Industry partners will provide guaranteed internships for approximately 3 months per year. Funding for the trainee’s travel and salary can be subsidized through the RNA Innovation grant, thus saving the industry partner almost $10,000 per trainee.

Graduates of the RNA Innovation program will be uniquely trained, “job-ready” with knowledge of applied and basic research, and possess a diverse set of leadership skills. This multidisciplinary background will make them ideally suited to careers in a multitude of biotechnology fields and participating industry partners will have increased access to highly qualified personnel upon their graduation.

Partner companies will have the opportunity to hire NSERC funded RNA Innovation trainees as interns, saving the industry partner almost $10,000 per trainee. Interns will be paired with a partner company based on how well the trainees interests and skills match the company to ensure a successful internship.

Our students have valuable skills such as biochemistry, computational chemistry/biology, bioinformatics, molecular biology, cell biology, synthetic biology, and biophysics. Our students have has successful industry placements in fields such as health/medicine, agriculture, synthetic biology, environmental diagnostics, and energy.

Current projects include:

Engineering bacteria to treat tumours in mice with the bigger goal of eventually using these engineered bacteria to act as a different immune check point inhibitors.

Creating and testing biosensors for heavy metal contamination in water samples.

Industries that will benefit most from this program include:

Biotechnology, Biofuel production, Agriculture, Forestry, Bioremediation, Resource Extraction, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, and Life Sciences.