Media Releases

Super Cells: The Power of Stem Cells opens at MaRS

October 6, 2015

Oct 5, 2015 (Toron­to, ON) – A new sci­ence exhib­it, cre­at­ed in both French and Eng­lish, opened at MaRS Dis­cov­ery Dis­trict on Mon­day in down­town Toron­to. Super Cells: The Pow­er of Stem Cells is a FREE, inter­ac­tive, muse­um-qual­i­ty exhib­it that will be open dai­ly from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Octo­ber 5 to Novem­ber 12, 2015. The exhib­it is designed for chil­dren 4–14 and accom­pa­ny­ing edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als for schools are pro­vid­ed for ages 6–14, in both lan­guages.

“When the Stem Cell Net­work request­ed our exper­tise and finan­cial sup­port in build­ing this exhib­it, we were pleased to col­lab­o­rate on this very worth­while ini­tia­tive,” says Dr. Peter Zand­stra, CSO, Cen­tre for Com­mer­cial­iza­tion of Regen­er­a­tive Med­i­cine (CCRM) and Cana­da Research Chair in Stem Cell Bio­engi­neer­ing. “It’s fit­ting to be teach­ing our young peo­ple about stem cells mere steps from the place where stem cells were dis­cov­ered and we‘re hope­ful this exhib­it sparks their curios­i­ty and pas­sion for sci­ence – espe­cial­ly in regen­er­a­tive med­i­cine.”

Super Cells is an award-win­ning exhib­it* that was pro­duced by the Stem Cell Net­work and Musee Nature Sci­ences Sher­brooke, with assis­tance from stem cell and regen­er­a­tive med­i­cine trans­la­tion cen­tres in Cana­da, the U.S. and the UK. It opened in Sep­tem­ber 2014 in Sher­brooke, Que­bec, and has since trav­elled to New­cas­tle, UK. After the Toron­to stop, Super Cells will be on dis­play in the Unit­ed States (Cal­i­for­nia), and then it returns to Cana­da in 2017, to the Musee du Fjord in Que­bec.

Finan­cial sup­port and exper­tise were pro­vid­ed by CCRM, CIRM and the UK’s Cell Ther­a­py Cat­a­pult. EuroStem­Cell con­tributed content/oversight.

Spe­cial thanks to MaRS for pro­vid­ing exhi­bi­tion space and to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Insti­tute of Bio­ma­te­ri­als & Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing and Sci­ence & Engi­neer­ing Engage­ment for finan­cial­ly sup­port­ing the Toron­to exhi­bi­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion, please see www.supercells.ca.

*Super Cells was award­ed the 2015 CASCADE Award for Best Exhib­it or Show – Small Insti­tu­tion, from the Cana­di­an Asso­ci­a­tion of Sci­ence Cen­tres.

About the Cen­tre for Com­mer­cial­iza­tion of Regen­er­a­tive Med­i­cine (CCRM)

CCRM, a Cana­di­an not-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion fund­ed by the Gov­ern­ment of Canada’s Net­works of Cen­tres of Excel­lence pro­gram and aca­d­e­m­ic part­ners, sup­ports the devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies that accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of stem cell- and bio­ma­te­ri­als-based tech­nolo­gies and ther­a­pies. A net­work of aca­d­e­mics, indus­try and entre­pre­neurs, CCRM aims to trans­late sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies into mar­ketable prod­ucts for patients with spe­cial­ized team fund­ing and infra­struc­ture.

CCRM sources and con­ducts dili­gence on intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty from around the globe, per­form­ing fee-for-ser­vice and devel­op­ment projects with acad­e­mia and indus­try in the areas of cell repro­gram­ming and engi­neer­ing, cell man­u­fac­tur­ing and bio­ma­te­ri­als. CCRM has a ful­ly resourced, 6,000 square foot devel­op­ment facil­i­ty used to advance tech­nolo­gies for out-licens­ing or com­pa­ny cre­ation. CCRM launched in Toronto’s Dis­cov­ery Dis­trict on June 14, 2011 and is host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to.

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 For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Stacey John­son
Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, CCRM
647–309-1830
Stacey.johnson@ccrm.ca
www.ccrm.ca