Pediatrics

Toronto Academic Health Science Network

Cheryl Regehr

Institute of Medical Science

Subheadline

A clinician-scientist and paediatric nephrologist, Robinson has also been appointed vice-provost, relations with health-care institutions

Lisa Robinson, a clinician-scientist and paediatric nephrologist who seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms behind kidney disease and transform care for children living with complex illnesses, has been appointed dean of the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Currently Temerty Medicine’s vice-dean, strategy and operations and co-chair of its finance committee, Robinson will assume her new role on July 1, 2024 for a five-year term.

She was also appointed vice-provost, relations with health-care institutions for the same term.

“I’m very biased, but the faculty, the university and the Toronto Academic Health Science Network (TAHSN) structure are incredible – so I’m very excited,” said Robinson, a professor in Temerty Medicine’s department of paediatrics and the Institute of Medical Science.

Robinson, who earned her MD at the university, is a staff physician and former head of the division of nephrology at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), where she specializes in caring for children with kidney disease, including a focus on renal transplantation.

A senior scientist in the cell biology program at the SickKids Research Institute, Robinson has led a research program – both fundamental and translational – over more than two decades that has encouraged collaboration between scientists, clinicians and learners at all levels. Her work draws on biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, advanced microscopy and disease models to explore immune responses in the context of kidney injury and progression of kidney disease. She is also investigating ways to expand the pool of viable donor kidneys available to patients who need kidney transplants.

“What I really want to do is use the new knowledge we generate from this research to transform the way we care for children and adults with kidney disease,” said Robinson, who holds a tier-one Canada Research Chair in vascular inflammation and kidney injury.

Robinson is a dedicated mentor and educator who has supervised many undergraduate and graduate students as well as post-doctoral fellows. She founded the SickKids Research Institute’s Kids Science program, which gives middle and high school students from under-served communities the opportunity to learn about careers in science and technology.

“Professor Robinson’s commitment to inclusive excellence, her advocacy for the sector and her vision for the future will be key to the success of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine in the years ahead,” said Cheryl Regehr, U of T’s vice-president and provost.

Robinson will succeed Professor Trevor Young in the roles after he was appointed U of T’s next vice-president and provost earlier this year, with his term beginning Jan. 1, 2024. Professor Patricia Houston will serve as interim dean of Temerty Medicine until Robinson assumes the role in July.

Robinson said Young made “enormous” contributions to the faculty.

“Dean Young was the catalyst behind our Academic Strategic Plan, in which so many members of our community see themselves reflected,” Robinson said. “His approach, vision and relational leadership also helped set the stage for the Temerty family’s historic gift to the faculty, which has been transformational.”

As dean, Robinson said she is keen to explore ways to further grow supports and opportunities for Temerty Medicine students.

“I want to renew our emphasis on a student-centric approach that addresses financial challenges, wellness, mental health and mentorship – and use the collective expertise we have across TAHSN to give our students a competitive advantage,” she said, adding that her priorities also include strengthening the recruitment, development and support of faculty and staff.

“We have to renew our focus and make sure that we create an environment in which every member of the community feels valued because that’s the only way in which every person can flourish.”

Robinson also wants to leverage TAHSN – which comprises U of T and partner hospitals – to maximize research potential, accelerate translation of research and foster a renewed emphasis on commercialization and industry collaboration. “Our people flow back and forth across U of T and partner health-care institutions, so we’re uniquely positioned to take advantage of this unique ecosystem,” she said.

To advance inter-disciplinary research, Robinson intends to strengthen Temerty Medicine’s ties with partners across U of T’s three campuses, including the Mississauga Academy of Medicine, Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH), the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the Faculty of Arts & Science.

“It’s a matter of thinking broadly about the broader environment and making sure we have opportunities to bring together people who wouldn’t normally work with one another.”

Research aims to help parents prepare for RSV immunizations for children

siddiq22 — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 18:50:09 +0000

Research aims to help parents prepare for RSV immunizations for children

siddiq22 Wed, 07/19/2023 - 14:50

Cutline

(photo by FatCamera/Getty Images)

Ishani Nath

Topic

Breaking Research

Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases

Immunology

Vaccines

Two new ways to protect children from respiratory syncytial virus, better known as RSV, may soon be available in Canada – and a University of Toronto researcher aims to ensure parents can make an informed decision about vaccination.

Even though the majority of children will get infected by age 2, “most parents do not know about RSV,” says Tiffany Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a member of the Centre for Vaccine-Preventable Diseases.

She’s heard from parents who only learned about the virus – which has a similar seasonal pattern to the flu and symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, and fever – after their child caught it. Although most cases are mild, RSV can lead to more severe illness like pneumonia, and is the leading cause of infant hospitalization in Canada and many other countries.

