www.ghbn.
or g
Golden Horseshoe Biosciences Network
Inside –
n Feature profile:
Adjuvant
Informatics
[page 2]
n World
bio-congress
delegates visit
Brock
[page 3]
n McMaster
Innovation Park
update
[page 4]
n GHBN –
The catalyst behind
the biosciences
sector
[page 5]
n Coming events
[page 6]
Give us a name!
We know who we are.
We just don’t know what
to call ourselves. That’s
where you come in. What’s
your suggestion for the
name of this newsletter?
We’ve looked at Helix
or maybe Vector or
Bio-signal. Name drop
for us by emailing your
choice by Jan. 31 to
Ana Paredes at:
paredes@mcmaster.
ca Help give us a
new identity in
the New Year.  real time and compare results.
(cont’d on page 3)
n Fall 2006 n volume 1 n issue 1
Welcome to the GHBN newsletter
Welcome to the Golden Horseshoe BioSciences Network (GHBN) and to our first newsletter!
It’s the vehicle – along with our shiny new website – by which our network will communicate
with all of you in the biosciences community.
GHBN is one of 11 regional innovation networks in the province. We’re a not-for-profit
corporation made up of business leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs and economic
development officers. The network is a partnership of McMaster University, Hamilton Health
Sciences, St. Joseph’s Hospital, the City of Hamilton, the Regional Municipality of Halton,
Brock University, Niagara College and Niagara Regional Economic Development Corporation.
GHBN’s goal is to be both catalyst and resource. Located in the McMaster BioSciences
Incubation Centre (MBIC) at the Michael G.DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery,
we have been in operation 18 months. I am fortunate, as executive director, to work with Darlene Homonko
Executive Director,
a highly qualified and experienced board of directors.
Golden Horseshoe
Biosciences Network
The biosciences sector is a significant driver of the province’s economic development
strategy to foster innovation and meet the demands of global competitiveness.
We have great advantages in the Golden Horseshoe: two universities, three colleges,
two large teaching hospitals and more than 100 bioscience companies. We have
expertise and innovation in such areas as clinical trials, health sciences, and imaging.
We’ve innovated too at GHBN, with programs such as the Innovation Café™ and the
Better Business Practices Series. And now here’s our quarterly newsletter. See the GHBN
story on page 5, enjoy the newsletter and give us your feedback. n
McMaster receives $1 million in HIV
vaccine money from Gates Foundation
McMaster University, already heavily involved in developing HIV vaccine protocols, will
receive about $200,000 annually as part of a $287 million US package of grants from
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Gates money will not only help develop vaccines but also allow researchers to test
them using standardized protocols, to share data more widely, and to compare results Bill Gates
to funnel down the most promising vaccine approaches. That will lead to clinical trials in Microsoft chairman
and co-chair of
humans more quickly.
Gates Foundation
The university’s Centre for Gene Therapeutics will take a leading role in a new international
collaboration designed to produce effective HIV vaccine treatments.
Dr. Ken Rosenthal, head of the viral vaccines division at the gene therapeutics centre, will
work with researchers at Duke University in North Carolina and with the U.S. National
Institutes of Health, in Maryland, on applications to block or neutralize HIV infections.
“From my end, that’s the most exciting part of the grants,” said Dr. Rosenthal. “The Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation has enabled us to develop these new approaches to solving
complex problems by forming larger collaborative relationships.”
Ken Rosenthal
Overall, 16 grants totaling $287 million are being allocated over five years. Eleven international Professor,
consortia will be set up within this network. Investigators in 19 countries will share findings in
Pathology and
Molecular Medicine,
McMaster University
 www.ghbn.or g
It’s official –
we now proudly wear a
trademark. The name,
Innovation Café, was
published in the Canadian
Trade-marks Journal on
September 20, 2006.
The popular discussion
series, held by McMaster
University and the Golden
Horseshoe BioSciences
Network, is set in a
friendly, informal,
interactive and casual
milieu.
