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Gordon Keller, a senior stem-cell scientist who works out of Toronto's MaRS centre, also pointed to the potential for studying genetic diseases in a culture dish.

cientists have been working at a rapid pace over the past year to refine a process that allows them to replicate human embryonic stem cells, without the controversial use of a human embryo. It involves genetically reprogramming adult stem cells to an embryonic, or pluripotent, state.

Embryonic cells remain the "gold standard,"

The Stem Cell Network (SCN) has entered into a collaborative agreement with the MaRS Discovery District to transfer control of its nascent spin-off commercialization arm, Aggregate Therapeutics Inc (ATI). The agreement will see MaRS take immediate management responsibility for ATI, seek funding to operationalize the company and accelerate efforts to commercialize stem cell and regenerative medical research

Ontario is providing

$1 million in seed money to back one of last year's most exciting medical breakthroughs, turning simple skin cells into stem cells.

A lab run by the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto in the MaRS (Medical and Related Sciences) complex on College St. has developed the expertise to grow the cells in quantity and is ready to roll.

MaRS Innovation and the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital are pleased to announce that they have entered into an agreement to collaboratively initiate commercialization of an umbilical cord stem cell technology for potential treatment in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neurological disorders.

With the Toronto area identified as a world-leading cluster in stem cell research, we are extremely excited to have identified this technology as our first commercialization opportunity,” said Dr. Rafi Hofstein, President and CEO of MaRS Innovation.

MaRS Innovation, along with the inventors and Mount Sinai, will initially focus on the diabetes application for the technology, as research has demonstrated that these cells uniquely secrete insulin in response to glucose, thereby mimicking the “normal” physiological state.

McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine - home to one of the world's largest concentrations of stem cell researchers - the 2009 Golf Town Invitational will raise funds for its groundbreaking research toward the treatment and cure of diabetes.

Based in the heart of Toronto's Discovery District at the MaRS Centre/Toronto Medical Discovery Tower, the McEwen Centre's vision is to be a world-renowned facility for stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. It is home to one of the world's largest concentrations of stem cell researchers, who are working to accelerate the development of more effective treatments for conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, respiratory disease and spinal cord injury.

The event is limited to 20 foursomes and more information is available at www.golftown.com/gti.

Canada has always had to fight hard to attract talent and investment

MaRS Vital to Toronto's life sciences vision is MaRS (derived from Medical and Related Sciences) a non-profit organisation and business centre located in the heart of the city. Its core function is as a biotech incubator and business park, known as MaRS Discovery District. The venture was first established in 2000 to help foster and accelerate the growth of successful Canadian businesses and, after some uncertain times, it is now gathering momentum. A separate technology transfer office, MaRS Innovation, has also been established that, it is hoped, can be a world beater in its own right (see Turning good ideas into world beaters below). The location of the MaRS building in central Toronto is important, as it is just a stone's throw away from an existing cluster of universities and academic hospitals. MaRS has many links with other research-based organisations, including collaborations with three local universities, 10 academic teaching hospitals and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. MaRS occupies the Old Toronto general hospital, where insulin was first discovered by Best and Banting in 1921 and then developed for use in human trials. The 21st Century organisation can build on this heritage in patient-focused discovery and development. Formerly the head of venture capital firm Primaxis, Ilse Treurnicht is chief executive of MaRS Discovery District. She acknowledges the crisis in venture capital funding, and says Canada's sector has always had less access funds through this route than other countries. This is one of the drivers behind the search for a new approach. Treurnicht says the old models of building biotech and life sciences businesses have to be discarded, as they have failed to build companies with critical mass. She says MaRS' new 'Convergence Innovation' strategy of bringing science, capital and business together will pay off.

"We call our strategy 'Convergence Innovation' and what we are trying to do is move away from the old linear model of academics struggling in their spare time to build companies or entrepreneurs doing this in a very incremental way."It takes time and it has many risk points along the way. So using this Convergence centre model to create a much more dynamic organisation which can help accelerate good ideas towards the commercialisation." But she says Canada's geography and demographics are always going to be a challenge. "This is a very large country with a small population. If you think in terms of clusters and hub regions, Canada's business hubs are separated geographically, and there is not much in between in terms of people."That means we can't try to be a little United States, because we just won't show up on the radar. We have to take a different approach. We have to think about collaboration as our potential competitive advantage - that means using networks and associations to solve problems and build businesses."So as new opportunities emerge, we can take them to market faster and hopefully with a higher success rate." The centre currently accommodates numerous start up companies, as well as those providing legal and financial services to them. AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline also have offices on site. In all, MaRS provides mentoring for over 200 different companies across Ontario, and runs courses on entrepreneurship and preparing products for market.

This is Toronto's research district, a maze of concrete and glass where the finest minds collaborate, turning the city into a global centre of biomedical discovery.

Nine research institutes employing 5,000 university faculty members, 2,000 graduate students and 1,100 postdoctoral and clinical fellows lie within a 20-minute walk of each other. This biomedical cluster at the heart of Toronto is one of the largest on the continent, and is one of the 10 largest in the world.

Tom Hudson from Montreal; cell biologist Ben Neel from Boston; and stem-cell biologist Gordon Keller, who came to Toronto in 2006, just months after New York magazine named him one of the scientists that city could not afford to lose. Toronto is also home to Tak Mak, who discovered the "key to the immune system" T-cell receptor, and John Dick, who discovered the first cancer stem cell in 1994 and last year grew a human cancer in a lab mouse for the first time.

Introducing his powerful Parkinson's disease foundation into his native Canada today, actor Michael J. Fox pledged that the research-based charity would help boost all groups working in the field.

Michael J. Fox introduced his Parkinson's disease foundation at the MaRS Centre in Toronto today.

Fox's group has poured $150 million (U.S.) into international stem cell research and cutting edge neuroscience since it was formed in 2000.

Michael J. Fox addresses the media and introduces his Parkinson's disease foundation at the MaRS Centre in Toronto Ont. on September 24, 2009. Each time University of Windsor graduate student Katie Facecchia sees actor Michael J. Fox on television, talking about his life-and-death battle with Parkinson's disease, she "can't help but think — just hang on, there'll be something soon."

Look who just landed on MaRS

MaRS was known for just that – putting a collective roof over the heads of Canada's out-of-this-universe thinkers. Aside from hosting the unlikely duo of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dalton McGuinty at a funding announcement two years ago, the centre seems enveloped in galactic silence.

corner of College and University