Dr. Nick Vukotic and student researchers (photographed) are working together with Dr. Simon Rondeau-Gagne’s lab to find real-world solutions to cancer treatment. (University of Windsor)
By Lori Bona
What if you could dramatically speed up the search for better medicines and find new ways to deliver them, including chemotherapy directly at the site of a brain tumour?
That possibility is what drives University of Windsor chemistry professor Dr. Nick Vukotic, who is working to make scientific discovery faster and move promising innovations out of the laboratory and into the world.
“The overarching goal is, ‘How do we develop the next best thing, faster?’” says Vukotic, who holds an Industrial Research Chair in X-ray Diffraction and Crystalline Materials supported by NSERC, UWindsor and industry partner Proto Manufacturing.
“What we are doing is developing the new tools and the methods to get us there.”
One area where that is taking shape is pharmaceuticals, where rather than focusing on creating new drugs, Vukotic and his research team are looking at ways to make existing ones work better.
“Developing a new medication is a massive undertaking, requiring billions of dollars and years and years, even decades,” he says.
“An important factor in any medication is how it is absorbed by the body and how it is delivered. Improve that, and you can improve how well a medicine works."
That means looking at a drug’s “solid form” — how its molecules are arranged in a solid material, such as a tablet. This influences how a drug dissolves, is absorbed and released.
Finding the right arrangement of molecules can be like searching for the perfect recipe, Vukotic says. Change the ingredients, amounts, temperature or preparation method, and thousands — even millions — of combinations can emerge.
“Essentially, you are looking for the needle in a haystack."
Vukotic and his team have developed new technologies to make that search faster and more efficient.
From Lab to Market
To tackle the problem of speed, Vukotic turned to a partner close to home, the LaSalle-based Proto Manufacturing, where he previously worked as principal scientist. Together, they created the High-Throughput Laboratory Powder Diffractometer, which uses X-rays to rapidly analyze tiny amounts of material.
Vukotic’s lab, which once analyzed about 20 samples a day, can now assess hundreds. Proto then took the technology to the marketplace.
Proto president Michael Brauss has long championed university-industry collaboration.
“When it results in new technology and spin-offs that grow and hire a variety of people — that’s what helps a region take off," he says.
Involved in his family’s manufacturing business from a young age, Brauss read “every book on machine design I could get my hands on,” first encountering X-ray diffraction in Virgil M. Faires's Design of Machine Elements.
“It blew me away,” Brauss says.
Back then, equipment was large and slow, and he wondered whether it could be made smaller and faster. He remembers sketching one of his first X-ray tubes on the back of a napkin.
“We made it, and it worked,” he says. “We haven’t looked back since.”
Brauss says the UWindsor collaboration stands out for its potential impact across health care and industry.
“We’re excited about what this can do for people.”
Speeding Up Discovery
Faster X-ray analysis created a new challenge: the team could analyze samples faster than they could make them.
Their solution was Modular Multiwell Devices, or MMDs, which allow nearly 100 different experiments to run at once. X-rays are used to identify new materials by fingerprint-like patterns, while robotics help automate repetitive work.
A UWindsor graduate himself, Vukotic’s research has attracted more than $2 million in support, produced multiple patents covering instruments, devices, methods and drug-release materials, and led to the creation of Solid4m, a spin-off company aimed at bringing those technologies to market.
The years of research and technological advances in the UWindsor lab came together in a paper recently published in Chem, a leading international chemistry journal.
“It’s essentially the blueprint of our lab,” he says.
A Personal Connection to Cancer
One area of Vukotic’s research carries deeply personal meaning.
His mother died in 2016 after treatment for glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer that frequently returns near the original tumour. “If better dosage forms had been available, she may have responded better to certain medications,” he says.
That experience led to Vukotic’s work with fellow UWindsor chemist Dr. Simon Rondeau-Gagné to explore a new way of delivering chemotherapy. With offices next door to each other, conversations about their research revealed an opportunity to combine expertise.
Their teams hope to develop biodegradable materials that could be placed after a brain tumour is removed. It would gradually release chemotherapy into surrounding tissue, targeting cancer cells that may remain after surgery while reducing the need for the drug to cross the blood-brain barrier. The research is supported by the Windsor Cancer Centre Foundation through WE-SPARK Health Institute.
The researchers are also looking further ahead. Rondeau-Gagné develops soft, flexible materials capable of sensing biological signals, raising the prospect of an implant that could eventually do more than deliver medicine.
The longer-term vision is a “smart” material that could detect biological signs that a tumour is returning and trigger the release of additional medication.
“We are not there yet, but every step we take brings us closer,” Rondeau-Gagné says.
Another Path
The potential for research to make a difference drew graduate student Joy-Lynn Kobti to Vukotic’s team.
Kobti came to UWindsor to study biochemistry, initially thinking her future would be in health care. But working in a research lab as an undergraduate opened her eyes to other possibilities.
“Research showed me there were other ways I could use science to make a difference,” she says. “I could see the impact we were making in the lab.”
Her undergraduate research experience ultimately led her to join Vukotic’s lab, where she pursued her PhD in chemistry.
Along the way, she helped develop patented drug-release materials and discovery devices and became a lead co-author of the Chem paper. She also taught courses and won the RBC Founders Pitch competition for her drug-release research, gaining experience in bringing research to market.
Vukotic’s collaborative approach has been key, she says. “He involves us in discussions about the research direction and welcomes our ideas.”
Now, Kobti is one of 11 researchers selected from nearly 200 applicants for the i2I Commercialization Postdoctoral Program, continuing her work with Vukotic while training in commercialization.
Her path reflects Vukotic’s overarching ambition: ensuring innovation does not end with discovery.
“I’m always looking at my work through the lens of translation," Vukotic says. "How do we move it to industry, get it to market sooner and ultimately make a difference?”