From Research Papers to Real Companies
For years, a great scientific discovery at a Canadian university might end its life as a published paper, admired by a handful of specialists and then shelved. The Faculty of Science at uOttawa is working to change that story, giving professors, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students the training, funding, and mentorship to turn their findings into actual businesses.
Vincent Tabard-Cossa, the Faculty’s Vice-Dean of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, says the goal is to make that leap from bench to boardroom as painless as possible. He points to flexible support, affordable access to top-tier lab facilities, and a lot of one-on-one guidance as the pieces that make commercialization realistic for people trained as scientists, not businesspeople.
A Growing List of Homegrown Successes
Under Dean Louis Barriault, a chemistry professor by training, the Faculty has quietly built an ecosystem that connects researchers with investors, incubators, and industry partners who are actively looking for early-stage deals. The results are already visible across Ottawa’s innovation landscape.
Among the ventures with roots in the Faculty are GreenVeil Packaging, founded by Ali Maleki and focused on biodegradable, antimicrobial packaging for food and agriculture, and EcoSafeSense, led by Olga Koppel, which builds advanced air quality sensors that track environmental risk. PanThera CryoSolutions, co-founded by chemistry professor Robert Ben, develops compounds that improve cryopreservation and was acquired by BioLife Solutions last year. Yellowbird Diagnostics, started by Nicholas Calvert, Adam Shuhendler, and Alexia Kirby, creates medical imaging agents that help doctors diagnose diseases affecting the brain, heart, and kidneys with more precision. And Northern Nanopore Instruments, co-founded by entrepreneur in residence Kyle Briggs and his former PhD supervisor Tabard-Cossa, was later acquired by Oxford Nanopore Technologies.
Built to Support the Whole Journey
None of this happens by chance. The Faculty has developed a suite of programs over the past several years specifically designed to carry research from idea to income, including the Graduate Entrepreneurship Experience Program, which helps students test the market potential of their work, and the Entrepreneurship Bridge Fund, which helps early research clear the gap toward commercialization.
A formal agreement also gives emerging companies, including Northern Nanopore, PanThera, and EcoSafeSense, access to lab space and services as they grow, and some of the Faculty’s labs are even used by larger international companies. The support doesn’t stop at the Faculty’s own door, either: two companies currently being incubated through these programs actually originated in the faculties of engineering and medicine. As Tabard-Cossa puts it, if it’s a science-based company, the team is happy to help in any way it can.
Get a Preview of What’s Next
The ecosystem’s next big moment is the upcoming Discovery to Innovation event, where uOttawa professors and graduate students will present research with real entrepreneurial potential, spanning health sciences, biotechnology, photonics, and quantum technology. Robert Ben will deliver the keynote, reflecting on his own path from the lab to launching PanThera in 2017.
The room will be full of investors, funders, fellow entrepreneurs, and potential co-founders, all hoping to spot the next big idea before anyone else does. Kyle Briggs works closely with presenters to help them go beyond explaining the science and focus on why their breakthrough matters commercially and socially, since that’s often the piece researchers find hardest to communicate.
For anyone curious about what Ottawa’s next wave of science-driven startups might look like, Tabard-Cossa has a simple pitch: if you want to be first to hear about the next big thing that could change the world, this is where you want to be.