Tiffany Fitzpatrick (supplied image)

Health Canada is in the process of approving more immunization options to protect children against RSV – an antibody-based drug that may eventually be used to protect all newborns from severe RSV illness and a vaccine for pregnant people that would pass protection from parent to newborn. The potential impact of these new options, both for the health of Canadians and an already overburdened health-care system, is massive.

“This could be really revolutionary,” says Fitzpatrick, who is also a scientist at Public Health Ontario.

That is, as long as parents have the information necessary to make an informed decision about vaccination and understand the severity of RSV – a task that Fitzpatrick plans to address with her research, recently funded by the Canadian Immunization Research Network.

New RSV immunization options coming to Canada

The new RSV prevention drug and vaccine have been a long time coming. Despite more than 60 years of research, options for protecting vulnerable populations (such as newborns) against the virus remained limited – until now.

Currently, the only option for protecting newborns at the highest risk of hospitalization (those born very prematurely, born with heart or lung conditions, or those born in remote communities without quick access to medical care) is a monoclonal antibody therapy called palivizumab. The drug cannot treat RSV, but if injected every month during RSV season, it can help prevent severe illness.

However, palivizumab comes with a high price tag and needs to be administered every month – sometimes for up to six months – so it is typically reserved for high-risk infants. Health Canada recently approved a longer-acting antibody-based drug, nirsevimab, which would only require one injection per RSV season. Nirsevimab is expected to cost much less than palivizumab, and it may eventually be an option for all parents.

A vaccine for pregnant people to help protect newborns from infection is also in the pipeline and may be approved as soon as later this year. The vaccine, recently approved in the U.S. for older adults, offers the prospect of protection against RSV infection – not just disease – to all newborns for the first time.

This RSV vaccine, made by Pfizer and known as RSVpreF, would be given to individuals in their late second or third trimester of pregnancy. The vaccine prompts the pregnant person to makes antibodies that are transferred to their fetus, so their child is born with some protection against RSV. In a worldwide, double-blind clinical trial with pregnant women published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the RSVpreF vaccine was more than 81 per cent effective at protecting infants against serious health issues caused by RSV, like lower respiratory tract illness.

Health Canada is on the verge of approving a new drug and a vaccine to protect children from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), shown here in an electron micrograph image (image by NIAID)

Speaking with parents about RSV and vaccination

In advance of the rollout of nirsevimab and Health Canada’s consideration of RSVpreF data, Fitzpatrick is listening to parents and learning about their understanding of RSV and potential concerns. Her research will involve conducting interviews with parents across Canada and using the information to create tailored educational materials that address questions and provide the information parents may need as they consider their future RSV immunization options.

“We need to start planning now to make sure that parents are anticipating this, and they have the information they need to be able to make that decision,” she says.

In addition to surveys and interviews, Fitzpatrick and her collaborators will be engaging with populations more vulnerable to RSV. For instance, research indicates that certain living conditions can play a role in a child’s risk for RSV.

“We know if a child is exposed to mould, or if they live in a crowded house, they’re much more likely to catch any respiratory virus and for it to become a much more severe disease,” Fitzpatrick says.

Specific regions and demographics are also disproportionately impacted by RSV. Collaborators on Fitzpatrick’s study will focus on parents in Nunavut – an area that has the highest rates of RSV hospitalization in the world.

“They’re going to be working with community partners there to understand the unique barriers and motivators for RSV immunization in Inuit communities,” she says.

Fitzpatrick is aiming to have the educational materials from her study available in time for next year’s RSV season, when nirsevimab and vaccines for pregnant people will hopefully both be available.

“I hope this research provides parents with the information that they need to make the decision that’s right for them,” she says, noting that as a public-health practitioner, she ultimately hopes people decide to get immunized “so we can prevent as much RSV disease as possible.”

How AI could help doctors predict cardiac problems in critically ill children

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 12 May 2023 19:40:27 +0000

How AI could help doctors predict cardiac problems in critically ill children

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 05/12/2023 - 15:40

Cutline

U of T professors Mjaye Mazwi, left, and Sebastian Goodfellow are training AI to recognize the warning signs of impending arrhythmia (Diogenes Baena/Hospital for Sick Children)

Phil Snell

Topic

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Artificial Intelligence

Medical Research

A unique collaboration between U of T Engineering researchers and hospital physicians is pioneering the use of artificial intelligence – similar to an AI that helps detect earthquakes – to diagnose heart rhythm abnormalities at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.

