4.1 Product Selection & End-Stage Evolution
One IRUS cycle that continued throughout the Sterosaurus journey was determining what product our system should create, and what end-stage application would be most meaningful. This decision required balancing scientific feasibility with social relevance, ensuring that whatever path we pursued would remain aligned with community needs and Human Practices values.
4.1.1 Evaluating Ergosterol & Vitamin D as a Target
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What product should we make, and which end-stage applications would provide the greatest benefit to our community and beyond?
Working with our lab and design team, we originally selectedergosterol as our product of interest, due to its broad range of potential end stage applications. Although the finer technical details are discussed in our Wet Lab pages, our human practices focus was to assess whether targeting ergosterol would resonate socially and strategically in our community context.
One compelling angle we originally explored was vitamin D production. Ergosterol can be converted via UV exposure intovitamin D₂ (ergocalciferol) (12). This has potential relevance in Canada, where vitamin D levels tend to drop significantly through the winter months: the proportion of Canadians with vitamin D below 30 nmol/L more than doubles during winter (13). Given limited sunlight, especially in Hamilton’s winters, supplements or dietary sources become more essential.
From a social perspective, this possibility connected with several local and global themes:
- Vegan / plant-based needs: Current vitamin D supplements are most often animal-derived, limiting accessibility for vegan/vegetarian communities, which are prevalent in canada. A national study observed that about 5% of Canadians report following a plant-based dietary practice (vegetarian, vegan, etc.) in 2015 (14).
- Sustainability & food systems: Current sources of vegetarian supplements (e.g. from plant oils, fungi and yeast) often depend on agricultural land, inputs, water, and long cultivation times. Ergosterol from algae could reduce pressure on food systems.
- Health & equity: If local communities face vitamin D insufficiency, a more sustainable, locally engineered source could help increase access and reduce costs of supplements.
Reach Out
As we explored ergosterol’s potential for vitamin D production, we consulted Dr. Kevin De France, an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University. His lab develops sustainable materials from biomass. His work is highly interdisciplinary, bridging biotechnology, chemistry, and engineering, with an emphasis on stakeholder engagement and sustainability. We first connected with him at the Alt Protein Symposium in Toronto.
Dr. De France explained that for human health products, regulators and companies will focus less on where a compound comes from and more on purity, reproducibility, and sterility. He noted that for a molecule like vitamin D, consumers rarely care about the source - marketing might sway perception, but competitive advantage will almost always come from cost and quality, not novelty.
While he agreed that vitamin D deficiency is a pressing health issue in Canada, especially in winter months, they cautioned that this pathway might not be the most impactful direction for our team because it would not be profitable enough to garner the industrial support needed to scale up.
He also outlined how his own projects engage stakeholders: from farmers and processors (Canola Council of Canada) to government funders, industry partners (bioplastics, supplements), and the public. For us, he suggested that supplement companies would only be interested if we offered a clear competitive edge: cheaper, purer, or more consistent products. On the environmental side, he stressed that waste streams are unpredictable, so any process we develop must tolerate input variability.
Understand
From this conversation, we learned:
- Vitamin D₂ is not inherently attractive unless we can offer major cost or purity advantages.
- Stakeholder interest (supplement companies, government, industry) depends on clear commercial or policy advantages.
- Effective public communication requires relatable framing, not jargon-heavy science.
Synthesize
This advice challenged us to reflect critically and helped us pivot away from vitamin D₂ as a primary product angle, confirming that its market is crowded and cost-driven. We recognized that our system could make a broader impact by choosing a different end application.
Instead, we leaned toward sterols with clearer therapeutic or industrial pathways. We also began integrating stakeholder mapping and soft communication strategies into our HP plan, recognizing that success requires not only technical proof-of-concept but also credible framing for industry and the public.
4.1.2 Exploring Alternative Ergosterol Products
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What alternative ergosterol applications may be most useful?
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Exploring the Spectrum of Applications
Our Human Practices team worked alongside our design and wet lab teams to conduct a deep dive into the many possible applications of sterols. Ergosterol and its derivatives offered remarkable flexibility, spanning uses from health to conservation to consumer products.
We mapped out several possibilities:
- Vitamin D₂: Attractive for Canadian winters and vegetarian accessibility, but existing supplements already meet much of this demand. Vitamin D₂ is not inherently attractive unless we can offer major cost or purity advantages.
- Therapeutics: Including progesterone for contraceptives and HRT, or cortisone for inflammation. While compelling, we anticipated complex regulatory pathways and longer timelines for impact.
