Research &amp; Innovation

Department of Biological Sciences

Department of Biology

Graduate Students

department of mechanical and industrial engineering

��οMississauga

��οScarborough

Subheadline

Sonia Evans's research is opening the door to novel strategies for engineering crops that are more productive and resilient

Sonia Evans has published in high-profile scientific journals, won several awards and completed a PhD from the University of Toronto, but she traces her achievements to someone who had no formal education whatsoever: her grandmother.

A believer in the healing power of plants, Evans’s grandmother hailed from a southern Nigerian village, and regularly crafted plant-based traditional medicines for ailments ranging from infertility to skin conditions.

“She knew the type of plants to go to, and made different concoctions for us,” says Evans, who defended her PhD in ��οMississauga's department of cell and systems biology in November and is poised to continue her research as a postdoctoral fellow at ��οScarborough. “She never knew the names of the plants, but she knew the types of plants to put together to get the result she was expecting.”

Evans, who was born and raised in Nigeria, completed undergraduate studies in plant science in her home country before earning a master's degree in plant biology in Israel. With a growing interest in plant metabolism, she decided to pursue a PhD at ��οMississauga under the supervision of Michael Phillips, an associate professor in the department of biology.

“[Phillips] was really involved in plant metabolism… and really trying to understand how plants make chemicals that are important not just for their growth, development and for photosynthesis, but also for us,” Evans says. “These are chemicals that we use as drugs, flavours, fragrances, cosmetics and biofuels. I was really interested in that part of the research.”

Since joining the Phillips lab, Evans has focused on how plants control carbon supply towards the production of isoprenoids – high-value compounds that are critical to plant growth, defense and crop productivity and also have a range of industrial and pharmaceutical applications.

Her research has had a huge impact on the field. In 2024 alone, Evans published two papers in the prestigious Nature journals, as first author.

The most recent paper, published in Nature Plants in October, sheds light on a decades-old mystery: the origins of pyruvate, a vital precursor for production of isoprenoids, amino acids and fatty acids in chloroplasts, which are responsible for plant photosynthesis. The research revealed that Rubisco, a critical enzyme that’s responsible for fixing carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, also plays a secondary role in supplying pyruvate.

This discovery not only redefines how scientists understand plant metabolism, but also solves a long-standing paradox of the origin of pyruvate, with Evans’s findings providing a critical link between photosynthesis and the production of isoprenoids. By uncovering how plants channel carbon toward these valuable compounds, her research opens the door to innovative biotechnological strategies for engineering crops with enhanced productivity and resilience.

The previous paper, published in Nature Communications in February, laid the groundwork for how a key metabolic pathway could be engineered in plants for synthetic biology applications.

All the more impressive: Evans managed these accomplishments while carrying out her responsibilities as mother to a young child – which she credits to a strong support system of family, her spouse, friends and peers. “It’s been a learning curve… but I have tried to take everything one step at a time, and check myself every day,” she says.

Evans’s scholarly excellence resulted in her earning the Roberta Bondar Graduate Student Excellence Award last fall. She was also named a Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow, and will carry out her postdoctoral research in the lab of Eliana Gonzales-Vigil, assistant professor in ��οScarborough's department of biological sciences.

Reflecting on her decision to come to U of T, Evans reveals she doubted her chances of being granted admission to Canada’s top-ranked university. “I was like, ‘Oh my God – who am I to be at the University of Toronto?’” she says. “But I wanted to be at a very good university, and I had to keep trying to aim higher and higher for myself.”

Microfluidic device reveals how tumour shapes can predict cancer aggressiveness

rahul.kalvapalle — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 15:46:03 +0000

Microfluidic device reveals how tumour shapes can predict cancer aggressiveness

rahul.kalvapalle Wed, 12/18/2024 - 10:46

Cutline

Associate Professor Edmond Young of U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering (left) and PhD alum Sina Kheiri co-developed the Recoverable-Spheroid-on-a-Chip with Unrestricted External Shape – or "ReSCUE" – platform (photos courtesy of Edmond Young and Sina Kheiri)

Safa Jinje

Topic

Breaking Research

Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Subheadline

The platform, developed by ��οresearchers, allows for unprecedented control and manipulation of tumour shapes

Researchers in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have designed a microfluidic platform that can be used to predict cancer cell behaviour and aggressiveness, opening up new avenues for personalized and targeted cancer treatment.

The Recoverable-Spheroid-on-a-Chip with Unrestricted External Shape (ReSCUE) platform, developed by a team led by Edmond Young, an associate professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering, gives researchers the ability to recover and release tumoroids – tumour cells derived from patients – to perform downstream analysis and characterization.

This allows for unprecedented control and manipulation of tumour shapes, a largely unexplored area in cancer research.

“While there are several platforms for in vitro modelling of spheroids – three-dimensional aggregates of cells that can mimic tissues and mini tumours – a challenge in the cancer research field has been the inability to control the shape, recovery and location of these cancer organoids,” says Sina Kheiri, a PhD alum and co-lead author of the study, which was published in Advanced Materials.

