¶ National Research Council Canada
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The National Research Council Canada (NRC) is a federal agency of the Government of Canada based in Ottawa, Ontario. It sits within Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.
¶ History
In or around 2016, the NRC provided funding to Coulson Ice Blast through the Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP).[1]
NRC provided "over 5 years of advisory and R&D funding support" to Acuitas Therapeutics through the Industrial Research Assistance Program, enabling the company "to establish their internal chemistry program, hire new PhD expertise to their team, and develop its [lipid nanoparticle] delivery system for mRNA."[2]
¶ COVID-19
On May 12, 2020, the NRC announced it would collaborate with CanSino Biologics to advance the latter's COVID-19 vaccine candidate called Ad5-nCoV.[3] Lakshmi Krishnan, director general of the NRC's Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre, said at the time that the trials in Canada would complement and expand on what had been done in China.[4] Testing on healthy human volunteers was to take place at the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology (CCfV).
In August 2020, the collaboration fell apart amid rising tensions between the two countries.[5] According to the NRC, CanSino's state funding agencies (the Beijing Institute of Technology and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China) had made changes to the collaboration agreement and had not authorized the shipment of vaccines to Canada. Scott Halperin, director of the CCfV, later described the attempted partnership as “a waste of a lot of time.”[6]
Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced the membership of the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force on August 5, 2020, with a secretariat supported by the NRC.[7]
On December 18, 2020, the NRC announced up to $109,764.00 in funding through the Industrial Research Assistance Program to Qu Biologics "for a project to provide proof-of-concept evidence for the safety and efficacy of a preventative treatment as well as therapeutic use of a treatment to protect the lungs and prevent serious COVID-19 infection."[8]
On January 21, 2021, the NRC announced "up to $5 million" in funding for Providence Therapeutics and Northern RNA to run clinical trials on a "made-in-Canada" COVID-19 vaccine candidate.[9][10][11] The funding was provided through Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), part of the Global Innovation Clusters program.[12][13]
¶ Organization
NRC is a member of the Acceleration Consortium at the University of Toronto,[14] and a partner of BioCanRx.[15] NRC collaborates with New World Laboratories,[16] and has provided funding to the University of Alberta's Metabolic and Cardiovascular Diseases Laboratory through IRAP.[17]
¶ Personnel
| Name | Position | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Roman Szumski | Vice-President of Life Sciences (June 2005-January 2023)[18] | McGill University, Public Health Agency of Canada, MDS |
| Jaahnavi Dave | Summer student, Human Health Therapeutics[19] | Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, BioCanRx, Public Health Agency of Canada |
| Lucia Zhang | Summer student (May-August 2010)[20] | Biologic and Radiopharmaceutical Drugs Directorate, American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, 14th Workshop on Recent Issues in Bioanalysis |
¶ Subsidiaries
- COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force (VTF)
- Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre
- Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP)
¶ External links
Rockel, N. (2018, March 16). He’s putting the rest of the industrial cleaning industry on ice. BCBusiness. https://web.archive.org/web/20230911224144/https://www.bcbusiness.ca/30-Under-30-2018-Foster-Coulson ↩︎
Producing lipid nanoparticle technology for vaccine delivery (Acuitas Therapeutics). (2021, May 17). National Research Council Canada. https://web.archive.org/web/20230126232445/https://nrc.canada.ca/en/stories/producing-lipid-nanoparticle-technology-vaccine-delivery-acuitas-therapeutics ↩︎
National Research Council Canada. (2020, May 12). The National Research Council of Canada and CanSino Biologics Inc. announce collaboration to advance vaccine against COVID-19. Government of Canada. http://archive.today/2020.05.17-214907/https://www.canada.ca/en/national-research-council/news/2020/05/the-national-research-council-of-canada-and-cansino-biologics-inc-announce-collaboration-to-advance-vaccine-against-covid-19.html ↩︎