- Conservation feedstocks: Sterols are essential in fish and insect diets, with potential applications in aquaculture and pollinator health, though less connected to Hamilton’s priorities.
- Skincare & cosmetics: Sterols and sterol derivatives are used in creams and topical products for their barrier-repair and anti-inflammatory properties. This market is growing and highly visible, with immediate consumer relevance (15).
Understand
While all applications had some level of local relevance, we wanted to prioritize the one that would be most impactful based on our previous landscape of social needs in the Hamilton community.
Based on our conversation with Dr. De France, we knew that D₂ was not the most impactful choice, & conservation showed similarly little local feasibility & community need.
Synthesize: Why Skincare?
After weighing the possible end-stage applications of sterols, our team decided to initially pursue skincare. This decision was informed by both community needs we identified and the unique properties of sterols, which are known for their barrier-repair, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant effects (16).
In Hamilton, several social factors made skincare a compelling first focus:
- Unhoused individuals often face chronic dermatitis and eczema due to exposure, with limited access to affordable care (17). A sterol-based cream could restore dignity and health while being cheaper than many existing options.
- People who use drugs (PWUD) frequently suffer from skin wounds and abscesses. Unlike petroleum or antiseptic-based products, sterols could provide soothing, non-greasy relief with genuine clinical benefits (18).
- Hamilton’s aging population, nearly 18% of residents, often experiences thinning skin and chronic inflammation (19). Affordable senior skincare is neglected in mainstream markets, and sterols could fill this gap.
- Women’s health also emerged as an opportunity. Sterols show promise for reducing irritation and dryness associated with postpartum recovery and menopause. A locally produced, over-the-counter product could make effective care more accessible (20).
Taken together, skincare provided a socially meaningful and locally resonant pathway, one that was achievable for a student team, aligned with community values, and carried the potential for visible, near-term impact.
4.1.3 Evaluating Skincare as an Application for Ergosterol
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Is skincare the right angle for our sterol platform, and would consumers value a product made from recycled CO₂?
Reach Out
To explore this question, we spoke with Dr. Christian Euler, Assistant Professor in the University of Waterloo Department of Chemical Engineering. Dr. Euler brings extensive industrial experience in developing microbial platforms for chemical production, including work on the world’s first bio-based glycolic acid from a waste stream. His expertise lies in valorizing waste products such as CO₂ and plastics into sustainable, market-ready materials.
During our conversation, Dr. Euler emphasized that consumer perception and sourcing transparency are critical when it comes to skincare and personal care products. While the circularity narrative is powerful, he encouraged us to think carefully about how customers might respond to products explicitly linked to “waste” CO₂. He challenged us to reflect on whether skincare was the best application for building community trust and market adoption, or if sterols might achieve stronger resonance in other sectors.
Understand
After reflecting on Dr. Euler’s feedback, our team convened for an internal cross-track discussion to evaluate the feasibility of pursuing the skincare angle. Several key insights emerged:
- Consumer perception challenges: The skincare industry is increasingly driven by “clean beauty” narratives, which emphasize natural sourcing, transparency, and minimal processing. Marketing a product derived from “waste CO₂” risked clashing with consumer expectations and could even generate hesitation, despite its sustainable foundation.
- Highly saturated market: The global skincare sector is already crowded with established players offering antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and barrier-repair products. Breaking into this competitive field would require resources and branding capacity well beyond those available to a student team.
- Equity and dignity concerns: Although our initial research highlighted potential benefits for vulnerable populations, such as unhoused individuals and people who use drugs, we recognized that positioning a “cheaper” CO₂-derived product for marginalized groups could unintentionally reinforce stigma rather than restore dignity.
Together, these reflections made us question whether skincare was the right application for our sterol platform, given both the social and market dynamics.
Synthesize
Ultimately, we decided not to pursue skincare as our primary application. While socially relevant in theory, both community perception and market realities suggested it was not the most impactful or empowering direction for our platform.
4.1.4 Reframing Toward Therapeutics - Progesterone & Menopausal Populations
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What other products can we make, and which align most closely with our community context and technical capabilities?
After stepping back from skincare, our team returned to our broader list of ergosterol applications. The option that resonated most strongly was therapeutics.
This direction not only reflected Hamilton’s emerging reputation as a hub for pharmaceutical development, but also echoed McMaster’s identity as a healthcare-centered institution. Unlike skincare, therapeutics offered a way to directly connect our platform to local priorities in health and medicine.
