CBB awards seed funding for bioengineering and biotechnology research

Friday, March 22, 2019

Ten Waterloo researchers are receiving seed funding from the Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology (CBB).

The funding will support the collaboration of multi-disciplinary research teams across Waterloo faculties and departments, with the goal of propelling scientific innovation and growth, and mentoring the next generation of researchers.

Scott Taylor
Two researchers from the Faculty of Science were among the recipients of round two funding: Professors Scott Taylor from the Department of Chemistry (pictured left) and Todd Holyoak from the Department of Biology.

Their project entitled, "Structural studies of bacterial IgA1 proteases," will use x-ray crystallography, enzymekinetics, and medicinal chemistry approaches to understand the IgAPs-IgA1 structure-function relations. The results will lay the foundation for the development of selective inhibitors that can ultimately be used as novel antibacterial pharmaceutical agents for use in the treatment of infections caused by these pathogens.

Haemophilus influenza, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Streptococcus pneumoniae are presently on the World Health Organization priority pathogen list for research and development of new antibiotics.  The imunoglobulin A1 proteases (IgAPs) are enzymes that play a role in the virulence of some of these human pathogens. Currently, there is relatively little information on the structure and mechanisms of these enzyme substrates and within the protease family. 

This is the second round of funding awarded under the program, which debuted last year. Professors Shirley Tang of Chemistry and Jonathan Blay of the School of Pharmacy were among the first round of recipients for their project entitled, "Bioprinter and bioink formulation for the printing of authentic 3D colorectal tumor models."

Read the full story published in the UW Daily Bulletin.