Zafar, A. (2020, May 12). Canadians to help develop, test potential COVID-19 vaccine from Chinese company. CBC News. http://archive.today/2020.05.14-101734/https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/vaccine-cansino-1.5566216 ↩︎
Cooke, A. (2020, August 26). Canadian COVID-19 clinical trial scrapped after China wouldn’t ship potential vaccine. CBC News. http://archive.today/2020.08.28-161607/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/canada-china-covid-19-vaccine-trial-plug-pulled-1.5701101 ↩︎
Pinkerton, C. (2021, March 12). “A waste of a lot of time”: Researcher in CanSino deal shares new details. iPolitics. https://web.archive.org/web/20220712033648/https://ipolitics.ca/news/a-waste-of-a-lot-of-time-researcher-in-cansino-deal-shares-new-details ↩︎
Jagric, A., Roy, C., Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, & Public Services and Procurement Canada. (2020, August 5). Government of Canada announces major steps in treating and preventing COVID-19 through vaccines and therapies. Government of Canada. http://archive.today/2022.12.16-235932/https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2020/08/government-of-canada-announces-major-steps-in-treating-and-preventing-covid-19-through-vaccines-and-therapies.html ↩︎
National Research Council of Canada supports development of 4 COVID-19 therapeutic candidates. (2020, December 18). Government of Canada. http://archive.today/2023.09.06-231214/https://www.canada.ca/en/national-research-council/news/2020/12/national-research-council-of-canada-supports-development-of-4-covid-19-therapeutic-candidates.html ↩︎
Liu, J., Budylowski, P., Samson, R., Griffin, B. D., Babuadze, G., Rathod, B., Colwill, K., Abioye, J. A., Schwartz, J. A., Law, R., Yip, L., Ahn, S. K., Chau, S., Naghibosadat, M., Arita, Y., Hu, Q., Yue, F. Y., Banerjee, A., Hardy, W. R., & Mossman, K. (2022). Preclinical evaluation of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine PTX-COVID19-B. Science Advances, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj9815 ↩︎
PTX–COVID19–B. Providence Therapeutics. Retrieved July 11, 2022, from http://archive.today/2022.07.11-164129/https://providencetherapeutics.com/pipeline/ptx-covid19-b.html ↩︎
Villani, M. (2021, February 2). Providence Therapeutics seeking federal support for “made-in-Canada” COVID-19 vaccine. CTV News Calgary. http://archive.today/2022.07.11-165610/https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/providence-therapeutics-seeking-federal-support-for-made-in-canada-covid-19-vaccine-1.5292681 ↩︎
Canada’s cluster projects: COVID-19 response. (2022, August 19). Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. https://web.archive.org/web/20230706210728/https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/global-innovation-clusters/en/canadas-cluster-projects-covid-19-response ↩︎
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. (2021, February 2). Backgrounder – Government of Canada investments in COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and biomanufacturing capacity. Government of Canada. http://archive.today/2021.02.17-210959/https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2021/02/backgrounder--government-of-canada-investments-in-covid-19-vaccines-and-biomanufacturing-capacity.html ↩︎
Partners. Acceleration Consortium. Retrieved April 9, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.04.09-222433/https://acceleration.utoronto.ca/partners ↩︎
Our Partners & Collaborators. BioCanRx. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from http://archive.today/2022.09.28-044532/https://biocanrx.com/partnerships/our-partners%23 ↩︎
Home. New World Laboratories. Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20220919173357/https://www.nwl.net/en ↩︎
Previous Funding Partners. Metabolic and Cardiovascular Diseases Laboratory. Retrieved October 26, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20221026204817/https://mcvd.ualberta.ca/research/previous-funding-partners/ ↩︎
Roman Szumski. LinkedIn. Retrieved November 4, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.11.04-044448/https://www.linkedin.com/in/roman-szumski-b6179586/ ↩︎
Shared Services Canada. (2020, October 10). Person Information - Jaahnavi Dave - Student. Government of Canada. https://web.archive.org/web/20221004005410/https://geds-sage.gc.ca//en/GEDS?pgid=015&dn=Q049REFWRVwyQyBKQUFITkFWSSxPVT1ISFQtVFNILE9VPUxTLVNWLE9VPU5SQy1DTlJDLE89R0MsQz1DQQ== ↩︎
Lucia Zhang. LinkedIn. Retrieved May 27, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.05.27-053527/https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucia-zhang-53143226/ ↩︎