“So, researchers end up with these tumours-on-a-chip that can’t be easily characterized because they are stuck on the device and can only be observed through optical microscopy.”

The platform also enables researchers to grow cancer organoids in different shapes. This is important, Kheiri says, because much of the current research on cancer cell in vitro modelling is focused on spherical tumours, but tumours in a body can take many different shapes.

“In many invasive cancers, the tumour shape is not spherical. For example, in a recent study of 85 patients with breast cancer, only 20 per cent of tumours were spherical,” he says. “If modelling studies are limited to spherical tumour shapes, then we are not looking at the full parametric space and scale of tumours that are seen in real life. We are only looking at a small portion of the whole answer to understand cancer cell behaviour.”

Kheiri’s PhD research was co-supervised by Young and Eugenia Kumacheva, a professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of chemistry who is cross-appointed to the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. Kumacheva’s lab developed a biomimetic hydrogel that is used as a scaffold in the multi-layer ReSCUE platform, allowing the patient-derived cancer cells to grow and organize the way they would inside human tissue.

The platform was developed in collaboration with David Cescon, a clinician scientist and breast medical oncologist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and associate professor in the Institute of Medical Science at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Cescon’s team provided access to the cancer cells that were used to form breast cancer organoids.

This image shows culture, release and transfer of tumoroids from the ReSCUE platform, as well as the released breast cancer disk-, rod-, and U-shaped tumoroids cultured in biomimetic hydrogel over zero, seven, 14 and 21 days (image courtesy of Young Lab)

The idea that tumour shapes determine cancer cell behaviour was a serendipitous discovery for Kheiri: while optimizing and developing the microfluidic platform, he discovered that some of the patient-derived tumoroids were forming positive curvatures because of the shape of the microwell. 

“I was playing with the aspect ratio of the microwells and observed that when the wells had a more rod-like or elongated shape, rather than a circular or disc shape, the tissues formed cellular strands at the regions with positive curvature,” he says. “I didn’t see that in tumoroids from the same cancer-cell sample that formed a spherical shape.

"So, we started to make different shapes and analyze the effects of shape or curvature on cancer behaviour."

The team looked at disk-, rod- and U-shaped tumoroids; they found higher cell activity and higher proliferation at the positive curvatures – where the tumour shape is convex and outward curving.

This could mean that the growth of cells in these areas is more invasive compared to areas of the tumour that have a flat curvature.

“Understanding the relationship between tumour shape and cell behaviour is important for predicting tumour aggressiveness and planning appropriate treatment strategies, such as targeted radiation therapy or drug delivery,” says Kheiri. “We want to open this door and give researchers a platform that they can use to study how different tumour shapes respond in anti-cancer drug treatment, in radiotherapy and chemotherapy.”

Now a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Kheiri continues to provide support to the Young lab on development of the ReSCUE platform. The researchers recently submitted a U.S. patent and are looking to build on their results.

“We hope that these uniquely shaped mini tumours can help biologists and cancer researchers better understand the biology of cancer cells and how they respond to drugs,” says Young.

“We’re going to add even more complex features, such as surrounding vasculature. The more control we have over the features we can include in our models, the more realistic they become, and the more accurate our drug testing will be.”

In photos: Geoffrey Hinton’s Nobel week in Sweden — and at U of T

mattimar — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 15:42:24 +0000

In photos: Geoffrey Hinton’s Nobel week in Sweden — and at U of T

mattimar Fri, 12/13/2024 - 10:42

Cutline

Geoffrey Hinton delivers a speech during the Nobel Prize banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, Sweden on Dec. 10 (photo by Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)

Mariam Matti

Topic

Department of Computer Science

Nobel Prize

It was a whirlwind week for the University of Toronto’s Geoffrey Hinton, who travelled to Sweden to officially accept the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside a jam-packed schedule of receptions, lectures, talks, ceremonies, banquets and media engagements.

The ��οUniversity Professor emeritus of computer science known as the “godfather of AI” received the prestigious award during a formal ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall — the main event during Nobel Week, held from Dec. 6 to 12 in Stockholm and Oslo.

He shared the honour with John J. Hopfield of Princeton University for foundational work that paved the way for today's rapid advances in artificial intelligence, which some have called “the next industrial revolution.”

From the days leading up to the ceremony to the celebrations overseas and back home in Toronto, here are a few highlights and behind-the-scenes glimpses of a historic moment for Hinton and the rest of the ��οcommunity.

(Photo by Jennifer Cressman)

After arriving in Stockholm on Dec. 5, Hinton takes part in a panel discussion at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) on AI development, humanity and the future. He is joined by IVA fellows Kristina Höök, Anders Sandberg and Staffan Truvé, and moderator Anette Novak.

(© Nobel Prize Outreach / Nanaka Adachi)

On Dec. 6, Hinton signs the guest book at the Nobel Prize Museum, where he donated an early Boltzmann machine – a chip about the size of a postage stamp that can be used to recognize elements in data.

