APRI industry support program aims to leverage Canada's depth in prion research

The Alberta Prion Research Institute (APRI) has unveiled an industry program which is the first of several being planned for institutes being launched by the Alberta Ingenuity Fund. The Innovation and Delivery Program (IDeal) is being positioned to develop R&D responses to prion-based diseases threatening cattle and wild animal herds such as elk by strengthening industry receptor capacity for new Alberta-based products and processes.

IDeal will support industry-led research projects by investing a minimum of $200,000 and achieving a 2:1 leverage ratio from other funding sources. APRI plans to offer the funding with no fixed competitions or upset limits for the next two years in order to gauge industry interest and uptake. It also won't take an equity positioning in any of the R&D being commercialized

"The Alberta government recognized the need to create a world-class research hub in this area," says Dr Chris Dambrowitz, APRI's director of prion programs. "We've set aside a significant amount of money (for IDeal) based on our knowledge of what's out there. We'd like to do a small number of large projects."

Prions are misfolded proteins typically found in the brains of mammals that cause infectious diseases of the nervous system such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and scrapie. The ability to eliminate or reduce the incidents of these diseases and track their spread through the food chain is of utmost importance to the cattle industry.

"A company has to show it has a niche, an understanding of the regulatory process and a way to get to market," says Dambro-witz. "It doesn't have to be an Alberta-founded company if it helps Alberta deal with the challenge to human health and offers value and strengthens industry competitiveness."

IDeal was conceived as a hybrid of several existing commercialization programs such as the Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE), the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program, Precarn and the collaborative R&D grants program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. It is the first program specifically targeting prion research. APRI will assemble customized panels combining scientific peer review and due diligence to assess project proposals, while employing the more traditional peer review panels for its core and proof-of-principle programs.

In addition to targeting companies directly associated with the beef industry, IDeal will also consider applications from firms active in the areas of medical diagnostics, the environment, animal tracking and potential uses for infected beef such as biodiesel. R&D projects considered eligible for IDeal funding include decontamination methods for disposing of specified risk material (brain, spinal cord and other tissues) and BSE tests for live animals — so-called antimortum testing.

"There are about 70 companies worldwide working on antimortum tests and none have come forward yet for regulatory approval," says Dambrowitz. "Currently tests are all done post-mortum."

APRI was launched last year with a $38-million endowment from the Alberta government, which will grow to about $42 million in the first seven years of the Institute's existence. It closely follows the creation of PrioNet, a Network of Centres of Excellence announced in the 2004 federal Budget with $35 million over seven years (pending a mid-term review).

Dambrowitz says the two organizations are extremely complementary and growing interaction has resulted in an MOU, shared board members and a mechanism for resource sharing including accepting the validity of each other's peer review processes. Last week APRI and PrioNet held their first joint conference.

"We work together as much as possible so we have a $70-million plus program rather than two separate programs," he says. "We run off an endowment model which is less restrictive than the NCE program, so we can work directly with industry and put our money directly into companies and support product development and applications."

If APRI's industry program is deemed a success, Dambrowitz says it may be introduced into the water research institute launched by Alberta Ingenuity and institutes it launches in the future.

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