Technology Access Centre in Bio-Innovation (TAC-B)

Collège La Cité, Ottawa, Ontario
What the facility does

Development and improvement of products, processes and procedures in the field of biotechnology in the healthcare, agricultural and industrial sectors.

Areas of expertise

La Cité's Technology Access Centre in Bio-innovation (TAC-B) contributes to the biotechnology sector by accelerating business innovation through support for process or product development and improvement. Our business model is based on a partnership with industry for applied research, co-financed by public and private funds, in which intellectual property is fully transferred to companies.

Our partners have access to qualified scientific personnel and state-of-the-art equipment. Our team has extensive expertise in microbiology, cell biology, plant biology, molecular biology, and genetics. We are fortunate to be able to count on experts in the biology of cannabis, in the development of disease diagnosis tools, in precision fermentation and in cellular agriculture (cultured meat).

Research services
  • Development, optimization, and validation of bioprocesses for cellular agriculture (cultured meat and precision fermentation)
  • Chemical and biochemical analyses
  • Genetic engineering applied to industrial and plant biotechnologies, including CRISPR-Cas9
  • Recombinant protein engineering and production
  • High-throughput screening platform for optimization of cell culture and fermentation media
  • Use of tissue culture (in vitro) as a tool to improve plant production and accelerate varietal selection
Sectors of application
  • Agriculture, animal science and food
  • Chemical industries
  • Clean technology
  • Energy
  • Life sciences, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment

Specialized Lab

Equipment

Function

Chemical element analysis 

LECO TruSpec CN, TruSpec S Elemental Determinators

Dumas combustion (C,N,S). Quantification of nitrogen, carbon and sulfur in solid samples.

Particle analysis

Beckman Coulter Multisizer Z4 

Openings of 20, 30, 50, 100 and 2,000 μm. Particle sizing and quantification.

Nutritional analysis

Ankom A200 Fiber Analyzer

Intestinal transit simulator.

 

JEIO TECH TH-ME series environmental chambers

Temperature and humidity control (20-90% relative humidity/RH) for life tests.

 

Neutec LabMaster-aw NEO

Measurement of water activity in different types of samples.

Analytical chemistry

Sciex 3200 Q Trap LC-MS/MS System

Liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Separation, identification and quantification of soluble molecules.

 

Shimadzu HPLC-MS system with LC-20AD HPLC Pump, DGU-20A3R HPLC Degassing Unit, SIL-20AC HT Autosampler

High performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). Separation and quantification of soluble molecules.

 

Thermo Scientific Dionex lCS-5000 DC Detector / Chromatography Compartment and Dionex lCS-5000 SP Dionex AS-AP Autosampler

Ion chromatography. Separation and identification of charged molecules and ions (amino acids)

 

UltiMate 3000 Rapid Separation (RS) UHPLC System

Ultra high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC). Separation and quantification of soluble molecule.

 

Thermo Scientific Dionex lCS-5000 DC Detector / Chromatography Module, Dionex lCS-5000 Single Pump (SP), and Dionex AS-AP Autosampler

Ion chromatography. Separation and identification of charged molecules and ions (amino acids).

 

Varian AA240 Atomic Absorption Spectrometer

Quantification of chemical elements.

 

GC-MS System (VOC direct injection), Agilent 6890N Gas Chromatograph with 5975C Mass Selective Detector

Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), Volatile Organic Compound (VOC), Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID). Separation, identification and quantification of volatile compounds (fatty acids, hydrocarbons, alcohol).

 

Agilent 7890A Gas Chromatograph

Separation and quantification of soluble molecules.

 

Bruker TANGO FT-NIR spectrometer

Fourier transform near-infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy.

Tissue culture

Laminar flow hoods

Sterile environment.

 

DASbox® Mini Bioreactor System

Protein production and mammalian cell culture. 250 ml tanks.

 

Biolog’s OmniLog® PM System

Cell phenotyping.

 

Applikon small-scale bioreactor system

Protein production and mammalian cell culture. 3.5 L tanks.

 

CO2 incubator

Tissue culture.

 

OLYMPUS BX53F Fluorescence Microscope 

Visualization of fluorescent material.

 

VWR growth chamber 

Controlled environment for tissue and plant culture.

  • AmacaThera
  • Plantaform
  • Segra International
  • Spiderwort
  • Whiteboard Foods
  • Motigenix
  • Myo Palate
  • Recherches Neuro-Hippocampe
  • GeneRxN Research
  • Liven Proteins
  • LyonLeaf Cannabis
  • Growcer

Title

URL

Projects and innovations of La Cité’s Office of Research and Innovation.

https://www.collegelacite.ca/bri/projects-and-innovations

The TAC-B: Catalyst of innovation at the service of SMEs in biotechnology.

https://youtu.be/FT3OJ-jrNLE