(Photos by © Nobel Prize Outreach / Clément Morin, left, and at right, ��οstaff)

Continuing a Nobel tradition dating back to the event’s 100th anniversary in 2001, Hinton signs the underside of a chair at the Nobel Prize Museum’s restaurant, joining the names of fellow laureates etched into history.

(Photos by Jennifer Cressman)

During a news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Dec. 7, Hinton pauses to snap a personal photo, capturing a moment of his historic week.

(Photo by ��οstaff)

In his Nobel Prize lecture in physics on Dec. 8, Hinton talks about how decades of his fundamental research, and that of his co-laureate, paved the way for the development of artificial neural networks and machine learning.

Hinton explains the significance of the Boltzmann machine, which he based on an invention of his co-laureate that was known as the Hopfield network.

(Photo by Pontus Lundahl/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)

Hinton and John J. Hopfield shake hands after delivering their Nobel Prize lectures.

(© Nobel Prize Outreach / Clément Morin)

Since the 1960s, the laureates have participated in a roundtable discussion for television’s Nobel Minds. At the taping on Dec. 9, Hinton was joined by David Baker, Demis Hassabis, Gary Ruvkun, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson.

The following day, Hinton officially accepted his Nobel Prize in Physics.

(Photo by Jonas Borg)

Hinton poses with Ulrika Gustafsson, his Nobel attaché, prior to the formal ceremony on Dec. 10.

The event, which was livestreamed from Stockholm Concert Hall, was watched around the world.

Congratulations to Canada’s own Geoffrey Hinton — “Godfather of AI”, Professor Emeritus, and now, Nobel laureate. pic.twitter.com/CON0AtXokq
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) December 10, 2024

(Photos by Diana Tyszko, Matt Hintsa, Sobica Vinayagamoorthy and Shauna Rempel)

On Dec. 10 in Toronto, ��οcommunity members shared in the moment via Nobel ceremony watch parties that were held across U of T’s three campuses.

(© Nobel Prize Outreach / Nanaka Adachi)

Hinton receives his Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during the ceremony.

(Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images)

Hinton sits next to Anna Sjöström Douagi, acting CEO of the Nobel Foundation, during the Nobel Prize banquet on Dec. 10.

“If the benefits of the increased productivity can be shared equally, it will be a wonderful advance for all of humanity,” Hinton told the audience, before repeating his warnings about the near- and longer-term dangers posed by rapid, unfettered progress of the technology. See the complete text of Hinton's acceptance speech.

Researchers at U of T, partner hospitals receive $35 million in provincial support

lanthierj — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 18:57:47 +0000

Researchers at U of T, partner hospitals receive $35 million in provincial support

lanthierj Wed, 12/11/2024 - 13:57

Cutline

The performance of lithium ion batteries that power electric vehicles, like the ones plugged into these chargers, can be degraded by temperature fluctuations – a limitation researchers at ��οEngineering are working to change (photo by koiguo/Getty Images)

Tyler Irving

Topic

Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Leah Cowen

Sinai Health

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Unity Health

Cell and Systems Biology

Anthropology

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Biochemistry

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Chemistry

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Hospital for Sick Children

Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Mathematics

Physics

Psychology

University Health Network

UTIAS

Subheadline

From better batteries to preventing memory loss, nearly four dozen projects at ��οand its partner hospitals are being supported by the Ontario Research Fund

Researchers in the University of Toronto’s Thermal Management Systems (TMS) Laboratory are working to improve the way battery systems handle heat and develop structural battery pack components. 

“Whether they are being used for electric vehicles or for stationary energy storage systems that reduce strain on the grid, lithium-ion batteries are transforming the way we use electricity,” said Carlos Da Silva, senior research associate at the TMS Lab in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and executive director of U of T’s Electrification Hub.

“Unfortunately, today’s batteries are still sensitive to temperature: if they get too cold or too hot, it can degrade their performance and even present safety risks. We are working on new technologies that make batteries more resilient to thermal fluctuations.”

The battery-related research is among nearly four dozen projects at ��οand its partner hospitals that are receiving almost $35 million in support through the Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence (ORF-RE) and the Ontario Research Fund – Small Infrastructure (ORF-SIF). (See the full list of projects and their principal researchers below).

"Research at the University of Toronto and at all universities and colleges across Ontario is the foundation of the province’s competitiveness now and in the future,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“This investment protects and advances cutting-edge, made-in-Ontario research in important economic sectors and helps ensure universities can continue to train, attract and retain the world’s top talent."

At ��οEngineering’s TMS Lab, researchers led by Cristina Amon, a University Professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering, are working on two funded projects. They are developing advanced computational modelling and digital twin methodologies that predict and optimize how heat flows through battery packs. The methodologies are carefully calibrated and validated through industry-relevant experiments in the lab.

Senior Research Associate Carlos Da Silva, left, and University Professor Cristina Amon, right, chat in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering's Thermal Management Systems Laboratory (photo by Aaron Demeter)

These methodologies will help battery designers anticipate and prevent thermal management challenges before they arise. It can also enable them to optimize the design and deployment of fire mitigation measures, such as ultra-thin heat barriers, within their battery systems.

