Assistant Professor Paul Yoo is one of five recipients from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who have won a 2016 University of Toronto Connaught Innovation Award. He is being funded for his project titled novel electrical stimulation target for treating overactive bladder.
Part of U of T’s Connaught Fund, the largest internal university research funding program in Canada, the awards accelerate the development of promising technology and promote commercialization and knowledge transfer. Today, the fund invests more than $4 million annually in emerging and established scholars from the full spectrum of research and scholarship at the U of T. Nine researchers across U of T are sharing in a total of more than $750,000 in support from the Connaught Innovation Award this year.
The funding comes from two Connaught programs. The Connaught Innovation Award accelerates the development of promising technologies and promotes knowledge transfer arising from the U of T. The Connaught Summer Institute brings together Canadian and international graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and other scholars to foster collaboration among disciplines and support new methods for research and innovation.
“The Connaught Fund builds on the university’s rich history of research,” said Vivek Goel, U of T vice-president of research and innovation. “That rich history is still paying dividends as the fund supports the work of today’s researchers, each of whom is making their own unique contribution to progress on a wide range of local and global research issues.”
Founded in 1972, the Connaught Fund was created from the sale of the Connaught Laboratories. The labs mass-produced insulin, the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of U of T’s Frederick Banting, Charles Best, John Macleod and Charles Collip. The university has managed the fund for more than 40 years, over that time awarding more than $150 million to U of T researchers.
—With files from Michael Kurts. This story originally appeared on May 10, 2016 in U of T News.