiversity Family pass is Maria Thunoe, Congratulations.
Missed the event or want to relive it? The video presentations are now available. Check out Dr. Dave Ng’s “Am I an entrepreneur?” presentation below. Click here to view more from our other presenters, and here to see images from the photo booth.
Why Being Seen Matters: A New Blog Post by Fraser Larock
Fraser Larock (GREAT program Commercialization Analyst intern, 2013) recently published a blog post recapping his experience as a presenter. “Last night I did my first Pecha Kucha presentation ever! It was a really incredible and terrifying experience.” Read more about it at fraserlarock.com.
Upcoming Events
Policy Entrepreneurship
Jumping Through Hoops? Overcoming Policy Barriers and Institutional Hurdles that Prevent Your Research from Achieving Its Full Impact -The combination of speaker sessions and hands-on workshops will provide tools that will enable researchers to develop responsive strategies to address the policy and regulatory challenges involved in conducting research, securing funding, and mobilizing research outside of the lab. For more information, register here.
More Events
March 18, 2015: Live Webinar for Grad Students: Research Partnerships 101 – Mitacs
March 31, 2015: What Career Path Will You Take? What Every Graduate Student Needs to Know & Do – Graduate Pathways to Success
April 8, 2015: Professional and Business Effectiveness – Graduate Pathways to Success
Visit our events calendar to see all upcoming events and workshops.
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Newsletter Subscriptions
If you would like to receive monthly genomics.entrepreneurship@UBC updates and notifications of upcoming events, please sign up here.
genomics.entrepreneurship@UBC is in partnership with Genome BC and Genome Canada.