The team is also collaborating with Ford Canada and several other companies in the energy storage space. For example, they have worked with Jule (powered by eCAMION) on the development of direct current electric vehicle fast chargers with integrated battery energy storage systems, one of which was recently unveiled on the ��οcampus.

“We are grateful for this ORF-RE funding, which will accelerate our research and help us further expand our partnerships, ensuring that battery thermal innovations have a seamless transition from the lab to the marketplace,” Amon said.

“As a result of this work, the next generation of batteries will be safer and more resilient than ever before, which is especially important in colder climates like ours here in Ontario.” 

Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence:

Cristina Amon in the department of mechanical & industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Powering Ontario’s grid transformation and electric vehicle fast charging with thermally resilient battery energy storage & Next-gen electric vehicle battery systems: Lightweight, thermally performant and fire safe for all climates
Morgan Barense in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science – HippoCamera: Digital memory rehabilitation to combat memory loss
Aimy Bazylak in the department of mechanical & industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering – RECYCLEAN: Critical minerals recycling & re-manufacturing for the energy transition
Ian Connell at University Health Network and the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – MRI-compatible innovations for neuromodulation
Simon Graham at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Technological innovations for clinical MRI of the brain at 7 tesla
Clinton Groth in the Institute for Aerospace Studies in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Hydrogen as a sustainable aviation fuel – combustion research to remove impediments to adoption in gas turbine engines
James Kennedy at Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the department of psychiatry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Clinical utility and enhancements of a pharmacogenomic decision support tool for mental health patients
Shaf Keshavjee at University Health Network and the department of surgery in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Advanced solutions to human lung preservation and assessment using artificial intelligence
Aviad Levis in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science – AI and quantum enhanced astronomy
JoAnne McLaurin at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the department of laboratory medicine & pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Conversion of astrocytes to neurons to treat neurodegenerative diseases of the brain and the eye
R. J. Dwayne Miller in the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science – PicoSecond InfraRed Laser (PIRL) “cancer knife” with complete biodiagnostics via spatial imaging mass spectrometry
Javad Mostaghimi in the department of mechanical & industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – A new generation of compact, transportable mass spectrometers for rapid, in-field sample analysi
Xiao Yu (Shirley) Wu in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy – Molecular dynamics modeling and screening of excipients for designing amorphous solid dispersion formulations of poorly–soluble drugs

Ontario Research Fund – Small Infrastructure Fund:

Celina Baines in the department of ecology & evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science – Impacts of environmental change on organismal movement
Sergio de la Barrera in the department of physics in the Faculty of Arts & Science – Facility for quantum materials and device assembly from atomically thin van der Waals layers
Michelle Bendeck in the department of laboratory medicine & pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – 4D quantitative cardiovascular physiology centre
Laurent Bozec in the department of laboratory medicine & pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – 21st Century challenge for Dentistry: Breaking the cycle of irreversible dental tissue loss
Mark Chiew at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Next generation computational MRI for rapid neuroimaging and image-guided therapy
Haissi Cui in the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science – A molecule to mouse approach to study the intracellular localization of genetic code interpretation in mammalian cells
Andy Kin On DeVeale at the University Health Network and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health – Sarcopenia and musculoskeletal interactions (sami) collaborative hub
Ali Dolatabadi in the department of mechanical & industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Advanced cold spray facility
Spencer Freeman at the Hospital for Sick Children and the department of biochemistry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Imaging biophysical determinants of the innate immune response
Liisa Galea at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Institute of Medical Science in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Sex and sex-specific factors influencing brain health across the lifespan
Maged Goubran at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – AI platform for mapping, tracking and predicting circuit alterations in Alzheimer’s disease
Eitan Grinspun in the departments of computer science and department of mathematics in the Faculty of Arts & Science – A computer graphics perspective on entanglement of slender structures
Levon Halabelian in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Enabling a high-throughput drug discovery pipeline for targeting disease-related human proteins
Ziqing Hong in the department of physics in the Faculty of Arts & Science – Ultra-sensitive cryogenic detector development for dark matter and neutrino experiments
Eno Hysi at the Unity Health Toronto and the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Structural and functional assessments of diabetic skin microvasculature using photoacoustic imaging
Lewis Kay in the department of biochemistry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Helium recovery system for the biomolecular NMR facility
Xiang Li in the department of chemistry and the department of physic in the Faculty of Arts & Science – Real-time multi-faceted probes of quantum materials
Qian Lin in the department of cell & systems biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science – 2p-RAM for whole-brain single-neuron imaging of behaving zebrafish to study neural mechanisms of cognitive behaviours
Xilin Liu in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Integrated circuits for wireless brain implants with multi-modal neural interfaces
Stephen Lye at the Sinai Health System and the department of physiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative (HeLTI) analytics platform
Caitlin Maikawa in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Biointerfacing materials for drug delivery lab
Emma Master in the department of chemical engineering & applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Accelerating biomanufacturing innovation through enhanced capacity for scale-up and downstream bioprocess engineering
Roman Melnyk at the Hospital for Sick Children and the department of biochemistry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – The H-SCREEN: A platform for high throughput and high content imaging-based small molecule screens for disease modulation
Juan Mena-Parra in the department of astronomy & astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science – An advanced laboratory to enable novel radio telescopes for cosmology and time-domain astrophysics
Seyed Mohamad Moosavi in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Machine learning for nanoporous materials design
Enid Montague in the department of mechanical & industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Automation and equity in healthcare laboratory
Michael Norris in the department of biochemistry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Infrastructure for structural and functional virology research hub
Amaya Perez-Brumer in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health – 3P lab: Centering power, privilege and positionality for health equity research
Monica Ramsey in the department of anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga – Ramsey Laboratory for Environmental Archaeology (RLEA): How human-environment interactions shaped plant-food
Arneet Saltzman in the department of cell & systems biology in the in the Faculty of Arts & Science – Heterochromatin regulation in development and inheritance
Mina Tadrous in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy – Developing a centre for real-world evidence to improve the use of medications for Canadians
Shurui Zhou in the department of electrical & computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Improving collaboration efficiency for fork-based software development
Olena Zhulyn at the Hospital for Sick Children and the department of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine – Targeting translation for tissue regeneration and repair
Christoph Zrenner at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Next-generation real-time closed-loop personalized neurostimulation