Around the same time, we were revisiting our earlier Hamilton research and demographic analysis, especially the city’s aging population and the healthcare challenges it faces.
This reflection coincided with a surge of news coverage from Health Canada and outlets such as the CBC reporting on drug shortages: particularly of hormones and HRT therapies, with warnings that these shortages were expected to worsen in the coming months (21).
Importantly, this was not just a Canadian issue: global reports underscored that hormone shortages are a widespread and growing challenge.
Together, these insights motivated us to consider therapeutic applications of ergosterol, with progesterone as a particularly compelling target.
Reach Out: Confirming Local Relevance of Progesterone
To test whether progesterone production from our system would be socially relevant and meet real healthcare needs, we began by consulting with Dr. Ashrin Jan, a pharmacist serving a community with a large older population, a demographic that mirrors Hamilton’s own.
Dr. Jan confirmed that progesterone has a consistent and high demand across multiple patient groups. It is prescribed daily to transgender individuals undergoing feminizing hormone therapy, to menopausal women for managing symptoms and preventing endometrial overgrowth (a cancer risk), and to younger women experiencing abnormal bleeding. She emphasized that menopause in particular is a significant and growing concern in Hamilton, aligning with our demographic research on the city’s aging population.
When we asked about patient decision-making and industry perspectives, Dr. Jan explained that cost-effectiveness drives choice: patients typically select the cheaper of two equivalent options, and pharmaceutical companies are more motivated by affordability and reliability than by sustainability narratives. This underscored that if our system could reduce costs while maintaining quality, it could fill an important local and global gap.
We also spoke with Dr. Alison Shea, an Obstetrician-Gynecologist and specialist in menopause and reproductive mental health.
From her perspective, many patients express hesitancy toward synthetic hormones. This underscored the importance of considering not just medical demand, but also how patients perceive and frame hormone therapies in their care.
At the same time, Dr. Shea acknowledged the ongoing shortages of progesterone and other HRT drugs, confirming that access remains a critical barrier in Canada and beyond. She encouraged us to continue reaching out to other experts in reproductive health and pharmaceutical supply chains to understand the full scope of need.
We also reached out to the Canadian Menopause Society, where we spoke directly with Dr. Chui Kin Yuen (MD, FRCSC, ABOG, MBA), Executive Director of the Society. Dr. Yuen confirmed that progesterone is an integral component of menopause treatment, playing a critical role in balancing estrogen therapy and preventing endometrial overgrowth. He further noted that progesterone has applications beyond menopause, including in other reproductive health contexts.
Importantly, Dr. Yuen affirmed that there is a real and ongoing need for reliable access to progesterone, and he encouraged us to continue reflecting on local populations to better understand their experiences and needs. His perspective gave us strong reassurance that pursuing therapeutic applications, and specifically progesterone, would align with both clinical realities and community health priorities.
Understand
The insights from our various conversations not only validated progesterone as a meaningful target but also highlighted the importance of coupling our technical design with economic modeling, ensuring that affordability is front and center when communicating with both patients and pharmaceutical stakeholders.
Synthesize
At this point, we solidified our decision to pursue progesterone as our end-stage application. Speaking with a range of stakeholders, from pharmacists serving aging populations, to clinicians specializing in menopause and reproductive health, to leaders in the Canadian Menopause Society, gave us a layered understanding of both the clinical demand and the community impact of progesterone.
While perspectives differed on patient preferences for synthetic hormones, the consistent acknowledgment of shortages, daily reliance on progesterone, and its central role in therapies such as HRT and menopause management confirmed that this was a socially meaningful & relevant direction for our project.
4.1.4 Exploring Cortisone as a Secondary Application
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As we refined our focus on progesterone, we also asked ourselves: Are there populations in Hamilton whose needs we were overlooking, and could our project have a broader impact by targeting multiple therapeutic pathways?
In revisiting our earlier conversations, we noticed that nearly every community stakeholder highlighted Hamilton’s disproportionately large unhoused population and the significantrespiratory health challenges facing the city. These challenges are shaped by multiple overlapping factors:
- Air quality: Hamilton’s industrial base contributes to persistent smog, exacerbating asthma and chronic respiratory conditions (21).
- Climate pressures: Urban heat islands intensify summer heat waves, worsening both skin conditions and respiratory vulnerability (22).
- Wildfire smoke: In recent summers, smoke from national wildfires has dramatically reduced air quality across Southern Ontario, creating acute health risks for vulnerable populations (23).