Innovation Café™ covers
a broad range of topics
of interest to the Golden
Horseshoe community
with central themes
of innovation,
entrepreneurship
and leadership.
2
Adjuvant markets its pain service software to the world
Five clocks sit on the wall behind
Dan Meyer. Their faces – with five
different cities and time zones:
Utah, Hamilton, Oslo, Riyadh and
Brisbane – tell the story of his
company’s success in marketing
its acute pain service manager
software. Five years after its
development, APS Manager is a
global player.
And now, Adjuvant Informatics
would appear to have another
success ready to market. Its pre-
operative assessment package
has been commissioned for use at
Toronto General Hospital. PreOp
Manager offers a standardized
information-gathering program
for hospitals that take in patients
scheduled for the OR.
The intention is that this latest
software suite will streamline
pre-op assessment clinics and also
assist in research into patient-risk
analysis. That’s important in a
province where anesthetists are
in high demand and operating
rooms must be reserved weeks in
advance.
The tiny Hamilton company, in
the technology park at Highways
5 and 6, has another large
marketing card, having just
reached a deal with Cardinal
Health, an $81-billion US
company. Adjuvant’s software
will be linked with Cardinal’s
drug-administering pump infusion
devices. It also means Adjuvant
has secured a co-marketing
platform for its own products.
APS Manager, the company’s
first product, is the niche
software with huge prospects.
A National Research Council
search found Adjuvant apparently
had developed the world’s first
mainstream researchable APS
database. APS Manager is now
used in Canada and the United
States, in Scandinavia, in Australia
and the United Kingdom.
Adjuvant hopes to get its package
into Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, too.
“You can’t ask
meaningful
questions of
paper charts
sitting in boxes”
Thanks to a federally funded
project, Adjuvant will also develop
a national clinical anesthesia
database, allowing hospitals to
make comparisons between their
own patient outcomes – such as
side effects and length of stay
– and those of other hospitals.
This has international implications
too. Databanks with standardized
nomenclature coding, no matter
the language, can be adapted to
markets around the world.
“If we successfully create a
central anesthesia database, we
would never look back,” says
Meyer, president of privately held
Adjuvant. “The effects would be
revolutionary.”
The point is to make the use and
tracking of pain medicine more
accessible to hospital staff and
hospital systems. Nurses, for
example, can use handheld units
to enter patient-visit data. Says
Meyer: “You can’t ask meaningful
questions of paper charts sitting
in boxes.”
Adjuvant’s systems allow
hospitals to do systematic reviews
of patient outcomes, of critical
incidents, of cost management
related to giving medical narcotics
to patients. The process helps to
educate both front-line care staff
and hospital managers.
All this was born in 1997 of a
predecessor sister company,
Med-Tel Software. Nine years
later, Meyer and two key
associates, vice-president
Dr. James Paul and chief
operating officer Anders Elmik,
are bulking up with more sales
and marketing people.
And Meyer – at
dan@apsmanager.com – said
Adjuvant is looking for investors
and an advisory board. Ultimately,
the company would like to be
a player in the new McMaster
Innovation Park. n
 www.ghbn.or g

The bio-world comes to the Golden Horseshoe

The bio-world came to Ontario this said Dr. Isabelle Lesschaeve, director The university has also studied
summer. And along the way, some of the CCOVI and a native of a glucosyltransferase gene. An
delegates to a world congress in Champagne herself. enzyme made by the gene has
Toronto made it to the Golden a key role in making resveratrol 100 years
Horseshoe to discuss common
industry research issues and learn
Among complementary research
areas are yeast selection and
glucosides, well-known for their
benefits to cardiovascular health.
old and still
about bio-products being made in metabolism, and diseases that growing
Canada. affect grapes and the wines The French and Ontario delegations
Nothing like being a
themselves. There have been several also discussed the tremendous
Several delegates from the regions exchanges between French and impact of pests on crop survival. century old and still
of Picardie and Champagne- Niagara counterparts in the past. In Ontario, the aphid-loving Asian trying out new things.