U of T’s Geoffrey Hinton receives Nobel medal, diploma at Stockholm ceremony

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 20:05:05 +0000

U of T’s Geoffrey Hinton receives Nobel medal, diploma at Stockholm ceremony

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/10/2024 - 15:05

Cutline

��οUniversity Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton receives his Nobel Prize in Physics from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm (photo by Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency/AFP/Getty Images)

Topic

Nobel Prize

Subheadline

“I think we all feel an enormous amount of pride in the fact that [U of T] is one of the places where modern machine learning was really born - in large part due to Geoff Hinton”

The University of Toronto’s Geoffrey Hinton officially accepted his Nobel Prize in Physics during a formal ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall that included orchestra music, an opera singer and a stage lined with bouquets of flowers.

Wearing white tie and tails, Hinton strode across the dark blue stage emblazoned with the words “The Nobel Prize” to receive his Nobel medal and diploma from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. Then, as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra sounded a few triumphant notes, he bowed to the Swedish royal family, the audience and returned to his seat at the side of the stage.

Geoffrey Hinton looks out over the audience after King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden presented him with his award (photo by Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency/AFP/Getty Images)

And just like that, decades of scholarly endeavour in artificial intelligence (AI) – which began on the fringe of the AI research community and is now poised to forever change modern life – culminated in the U of T University Professor emeritus of computer science known as the “godfather of AI” receiving humanity’s most prestigious award for scientific achievement.

Hinton shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics with John J. Hopfield of Princeton University, who made a similar journey inside the concert hall a few moments earlier. The pair were awarded the prize for discoveries and inventions that enabled machine learning with artificial neural networks, laying the groundwork for today’s AI boom.

“[Geoffrey Hinton] pioneered the efforts to establish deep and dense neural networks,” said Ellen Moons, the chair of the Nobel physics committee, during her introductory remarks. “Such networks are effective in sorting and interpreting large amounts of data and self-improve based on the accuracy of the result.

“Today, artificial neural networks are powerful tools in research fields spanning physics, chemistry and medicine, as well as in daily life.”

In fact, the three winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry – who were seated to Hinton’s left – drew heavily on AI for their work in predicting protein structures and computational design of proteins.

��οPresident Meric Gertler snapped this photo of the Nobel laureates from his seat in the concert hall (photo by Meric Gertler)

Back in Toronto, members of the ��οcommunity gathered at watch parties on all three campuses to take in the livestream of the awards ceremony – a historic moment for the university.

On the St. George campus, more than one hundred gathered to watch and cheer in the main lobby of the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus – home to U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, where Hinton serves as an advisory board member and chief scientific adviser, respectively.

Among the gathered audience was Michael Guerzhoy, an assistant professor, teaching stream, of engineering science and mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who took Hinton’s course on neural networks and machine learning in 2005 – before going on to teach the same course himself several years later.

“I think we all feel an enormous amount of pride in the fact that this is one of the places where modern machine learning was really born, in large part due to Geoff Hinton,” Guerzhoy said. “I think a lot of us owe a personal debt of gratitude to him.”

��οcommunity members gather in the lobby of the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus to watch the ceremony (photo by Matt Hintsa)

Fourth-year undergraduate student James Wang said he was “in awe” as he watched Hinton receive his Nobel Prize.

“It makes you feel inspired. You want to be like him, you want to attain the highest level of achievement that anybody can achieve – and not just to do it for your sake, but also for the academic community at large,” Wang said.

There were similar expressions of pride and jubilation at ��οMississauga, where community members congregated to watch the livestream in the atrium of the Communication Culture & Technology Building, and at ��οScarborough, where a watch party was organized in the Meeting Place.

