Research Column

VIDO to lead $27-m genomics research project

By Kathryn Warden

Last week, Industry Minister Allan Rock announced that the U of S Veterinary Infectious Diseases Organization (VIDO) will lead a $27-million genomics research project – the largest grant ever given out by Genomics Genome Canada.

The grant – roughly $19 million of which will stay in Saskatchewan – will bolster VIDO’s efforts to develop new and effective strategies for infectious disease control, benefitting not just animal welfare and productivity, but also human health and food safety. More than 40 new positions will be created at VIDO.   

This huge award marks the second time in two years that the bulk of Prairie region money for federally sponsored genomics research has come to Saskatoon. It’s another feather in the cap for this campus’s growing reputation as a world-class centre for life sciences research, particularly in the area of genomics, the science of deciphering and understanding the genetic code of life.

With this grant, a total of almost $55 million has been awarded to Saskatoon researchers in the past year by Genome Canada, of which more than $30 million will be spent in Saskatchewan.

VIDO’s Andrew Potter

This figure also includes grants awarded to teams led by plant scientists Graham Scoles in the College of Agriculture and Wilf Keller at the National Research Council’s Plant Biotechnology Institute on campus. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment for a city of only 200,000 that aspires to be known as “Science City.”  

What these three projects have in common is that they all involve research into the function of genes and the proteins encoded by those genes, whether in plants, animals or humans. At this molecular level of research, the life sciences converge, providing tremendous opportunities for collaborations across disciplines and among research partners both on campus and in industry.

The U of S is uniquely poised to exploit these cutting-edge genomics opportunities because it has a full range of health colleges (including medicine and veterinary medicine), research strength in the structural sciences, and the Canadian Light Source synchrotron, the tool of choice for probing the structure of molecules.

When you add in other campus research groups such as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s research centre, the POS-Pilot Plant, and the Saskatchewan Research Council, the U of S campus community has an unparalleled opportunity for synergy and new discoveries in what is loosely called “bio-innovation”.

Of course, there’ve been collaborations underway for years – such as in plant sciences or the fertility work jointly carried out by researchers in vet med and medicine (the joke in the vet college is that physicians are “just veterinarians with a single species specialization”). But having two world-class facilities – the CLS and VIDO – takes these opportunities to a whole new level.

VIDO, currently undergoing a $14.2-million expansion, could soon see its global stature even further enhanced if its proposal to create an international vaccine testing centre is approved by the Canada Foundation for Innovation.   

How did VIDO, which got its start 27 years ago as a pioneer in using biotechnology to develop a new generation of animal vaccines, become a world-class research facility with 30 patents issued worldwide and 10 pending in the U.S. alone?

“It takes vision and a belief that excellence will be rewarded,” says VIDO science director Andrew Potter. “And you have to interact with people all over the country and all over the world.”

For the $27-million grant, VIDO Director Lorne Babiuk teamed up with UBC, established links with other Canadian and U.S. researchers, and found two corporate partners — AniGenics Canada Inc. and Inimex Pharmaceuticals Inc. AniGenics, a small, Chicago-based biotechnology firm, now plans to establish a Canadian subsidiary in Saskatoon.     

The goal of the project is to use the power of genomics to better understand how immunity to infectious agents works and how it can be enhanced. Infectious diseases are responsible for a third of all deaths on the planet.

“What we would like to do now at VIDO is use genomics to define the next generation of products for both animal and human health,” says Potter. “This could include new methods of vaccine delivery, new drugs that can serve as replacements for antibiotics, and new ways to use those drugs.”

VIDO will use some of the new money to add a third floor to its  building, as well as fund 40 new positions ranging from graduate student and post-doctoral fellowships to technicians and scientists.

“We want to attract some top-flight scientists here in areas such as molecular biology, immunology, genomics and bioinformatics (the emerging field that helps unravel the vast amount of data from genomic studies),” he said. 

“Some researchers at U of S tend to be rather tentative and say ‘We can’t compete with other universities,’” says Potter. “Well we can.”