Ardenne, in northeast France Lady Beetle has threatened the That’s the story of the
dropped in at Brock University, Both sides are interested in $1.5 billion wine industry. A beetle University of Guelph’s
in St. Catharines, and also visited ideas that help bio-tech start-up compound, isopropyl methoxy Vineland research station
the Casco plant in Port Colborne companies survive and prosper pyrazine, devastated the 2001 in the Niagara Peninsula,
and the Biox bio-diesel facility on and in developing bio-products vintage year. which has provided the
Hamilton Harbour. – through genetic engineering
world with more than 150
– from the agricultural industry and Both Brock and the University of
new varieties of fruits,
France has centuries of wine- grape sector in particular. Guelph are studying the beetle’s
making history. But the country of behaviour. Niagara College has vegetables and
chateaux knows the Cool Climate For example, Brock University is also done extensive research in ornamental plants.
Oenology and Viticulture Institute doing intensive research into plant the use of shaker tables to sort out
at Brock has a first-rate research genomics and plant metabolic beetles from grapes. The research station
program. pathways. Brock has worked for
celebrated its 100th
years on the bio-chemistry of Some delegates also stopped at
anniversary on Aug. 26.
“I think they were really surprised certain types of alkaloids that the Casco Inc. corn wet-milling
by all the technology we have here. produce compounds such as factory in Port Colborne and at Biox
It’s really about building a network vinblastine and vincristine. Both are Corporation’s commercial-scale Vineland has developed
and knowing where you can find found in the periwinkle plant and refinery in Hamilton. n and released 77 varieties
complementary research expertise,” are used to treat some cancers. of peaches, apricots,
cherries and plums.
About 70 per cent of the
McMaster receives $1 million in HIV vaccine money from peaches in the peninsula
Gates Foundation (cont’d from cover) can trace their ancestry
back to the station.
The Rosenthal group within the Michael DeGroote workers in Kenya – exposed to HIV but resistant to
School of Medicine is seeking to develop delivery the virus – have a formidable array of IgA antibodies. “If it wasn’t for the
systems for HIV vaccines, including mucosal vaccines Vineland research
The second grant of $80,000 a year relates to the
that work through the body’s mucous membranes.
body’s primitive innate immunity system which works station, we wouldn’t
McMaster’s first grant, $120,000 annually over as protection against everyday infections and as have a tender fruit
five years, deals primarily with the role of IgA a trigger for specific immune responses to a more industry today,” said
(immunoglobulin A) antibodies, which are found serious infection. Ray Kaczmarski,
mainly in mucosal secretions in the body. IgA manager of the
Almost 60,000 Canadians live with HIV. Worldwide,
antibodies, the body’s first line of defence, make up
the United Nations estimated about 40 million research station.
about 10 to 15 per cent of antibodies in the body.
people were infected with HIV in 2005. n
Research has found a large percentage of sex-trade

3
 www.ghbn.or g
Waste
powers
your world
Hamilton and Halton
Region are turning
waste into green
power. In both cases,
methane – the main
constituent of natural
gas – is being captured
to fuel engines that drive
electrical generators. The
payoff is enough power for
thousands of homes and
the potential for provincial
dollars by way of renew-
able energy programs.
Hamilton uses bacteria
that chews on sewage
wastewater at the city’s
Woodward Avenue plant
to produce its methane.
Halton will capture the
vented methane, a by-
product of decomposing
refuse, at its landfill site
on Highway 25.
The Hamilton project
expects to produce
1.6 megawatts of
power. The Halton-
Oakville Hydro
plan, online next
year, should gen-
erate slightly
more power.