As per tradition, the awarding of the Nobel Prize medal and diploma took place on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel who, in his 1885 will, bequeathed his fortune to create the award.

Attendees at ��οScarborough's Nobel watch party hold up signs (photo by Sobica Vinayagamoorthy)

The gold medal for the Nobel Prize in Physics depicts nature in the form of a goddess resembling Isis, her face covered by a veil held up by the Genius of Science. Inscribed are the Latin words, “Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes,”which are translated to: “It is beneficial to have improved (human) life through discovered arts.”

The Nobel diploma is crafted on handmade paper and bound in a dark blue leather cover.

The Nobel Prize diploma features a unique work of art, with the design decided by the prize-awarding bodies (© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Dan Lepp Artist: Lars Eje Larsson Calligrapher: Marie A. Györi Book binder: Leonard Gustafssons Bokbinderi AB )

Later in the evening, Hinton joined his fellow Nobel laureates, their families, friends and dignitaries for a banquet at Stockholm City Hall.

In an interview with Swedish national broadcaster SVT on the sidelines of the event, Hinton said it was “very exciting but also very exhausting” to take part in the day’s Nobel events.

Reflecting on his upbringing and career, Hinton said his school years – raised as an atheist who went to a Christian school – helped prepare him for his early years as a cognitive scientist working in the then-peripheral area of artificial intelligence.

“From a young age, I was surrounded at school, everybody else had a different opinion and I thought they were wrong – that was very useful when I was studying neural nets,” Hinton said.

“For many, many years, there were only a few of us who believed in neural nets. Everybody else said this was a ridiculous thing to study. And it turned out we were right.”

– with files from Adam Elliot Segal

��οranked world’s most sustainable university for second year in a row

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:12:41 +0000

��οranked world’s most sustainable university for second year in a row

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/10/2024 - 11:12

Cutline

(photo by Don Campbell)

Topic

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Climate Positive Campus

Climate Positive Energy

Sustainable Development Goals

Global

Meric Gertler

QS World University Rankings

Subheadline

The 2025 edition of the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability ranked ��οfirst out of more than 1,700 institutions across 95 countries

The University of Toronto has been ranked the most sustainable university in the world for the second consecutive year.

The 2025 edition of the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability, released this week by London-based Quacquarelli Symonds, placed ��οfirst overall out of more than 1,700 institutions across 95 countries.

The closely watched ranking evaluates post-secondary institutions for their environmental impact, social impact and governance.

“On behalf of the University of Toronto, I am thrilled that our university is once again ranked first in the world in the QS Sustainability Rankings,” said ��οPresident Meric Gertler. “The ��οcommunity is profoundly committed to the advancement of sustainability as one of the most urgent challenges of our time.

“This year’s ranking confirms our resolve to help lead the way to a sustainable future.”

First launched in 2022, the ranking assesses universities based on QS World University Rankings data, including reputation surveys and research output related to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. It also looks at institutional policies, operational data, alumni impact and national data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and World Bank.

To determine environmental impact, the ranking evaluates environmental education, research and sustainability. For social impact, it examines employability and outcomes, equality, health and well-being, impact of education and knowledge exchange. And for governance, the ranking looks at indicators such as student representation and transparent financial reporting.

��οperformed particularly well in the social impact category this year, moving up three spots to first globally. It also ranked fifth in the world for environmental impact and tied for 23^rd in governance.

U of T’s performance led a robust showing by Canadian universities. The University of British Columbia shared fifth spot with University College London, making Canada the only country to have two universities in the top five. Two other Canadian universities placed in the top 50: McGill University (15^th) and Western University (30^th).

The QS sustainability ranking comes as ��οforges ahead with a host of climate-focused initiatives on its own campuses including: Project Leap, a $138-million infrastructure project that will cut emissions on the St. George campus in half by 2027; Project SHIFT, a ��οMississauga initiative to speed up the transition from natural gas to electricity; and a combination of new climate-responsible constructions and energy retrofits to older buildings at ��οScarborough.

Spurred by these and other efforts, the university’s three campuses last year made a landmark commitment to reduce more greenhouse gases than they emit in the coming years. And ��οcontinues to make progress on its pledge to divest from fossil fuel investments in its endowment fund.

At the same time, ��οis working to enhance Canada’s green energy sector through projects like the Grid Modernization Centre, a state-of-the-art facility led by Climate Positive Energy, an institutional strategic initiative, that will serve as a hub for testing, development and commercialization.

��οis also playing a leadership role in sustainability by engaging with regional, national and international partners. For example, the university acted as a founding member of the City of Toronto’s Green Will Initiative, collaborated with the Urban Climate Action Project to help implement the city’s TransformTO climate action strategy and contributed to the Toronto Region Board of Trade’s Banking on Green playbook, which helps Ontario organizations fund green retrofit projects.

