Through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), McMaster University chemical engineering professors Heather Sheardown and Todd Hoare received more than $1M in total funding for their projects focused on combatting age-related degenerative diseases.
“McMaster engineers are making significant strides in health sciences,” says Carlos Filipe, Associate Dean of Research, Innovation, and Partnerships in the Faculty of Engineering. “The CIHR funding awarded to Dean Sheardown and Professor Hoare will drive essential research aimed at enhancing the lives of Canadians through groundbreaking treatments.”
Sheardown, Dean of Engineering, Canada Research Chair in Ophthalmic Biomaterials and Drug Delivery and Scientific Director of the C20/20 Innovation Hub, is researching a new drug to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness affecting more than 1.5 million Canadians.
With professor Brian Amsden from Queen’s University, Sheardown and her research group are determining the optimal dosage of a drug to slow or halt dry AMD and develop an implantable delivery system to replace repeated eye injections. This research could also benefit treatments for other ocular diseases.
Todd Hoare, a Canada Research Chair in Engineered Smart Materials, and his research team are looking to improve outcomes for the one in six Canadians affected by osteoarthritis (OA). Current treatments like steroid injections and joint replacements offer only temporary relief or are challenging for older patients. Viscosupplementation, which involves injecting a hydrogel into the joint, is an alternative but has limitations due to short residence time.
Researchers at the Hoare Lab at McMaster have developed a new injectable hydrogel that lasts over six months, provides better lubrication and can not only lubricate joint motion but also partially supplement cartilage lost in OA patients. This project aims to optimize production, understand biological mechanisms and validate the hydrogel through testing, with the goal of translating this technology to clinical use for OA patients in partnership with the start-up company Trillium Meditec, which is part of McMaster’s start-up ecosystem.
Learn more about research with impact at McMaster Engineering.