4
McMaster Innovation Park – a window into the New Economy
Parks are often the showcases
of their community. McMaster
Innovation Park (MIP) will be
just that – a premier open-space
research hothouse that will be
a leading-edge investment and
economic driver for the Hamilton-
area economy. The biosciences
sector will be one of those drivers.
Development of the 15-hectare (37-
acre) parcel is a classic conversion
of fallow brownfield property into
a revenue and economic engine.
The intent is for the park to offer
services and infrastructure to
support research and technologies
right up to the going-to-market
stages.
“What I expect is to see the park
transform the regional economy
of the area,” said Nick Markettos,
interim director of the park. The
idea is to combine public and
private interests in one location.
The plan is for the MIP to contain
more than 1.5 million square feet
that will accommodate laboratory,
office, teaching and training, and
conference space. It is expected that
about 1,500 long-term knowledge-
“What I expect
to see is the
park transform
the regional
economy
of the area”
intensive jobs will be created,
with an estimated annual payroll
exceeding $100 million.
The park will also be home to the
Golden Horseshoe Biosciences
Network and the non-profit
biosciences incubator / accelerator
complex, a seed to help move
early-stage start-up companies to
commercial market.
MIP is meant to be the technology
driver that results in business
spin-offs in many industrial sectors.
The park has already attracted
General Motors Canada’s corrosion
engineering research facility and
the federal materials technology
laboratory.
McMaster’s park is modeled to
some degree after the University
Park at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) in the Boston
area. Many biotech firms there
were attracted largely because
of the proximity to MIT and its
biotechnology resources. n
 www.ghbn.or g

GHBN – the catalyst behind the biosciences sector

Tackling an
epidemic
It’s an epidemic
that costs the
Canadian health-
care system about
$4.3 billion a year.
About 18 million
Canadian adults and
children are said to be
obese and overweight.
 HBN’s Darlene Homonko reviews revenue
nG n T he GHBN Executive Director chats with Carol Carte, of
forecasts with Duane Chung of Fighting Chance Inc., PreMD Inc., an incubator firm developing diagnostics for
a start-up in the network’s incubator facility. cancer and cardiovascular disease. Now, thanks to an
$800,000 federal
grant, the Canadian
Ontario’s knowledge-creation cities and centres (particularly in Hamilton); bioproducts and Obesity Network, led
– prime drivers of Canada’s economy – have always bioprocessing, particularly the wine industry (mainly
by Dr. Arya Sharma, of
been strong in technology research. The stumbling in Niagara); and the biomedical sector, with its
block has often been, in the words of Bill Mantel, medical devices and bioinformatics (a building block the school of medicine

assistant deputy minister in the new Ministry of in Halton’s economy). at McMaster University
Research and Innovation, making “a contact sport” will tackle the problem.
between research investment and commercial
spinoffs.
the GHBN will be both The network, which will
But recent government programs, such as the work with both Canadian
Biotechnology Cluster Innovation Program, have put catalyst and enabler in and international
money and movement into the biotech arena. The partners, hopes to
programs led to innovation clusters and to the birth
getting to market
reduce “the health and
of biomedical/bioproducts gateways or networks.
economic impacts of
obesity”, said
In October 2005, the non-profit Golden Horseshoe Under the leadership of the network’s board of
Biosciences Network (www.ghbn.org) became one of directors and executive director Darlene Homonko, Dr. Sharma. The
those gateways. The GHBN brings together business the GHBN will be both catalyst and enabler in getting forum will promote
leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs and economic to market. The network’s role includes fostering research, train
development officers who all have stakes in the linkages at regional and provincial levels with researchers and
biotechnology field. The network’s goal is to culture industry, academic and government bodies.
build consensus
a strong environment for growth and investment in
biosciences and biotechnology in Hamilton, Halton, But tomorrow builds on today. So the GHBN will also on obesity policy.
and Niagara. be involved in community infrastructure and outreach
programs, including nurturing an entrepreneurial
Area bioscience strengths include biomedicine, and innovative culture and training and education
clinical trails and related convergent technologies programs for teachers and students. n
5

Nysa gets
noticed
It’s nice to get
attention from the
world, even nicer
when your story is
told in cyberworld
where everyone can
see it. That’s the tale
of Nysa Membrane
Technologies, located in
Burlington.
