A new report on the University’s contribution to defeating the COVID-19 virus highlights the mobilization of U of T scientists in response to the pandemic. Demonstrating Resilience in a Pandemic: Scientists as First Responders, shows the range of research and collaboration at the University. Diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccine research is occurring alongside the development of policy solutions that will address societal inequities revealed by the pandemic.

Toronto-based quantum computing startup Xanadu, in partnership with MaRS and Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), announced this week the launch of what it claims is Canada’s first quantum network.

You wait ages for foot-scanning startups to help with the tricky fit issue that troubles online shoe shopping and then two come along at once: Launching today in time for Black Friday sprees is Xesto — which, like Neatsy, which we wrote about earlier today, also makes use of the iPhone’s TrueDepth camera to generate individual 3D foot models for shoe size recommendations.

While we are in a global pandemic business does not stop. Companies are adopting, innovating, and moving forward. There are many new ideas and innovations to look forward to in 2021.

LegUp Computing Inc., a startup with origins in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering has been acquired by U.S.-based Microchip Technology Inc.

Multiverse Computing has just closed a 1,5 million euro funding round to finance its growth and internationalization process. This startup, with offices in Donostia and Toronto, specializes in quantum algorithmic solutions for the financial industry and already collaborates with some leading financial institutions. The capital increase has been subscribed by the venture capital fund Quantonation, Seed Gipuzkoa, EASO VENTURES S.C.R., Mondragon Promotion Fund FCR and Penja Strategy, a society from promoting companies, in which a private investor Pedro Luis Uriarte, has the majority.

LegUp Computing Inc., a startup with origins in ECE, has been acquired by Microchip Technology Inc.

Leveraging technology originally developed at the labs of Professors Jason Anderson and Stephen Brown, LegUp Computing was co-founded in 2015 by Professor Anderson, Dr. Andrew Canis (CompE PhD 1T5), Dr. Jongsok Choi (CompE MASc 1T2, PhD 1T6), and Ruolong Lian (ElecE BASc 1T3, CompE MASc 1T6) from The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE).

At the University of Toronto, Keith Pardee, an assistant professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, along with postdoctoral fellows Masoud Norouzi and Margot Karlikow, is tweaking a technology with origins in a prior public-health scare: 2016′s Zika outbreaks. Several years ago, Prof. Pardee and collaborators at other institutions developed a “lab in a box,” designed to test for Zika rapidly and in communities without access to more sophisticated testing equipment. The technology was deployed in Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia.

Shortly after graduating from the University of Toronto Scarborough in 2009, Kanwar co-founded user experience agency Jet Cooper, which was eventually acquired by Shopify, the Ottawa-based e-commerce giant that helps businesses sell their products online. He is now Shopify’s general manager and vice-president of product, leading a team of hundreds of people in several cities.

For nearly four decades, Patricia Brubaker has been investigating the biological activities of anti-diabetic gut hormones secreted by the intestine.

Her work is focused on the fundamental biology of the hormones and has contributed to development of drugs for the treatment of patients with Type 2 diabetes. The drugs work by stimulating the secretion of insulin, helping to lower blood sugar levels and reducing appetite, among other effects.