These realities pushed us to consider cortisone, a compound derived from sterols and already widely used in two key ways:
- As a topical cream for dermatitis, eczema, and inflammatory skin conditions, highly relevant for unhoused individuals exposed to the elements (24).
- As part of respiratory therapies, such as inhaled corticosteroids for asthma and COPD - conditions that are exacerbated by Hamilton’s poor air quality and smog (25).
Reach Out
To validate this idea, we returned to Dr. Ashrin Jan, the community pharmacist who had previously highlighted the daily importance of progesterone. In this follow-up conversation, she confirmed that cortisone is another relevant ergosterol-derived therapy that serves diverse populations.
She emphasized that topical corticosteroids are among the most commonly dispensed treatments for inflammatory skin conditions, while inhaled cortisone derivatives remain frontline therapies for patients with chronic respiratory illnesses. This dual relevance, skin and respiratory, made cortisone a compelling candidate as a secondary application of our sterol platform.
Understand
From this reflection and consultation, we learned that:
- Cortisone addresses gaps left by progesterone, serving populations such as unhoused individuals and those with respiratory conditions.
- Hamilton’s local context (high rates of respiratory illness, environmental smog, and climate-driven health pressures) amplifies the relevance of cortisone.
- Pharmacist confirmation ensured that cortisone was not just theoretically valuable but clinically grounded as an ergosterol derivative we could consider.
Synthesize
We expanded our therapeutic framing to include cortisone as a secondary application of our sterol platform. While progesterone remained our primary end-stage product, cortisone provided another socially meaningful pathway, one that spoke directly to Hamilton’s most vulnerable populations and the city’s environmental health challenges.
This dual focus allowed us to showcase the flexibility and broader impact of our system, highlighting how sterol-based engineering could be adapted to meet multiple local needs.
4.2 CO2 Stream Sources
4.2 CO₂ Stream Selection
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At the outset of our project, we were motivated by Hamilton’s long-standing identity as Steeltown. Targeting steel mill emissions as our CO₂ source felt like the most natural way to link Sterosaurus to local industry. However, we quickly realized that this vision depended on one critical question:
Would the steel industry actually be willing to adopt disruptive solutions like ours?
Reach Out
Despite repeated outreach attempts, we faced major challenges in connecting with steel companies. Eventually, we did receive insight from an anonymous steel industry worker (name withheld to protect their privacy).
They explained that while innovation is always of interest, cost remains the primary driver for steel operations. Existing equipment already carries long-term warranties and phase-out plans that stretch into the coming decades.
Because of this, adopting new, disruptive technologies, particularly those that interfere with emissions streams, would be highly unlikely in the near future without strong government mandates or subsidies.
Understand
From this exchange, we learned that:
- The steel sector is cost-locked: economics matter far more than sustainability narratives.
- Equipment warranties and phase-outs create structural barriers that prevent new technologies from being adopted quickly.
- Without policy incentives or regulatory pressure, industrial actors in this space are not motivated to pursue solutions like ours.
Synthesize
We concluded that steel, while symbolically powerful in Hamilton, was not the most realistic CO₂ stream for our project. Without industry partners willing (or incentivized) to collaborate, this pathway risked stalling. As a result, we began to shift our focus away from steel and toward alternate CO₂ sources that might be more accessible, collaborative, and better aligned with our project’s goals.
4.2.2 Exploring Alternative CO₂ Streams: Breweries
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After realizing that steel was not the most feasible CO₂ source, we asked:
What other CO₂ streams could we target that would still be impactful and locally relevant?
Looking back at our Human Practices principles, we wanted a source that aligned with Hamilton’s economy, provided opportunities for visible community partnerships, and was practical for a student-led project.
Reach Out
We reconnected with Dr. Christian Euler, whose industrial background spans both academia and commercialization. Dr. Euler co-founded Phycus Biotechnologies, where he helped scale the world’s first bio-based glycolic acid from a waste stream, giving him deep expertise in linking microbial upcycling with market realities.
From his perspective, smaller local businesses like breweries are far more open to innovation than entrenched heavy industry. He explained that breweries already handle CO₂ in controlled ways, and that positioning our project as a “value-add”, helping them market their products as brewed with upcycled CO₂, could give them a consumer-facing advantage. He also suggested that these kinds of collaborations could open the door to government incentives designed to support circular manufacturing and sustainability transitions.
Encouraged by this advice, we visited AquaNova, a local Hamilton brewery. During the visit, staff showed us around their facilities and highlighted their existing chimneys and vent systems. This confirmed that CO₂ capture and recycling would be technically feasible in a brewery setting, and that breweries could serve as approachable, community-facing partners for our project.