Nysa’s membrane-
separation technology
was featured in the
July/August online
edition of the Canadian
Foundation for Innovation’s
‘magazine’. The feature
laid out the technology,
venture financings,
and Nysa’s work with
protein extraction for
pharmaceuticals, protein
purification for foods,
and wastewater
filtration uses.
The original research
behind the structured
hydrogel membrane
technology was
developed by McMaster
University chemistry
professor emeritus
Ronald Childs.
President Lisa
Crossley created
Nysa in October
2004.
www.ghbn.or g
Events inside the Golden Horseshoe Events outside the Golden Horseshoe
  
Innovation CafeTM series Golden Horseshoe Venture Forum
Green Opportunities
Young Inventors: Realizing the
Innovator’s Dream Date: Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Time: 7:30 am                                       
Feature speakers: Anne Swift, Founder and
President of Young Inventors International and Location: Royal Botanical Gardens
Pankaj Sood, Founder of Akiliy 680 Plains Road, Burlington
Date: Thursday, November 23, 2006 For more information: visit www.ghvf.org    
Time: 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm                                       
Location: McMaster University, Gaining Traction in the Medical and
Hamilton Hall, Math Café, 2nd Floor      Assistive Technologies Market
T he Journey from Academic Research Date: Thursday, December 7, 2006
to Company Formation and Back Time: 8:30 am to 12:30 pm                                      
Location: htx.ca – The Health Technology Exchange
Feature speakers: T.B.D.
1380 Rodick Road, Lucent Showcase,
Date: January 31, 2007
Markham
Time: 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm                                       
Registration Deadline: November 20th (required)
Location: T.B.D.
For more information: contact Harold Schroeder,
Schroeder & Schroeder Inc. Tel: (416) 244-0892
Networking Breakfast or by email to harold@schroeder-inc.com 
Water & the Environment – Remedial
Action Plan/Canada Centre for Inland Waters AllerGen NCE Inc. Second Annual
Connecting with Scientists
Research Conference
Date: Monday, November 27, 2007 Innovation – from Cell to Society
Time: 7:30 am to 9:00 am                                       
Location: Nature Centre of the Royal Botanical Date: February 11-13, 2007
Gardens, 680 Plains Road, Burlington Location: Sheraton Hotel, Hamilton
Register: by email to Kathy.Trotter@ec.gc.ca For more information: visit www.allergen-nce.ca 
Hamilton’s Inaugural Health Bacchus at Brock
Research in the City Third International Interdisciplinary
Wine Conference in Niagara
Date: Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Time: 8:00 am to 4:00 pm                                        Date: June 7-9, 2007
Location: Hamilton Convention Centre, 3rd Floor Location: Brock University, St. Catharines
1 Summers Lane, Hamilton For more information: visit www.brocku.ca
For more information: visit www.ghbn.org/events
or email galanor@mcmaster.ca Please visit our website for the latest updates on events:
www.ghbn.org/events
Contact Golden Horseshoe Biosciences Network
McMaster University, Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning & Discovery
5105-1200 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, CANADA L8N 3Z5
n Ana Paredes Office Administrator/Incubator Assistant – Tel: 905-525-9140 Ext. 26602 Fax: 905-528-3999
n Darlene Homonko Executive Director – Tel: 905-525-9140 Ext. 26609 Web: www.ghbn.org
GHBN News is a quarterly newsletter published by GHBN. Director and editor: Darlene Homonko
Writer: Mike Pettapiece Contributor: Ana Paredes Graphic Design: Nadia DiTraglia