Canada Launches 15 Million Dollar Disruptive Innovation in Genomics Competition

October 25, 2015 – A new competition aimed at disruptive innovation leading to new market opportunities has been launched by Genome Canada. The competition has been developed to support projects defined as: new genomics-based technology or the application of an existing technology from another field, applied to the field of genomics, that is truly transformative in that it has the potential to either displace an existing technology, disrupt an existing market or create a new market. A disruptive innovation offers the capability to do things not previously possible and is not an incremental improvement of an existing technology.

Phase 1 will award $250,000 to “ideas” that meet the criteria with a total of $5 million up for grabs. Phase 2 will award $1 million to “prototypes” with $10 million in total available. The two phases are to be run in parallel because Genome Canada believes there is existing research that has already past feasibility stage and therefore is not a fit for Phase 1 funding. The idea behind the competition is to take academic research and concepts from the laboratory to market. Full applications for Phase 1 are due on October 29, 2015. Phase 2 applicants have until January 25, 2016 to make submissions. Decisions on who gets the $15 million up for grabs are expected in mid-March 2016 with the researchers getting notification before the end of March.

Genomics Canada is focused on the comprehensive study and technologies that uncover genetic information, learn about the specific function of genes , their interactions and activation. Disciplines covered under its research and grants mandate include bioinformatics, epigenomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, nutrigenomics, pharmacogenomics, proteomics and transcriptomics. That’s lots of “omics” and one “informatics.”

Let’s define each:

• Bioinformatics – an interdisciplinary field that uses software tools to analyze biological data. It combines computer science, statistics, mathematics and engineering.
• Epigenomics – studies the epigenome genetic material within a cell. The epigenome are the chemical compounds found in cells that instruct and influence the behavior of the genome, the DNA and all its genes.
• Metabolomics – studies the chemistry within the cell related to specific cellular processes involved in metabolism (such as the breaking down of a drug after it is absorbed into a cell). The chemical substances are known as metabolites.
• Metagenomics – is also known as environmental or ecogenomics. This is looking at DNA from community sized samples. Someone in this field may survey a specific environment looking at all the DNA contained within the biology found within it.
• Nutrigenomics – studies the effect of food and its constituents on genes looking at molecular-level interactions between nutrients and the genome.
• Pharmacogenomics – studies how genes influence an individual’s response to a drug with the idea to develop medications tailored to a person’s specific genetic profile.
• Proteomics – is the study of proteins, their function and structure, including the role they play in metabolism within cells.
• Transcriptomics – studies the transcriptome, that is the set of messenger RNA (mRNA) transcripts produced by the genome within a specific cell. mRNA carries instructions from DNA to the proteins within a cell influencing all functions within it.

Just how disruptive will advances in these fields be for medicine and pharmacology? Research in pharmacogenomics is changing the way cancer is treated with chemotherapy being specifically tailored for individual patients. Knowing how a patients genome responds to anticancer agents means therapy can be targeted specifically. This alone is altering the experience patients have receiving chemotherapy as well as outcomes.

It will be interesting to see a year from now what Genomes Canada’s competition yields in terms of increasing our understanding of the role the genome plays in wellness and how we can manipulate it to produce biological benefits. What we learn will extend beyond medicine embracing ecology, agriculture, forestry and other scientific fields.