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Twelve researchers at the University of Toronto are receiving Connaught Innovation Awards to help accelerate the development and commercialization of promising technologies with strong socio-economic potential that will have a positive impact on society.

“The University of Toronto congratulates this year’s recipients, whose work is addressing some of society’s most important challenges,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “From energy-saving windows to the use of plant hormones as appetite suppressants or the development of therapeutic targets that hold promise for a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases, these researchers’ inventions have the potential to make life-changing impacts here in Canada and around the world.”

This year's recipients are:

• :  A tool to optimize complex formulations based on evolutionary computation accelerated by artificial neural networks
• : The use of a plant hormone CX as an appetite suppressant
• : Development of broad-spectrum, host-directed antivirals
• : Reducing microplastic fibre pollution using low friction polymer brush as textile coatings
• : A hardware accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption-based machine learning applications
• , University of Toronto Mississauga: Development of an artificial intelligence-driven platform to explore the undruggable genome
• : Smart building facades for scalable operational energy management
• : Production and evaluation of hemoglobin-bis-tetramers for oxygen transport to increase supply of lungs for transplant by enhancing ex vivo perfusion of donor lungs
• : A platform for safety evaluation of chemical agents
• : Targeting TDP-43 aggregation as therapeutics for TDP-43 proteinopathies
• : Novel electrodes for non-invasive electrical nerve stimulation
• : Autonomous additive manufacturing system 

The Connaught Innovation Award, which provides one-time seed funding to support the development and commercialization of the researchers’ innovative technologies, is backed by – the . Established 50 years ago through the sale of Connaught Medical Research Laboratories, which is known for the discovery and production of insulin, the fund supports ��������οscholars through programs such as the , the , the ,  and international doctoral scholarships.