Globally, ��οhas convened networks aimed at mobilizing multi-sector partnerships, including the U7+ Alliance of World Universities, the University Climate Change Coalition (UC3) and the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN). U of T’s sustainability leaders have also been asked to share knowledge and experiences with other universities in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Germany and other countries.

Most important, ��οis actively creating a new generation of sustainability leaders. Supported by the President’s Advisory Committee on the Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainability (CECCS), which recently created a new student leadership subcommittee, more than 2,000 undergraduate courses in 2024-25 now have a sustainability orientation.

Students also have the option of exploring sustainability from various lenses through the Sustainability Pathways program, or to contribute to projects on- and off-campus via the Campus as a Living Lab and Community-Engaged Learning programs.

Overall, ��οcontinues to be the highest-ranked Canadian university and one of the top-ranked public universities in the five most closely watched international rankings: Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings, QS World University Rankings, ShanghaiRanking Consultancy’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities and National Taiwan University World University Rankings.

U of T’s Geoffrey Hinton delivers Nobel lecture alongside co-laureate

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 20:48:27 +0000

U of T’s Geoffrey Hinton delivers Nobel lecture alongside co-laureate

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 12/09/2024 - 15:48

Cutline

U of T's Geoffrey Hinton, left, and John J. Hopfield of Princeton University, right, who share the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, shake hands after their Nobel lectures in Stockholm (photo by Pontus Lundahl/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Leah Cowen

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Subheadline

In Stockholm for a series of Nobel Week events, the “godfather of AI” will officially accept his Nobel Prize in Physics at a ceremony on Dec. 10

The University of Toronto’s Geoffrey Hinton took to the stage at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm this weekend – two days before he officially accepts his Nobel Prize in Physics for fundamental work in AI – to deliver a lecture on the inventions and discoveries that led to him being given the prestigious award.

“Today, I’m going to do something very foolish – I’m going to try and describe a complicated technical idea for a general audience, without using any equations,” said Hinton, a U of T University Professor emeritus of computer science, prompting laughter from the audience.

The “godfather of AI” then proceeded to outline how decades of his fundamental research, and that of his co-laureate John J. Hopfield of Princeton University, enabled the development of artificial neural networks and machine learning – technologies that underpin today’s AI revolution.

The Nobel lectures are among the highlights of Nobel Week, which runs from Dec. 6-12 in Stockholm and Oslo and includes award ceremonies, banquets, media engagements and commemorations at the Nobel Museum. There is also a series of Nobel Week events taking place at U of T, including watch parties on all three campuses for the livestream of the Dec. 10 award ceremony.

Sunday’s first Nobel Prize lecture in physics was delivered by Hopfield, who shared how his fascination with the workings of the human brain inspired his development of the Hopfield network – an associative memory that can store and reconstruct patterns in data.

“How mind emerges from brain is, to me, the deepest question posed by our humanity,” Hopfield said.

When it was Hinton’s turn to take the stage, he described how he and Terry Sejnowski – one of Hopfield’s students – came upon a novel use of Hopfield nets: “Instead of using them to store memories, we could use them to construct interpretations of sensory input,” Hinton said.

He then went on to discuss the resulting Boltzmann machine, a type of neural network that is capable of recognizing elements within data.

Hinton discusses the significance of the Boltzmann machine (photo by ��οstaff)

Yet, despite its promise, the original Boltzmann machine was too slow, Hinton said, and it wasn’t until several years later that he came up with “restricted Boltzmann machines,” which impose limitations on connections between neurons in order to increase system efficiency – a development that would prove pivotal in training deep neural networks (Hinton donated an early Boltzmann chip, about the size of a postage stamp, to the Nobel Prize Museum).

Following the lecture, Hinton was joined on stage by Hopfield, with the pair sharing a vigorous handshake and posing for photos.

��οbrought together a panel of experts in Stockholm to discuss AI research and development (photo by Jonas Borg)

Separately, ��οconvened an expert panel in Stockholm on Monday about the direction of AI research and development.

Moderated by Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, the panel included: Eyal de Lara, a professor and chair of the department of computer science in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science; David Lie, director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering; Tony Gaffney, president and CEO of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence; and Amy Loutfi, professor of computer science and pro-vice-chancellor for AI at Örebro University in Sweden.

The conversation touched on areas including the promising applications of AI, how responsible deployment of AI can mitigate the technology’s potential pitfalls and implications of AI’s rise on education.

��οPresident Meric Gertler said that the AI breakthroughs fostered by Hinton’s research were made possible by Canada’s longstanding support of basic research.

“Geoff was interested in the novel but unproven concept of artificial neural networks, an area that was sometimes described as the ‘unpromising backwater’ of AI research,” President Gertler said in his remarks introducing the panel, noting that Hinton joined ��οin 1987 and was one of the first scholars to receive support from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).

“Canada was investing in brilliant people, their ideas and their students – and those investments have paid off many years later.”

Canada was also the first country to launch a national AI roadmap, President Gertler said, in the form of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy – which funds three national AI institutes including the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which is now housed in U of T’s new Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus. The state-of-the-art building also hosts the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, which is at the forefront of research and thought leadership on AI safety and responsible development, with Hinton one of its advisory board members.