Understand
From these engagements, we learned:
- Breweries offer a practical CO₂ source: emissions are already captured in clear venting systems.
- Local partnerships matter: small businesses are more open to adopting experimental solutions, especially with visible sustainability branding.
- Policy and funding could amplify impact, as governments often support projects that combine circularity with community benefits.
Synthesize
We pivoted from steel to breweries and similar local industries as our target CO₂ stream. Hamilton and the nearby Niagara region host a thriving ecosystem of craft breweries, wineries, and artisanal producers, all of which could benefit from sustainability narratives tied to circular CO₂ use. This shift gave our project a more realistic, locally embedded foundation, while also connecting Sterosaurus to industries with strong community presence and consumer engagement.
4.4 Economic Development & Pitch Evolution
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Beyond the science and social framing of Sterosaurus, we continually asked ourselves:
How can this project be positioned for long-term economic viability, and what narratives resonate most with different stakeholders?
Throughout the iGEM cycle, we tested this question by bringing our project into entrepreneurial competitions, using pitches as both validation and refinement tools.
Reach Out
We first entered The Arena, a national pitch competition that put 50 Canadian university projects in a bracketed elimination format.
Week after week, we revised our pitch based on judge feedback, sharpening our verbiage, simplifying complex science, and embedding validation and customer research into our narrative. The high-pressure format forced us to make the science accessible without diluting accuracy. Judges consistently praised the depth of our knowledge and the strength of our science, showing us how clarity and context can transform a technical concept into a compelling entrepreneurial vision.
Our team made it to the quarter-final round, highlighting our economic potential!
We then adapted our work for the iGEM Biohackathon Pitch Competition, reframing the project as Algaera, a modular biosystem rather than a single-product solution. This required undoing some of the simplifications from The Arena and instead leaning into technical detail.
However, the feedback we received was eye-opening: judges warned that pitching a modular platform left our project sounding too uncertain and hypothetical. They strongly encouraged us to narrow our scope and highlight one clear product application. This was a turning point in how we framed Sterosaurus moving forward.
Next, we presented at the Global Startups Canada Pitch Competition, where we competed against 200 national teams from diverse industries.
Making the top 10 was a validation of our scalability story and ability to connect with a broad, non-technical audience. However, we also saw where we lagged behind: many competitors already had prototypes or early-stage companies, while we were still in proof-of-concept territory. This feedback reminded us that while our science was strong, our pitch needed to foreground practical pathways to real-world implementation.
Finally, we joined the Youth Impact Challenge’s Summer Innovation Challenge, which supported Canadian innovators with social and environmental projects.
Advancing to the top 10 and winning the “Most Spirit” award gave us not only recognition but also mentorship. Weekly sessions with our mentor Heba Iftikhar helped us refine our business model, storytelling, and market strategy. Workshops on proposals and market research deepened our understanding of what it means to pitch science to funders and communities, not just judges.
Across these experiences, one lesson stood out: know your audience. We learned that tailoring to non-scientific audiences does not mean “dumbing it down,” but rather framing our work so that it is accessible, engaging, and relevant.
Understand
From these competitions and mentorship experiences, we understood that:
- Economic validation is not just about financials but aboutclarity, resonance, and credibility.
- Different audiences require different narratives: technical depth for expert panels, simplicity and relevance for public or mixed audiences.
- A successful pitch must strike a balance between scientific integrity and market clarity, with one strong product application at its core.
Synthesize
Through these iterative pitch experiences, Sterosaurus matured not only as a technical project but as a viable entrepreneurial concept.
We shifted from an abstract, modular platform to a clearly defined product narrative (progesterone), validated by both stakeholder interviews and pitch competition feedback.
Pitching became a human practices tool: a way to test assumptions, stress-test our story, and refine how we communicate synthetic biology to the public, industry, and investors. These experiences gave us both confidence and discipline in economic framing, ensuring that Sterosaurus was more than a lab exercise. It became a project with the language, structure, and vision needed for real-world impact.
Through this evolutionary process, Sterosaurus transformed from a broad concept into a focused, socially grounded therapeutic platform.
By integrating community needs, testing assumptions with experts, and validating our framing through stakeholder conversations and economic competitions, we ensured that our final direction was both technically feasible and ethically responsible. Much like a fossil record tells the story of adaptation, these cycles of inquiry and reflection document how Sterosaurus grew into a project not only ready for iGEM, but also positioned to make meaningful impact in the real world.
