Enhancing our Scientific Excellence

• Cutting edge facilities and infrastructure
  • Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility (iPS) funded by the Ministry of Research and Innovation ($1 million) secured by Drs William Stanford and James Ellis
  • Infrastructure grant of $25 million from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Ontario Research Fund (ORF) secured by Dr Janet Rossant and the entire OSCI team
• Cross-institutional funding for major collaborative projects through the ORF GL2 (Ontario Research Fund – Global Leadership Round in Genomics and Life Sciences):
  • Molecular pathways of reprogramming, from discovery to novel therapeutics $9 million secured by Dr Andras Nagy
  • Ontario Consortium for Regeneration Inducing Therapeutics (OCRiT) $11 million secured by Dr Mick Bhatia
• Training the next generation
  • International postdoctoral training program received funding from Ontario Innovation Trust, Government of Ontario
  • OSCI Travel Awards in support of trainees presenting research at the annual meeting of the International Society of Stem Cell Research
  • Extensive programming for trainees, including stem cell rounds, external seminars and translation talks (linking stem cell biologists with clinicians doing tranlational work)

Promoting International Collaboration

• Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) between OSCI and:
  • Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), Kyoto University, Japan
  • Gladstone Institutes, University of California, San Francisco, USA
  • JST-CREST iPS consortium, Japan
• Canada-California-Japan workshops and international meetings
  • Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, March 2010
  • iPS-CREST, Japan, December 2010
  • International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), Toronto, June 2011
  • International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), Yokohama, June 2012
  • International Soceity of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), Boston, June 2013
• Joint $14 million Canada (CIHR) - Japan (JST) program in the Epigenetics of Stem Cells
• Joint Ontario (Ministry of Economic Development & Innovation) - China (Ministry of Science & Technology) Partnership in Stem Cell Research and Commercialization supported by the Ontario China Research & Innovation Fund

Facilitating Translation and Commercialization

• Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM) received $15 million in funding from the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR), secured by Dr Peter Zandstra
• OSCI is providing strategic leadership, and together with CCRM, will deliver on the promise to take Ontario to the next level in world leading regenerative medicine