“In short, Canada has played a key role in launching and driving the AI revolution and we’re a world leader in understanding and promoting safe, human-centred AI,” President Gertler said.

The theme of responsible AI was also brought up during a Q-and-A with Hinton, who revealed that the remarkable information-sharing abilities of large language models played a big role in sparking his now oft-repeated concerns around the current pace of the technology’s development.

“That’s when I came to realize that the fact that they’re so much better at sharing probably means that digital intelligence is just a better form of intelligence than us – and that’s what got me so worried,” he said.

Asked what responsible AI regulation looks like, Hinton said there must first be a consensus around solving the problem from a scientific standpoint – not unlike the scientific consensus that has emerged around climate change.

“Like the early days of climate change, the first thing to do is figure out what’s causing it and get scientific agreement on how you can fix it. Then, the second thing to do is get the politicians to do something about it … but here, we haven’t finished the first thing yet.”

Geoffrey Hinton shares 2024 VinFuture Grand Prize for work on deep learning

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 19:32:41 +0000

Geoffrey Hinton shares 2024 VinFuture Grand Prize for work on deep learning

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 12/06/2024 - 14:32

Cutline

(photo by Johnny Guatto)

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Leah Cowen

Awards

Vector Institute

Subheadline

Known as the "godfather of AI," Hinton was one of five people honoured with the US$3-million prize awarded by Vietnam's VinFuture Foundation

Geoffrey Hinton, University Professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Toronto and winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, has added another prestigious award to his collection: the 2024 VinFuture Grand Prize.

The US$3-million prize, awarded by the not-for-profit VinFuture Foundation in Vietnam, recognizes seminal scientific advancements that are improving the quality of human life and forging a more equitable and sustainable world.

Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” shares the prize with Yoshua Bengio, Jen-Hsun (Jensen) Huang, Yann LeCun and Fei-Fei Li. The five are honoured for their contributions to the development and adoption of deep learning, which is revolutionizing fields ranging from biomedical research and transportation to manufacturing, clean energy and agriculture.

“The University of Toronto couldn’t be more proud of University Professor Emeritus Geoff Hinton,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “When Geoff arrived at ��οnearly 40 years ago, his research into neural networks – influenced by his ideas about how the brain learns – was considered an AI backwater, if it was considered at all.

“Fast-forward to today, and his seminal work is transforming our world in ways that we’ve only begun to grasp. This award is a testament to the power of curiosity-driven research – and the impact of investing in brilliant, curious researchers.”

The VinFuture Foundation noted that Hinton and Bengio – a professor at the Université de Montréal – were awarded the prize for their research on neural networks and deep learning algorithms. LeCun, the chief AI scientist for Facebook AI Research who was one of Hinton’s post-doctoral students at ��οin the1980s, was recognized for helping develop convolutional neural networks for computer vision. Huang, the co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, was recognized for his work on computational architectures for deep learning and accelerated computing, while Li, a professor at Stanford University, was celebrated for contributions to computer vision and large-scale image recognition.

In a video message, Hinton, an adviser at U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society who is also co-founder and chief scientific adviser at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Toronto, said he was honoured to share the award with such an esteemed group of researchers – including his fellow A.M Turing Award-winners Bengio and LeCun.

“The three of us spent our whole lives developing the technology of neural networks,” Hinton said in remarks that noted the collective nature of the achievement.

“I’m very happy to see that the VinFuture Prize recognizes the contributions of Jensen Huang in developing the kind of compute and software required for artificial intelligence, and Fei-Fei Li in providing the big data that was needed to prove that it worked.”

Now in its fourth year, the VinFuture Prize was created with the goal of celebrating scientific and technological innovations that are aligned with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include poverty alleviation, renewable energy, ending hunger and improving health.

Friday’s award ceremony was attended by Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and distinguished leaders, scientists and diplomats from around the world. It was broadcast live on Vietnamese television and streamed online.

“It’s terrific to see this recognition of Geoff’s extraordinary work and its potential to help address some of the world’s greatest challenges,” said Cowen. “Researchers around the globe – including a number of his former students – are using AI to help solve some of the most pressing challenges of our time in areas such as health care, sustainability and climate change.”

The prize comes as Hinton prepares to officially accept his Nobel Prize in Physics in Sweden on Dec. 10. He shared the Nobel with John J. Hopfield of Princeton University for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.

Hinton, who joined ��οin 1987 after working in universities in the U.K. and U.S., has said that he plans to leverage his growing fame to spread awareness of the dangers of unchecked AI development – a warning he first shared after leaving a research position at Google in early 2023.

As his public stature grows, ‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton heads to Stockholm to accept his Nobel Prize

lanthierj — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 17:56:55 +0000

As his public stature grows, ‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton heads to Stockholm to accept his Nobel Prize

lanthierj Wed, 12/04/2024 - 12:56

Cutline

University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton will receive the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics on Dec. 10 (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Chris Sorensen

Topic

Department of Computer Science

Nobel Prize