The innovative approach, which combines specially trained AI with the expertise of SickKids clinicians, could lead to significantly better health outcomes for critically ill children by providing faster and more accurate diagnosis of heart problems, the researchers say, as well as easing demands on clinicians’ time.

“This could help some of our most vulnerable patients, while also reducing stress on the health-care system,” says Mjaye Mazwi, a staff physician at SickKids, associate professor in the department of paediatrics at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and research co-lead at the Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine.

When the heart is functioning as it should, it beats to a regular rhythm – the familiar vertical spike followed by ripples that appear on a heart monitor. A heartbeat that is too fast, too slow or chaotic can cause severe complications and death.

Almost one in three children admitted to an intensive care unit experience a heart rhythm anomaly – at SickKids, this affects as many as 700 children a year. These patients require constant monitoring, which places a high demand on hospital staff who are typically caring for other patients at the same time.

“The challenge is that clinicians cannot continuously monitor every bedside,” says Sebastian Goodfellow, an assistant professor in U of T’s department of civil and mineral engineering and a principal investigator at the Lassonde Institute of Mining. This can lead to a delay in detecting or diagnosing an abnormal heart rhythm, resulting in a worse outcome for the patient.

He and Mazwi, who is SickKids’ director of translational engineering in critical-care medicine, are developing what they believe will be a game-changing solution.

Prior to joining the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Goodfellow worked at a mining startup where he helped build AI models to scan geological data for certain patterns. In 2017, he was invited to enter a “computing in cardiology” challenge with a team from Laussen Labs, a research group at SickKids. There, he met Mazwi, who was interested in using AI to detect heart arrhythmias and was looking for help with the complex challenge of deploying it in the hospital. Goodfellow’s experience made him a natural collaborator.

The AI they are developing is being trained to recognize the warning signs of impending arrhythmia based on clinicians’ expertise and more than 10,000 electrocardiogram readings – a far greater number than even the most experienced clinicians would encounter during their career. Before being deployed with patients, the AI needs to be able to match or exceed the performance of a clinician, and accurately sound the alarm when one of these arrhythmia warning signs appears.

“We want this AI to partner with the best of human intelligence in a kind of collaborative intelligence,” Mazwi says. “We don’t believe that AI will replace clinicians, but we do believe that clinicians who use AI will outperform and replace clinicians who do not.”

The researchers are initially focusing on a specific type of irregular cardiac activity called Junctional Ectopic Tachycardia, or JET, that is especially tricky to detect because it involves subtle changes in the patient’s electrocardiogram. In those who have recently had corrective heart surgery, JET poses a significant risk of injury or death.

Detecting and treating JET early reduces this risk and also helps shorten the patient’s hospital or ICU stay, benefiting the entire health-care system, Mazwi says. Eventually, the researchers hope to develop AI models for detecting every kind of heart rhythm anomaly.

Although AI is making rapid inroads into many areas of life, including medicine, Mazwi says the process in health care is necessarily slower and more careful. An AI model must be tested and retested to ensure it will improve both patient outcomes and overall performance in the health-care system before it is used on actual patients.

“We’re held to a much higher standard,” he says. “You don’t deploy an AI until you are perfectly sure it will provide gains over the current process.”

The research team at U of T and SickKids is collaborating with clinicians and researchers at other pediatric hospitals in England, Israel and Australia to test the AI models being developed in Toronto. Their two goals: to ascertain if the models work as well on similar patient populations in other hospitals and to sow the seeds for expanding far beyond Canada.

“The timely detection and diagnosis of heart arrhythmias is a challenge – it’s an even greater challenge for hospitals that do not have the funding and expertise that SickKids does,” Goodfellow says. “The real impact will be when we take this technology to underserved communities.”

John Dick and Zulfiqar Bhutta win Canada Gairdner Awards

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 13:20:56 +0000

John Dick and Zulfiqar Bhutta win Canada Gairdner Awards

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 04/05/2022 - 09:20

Cutline

John Dick and Zulfiqar Bhutta have been honoured with 2022 Canada Gairdner Awards, the country’s most prestigious awards for medical and health science (photos courtesy of Images by Delmar and The Hospital for Sick Children)

Jim Oldfield

Topic

Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

Gairdner Award

University Health Network

Molecular Genetics

Nutritional Sciences

Research & Innovation

Two researchers at the University of Toronto and its hospital partners – one a stem cell biologist, the other a global health researcher – have been honoured with 2022 Canada Gairdner Awards, the country’s most prestigious awards for medical and health science.

John Dick was recognized with a Gairdner International Award for the discovery of leukemic stem cells and later work on the diagnosis and treatment of acute myeloid leukemia. He first received the news from Janet Rossant, president and scientific director of the Gairdner Foundation, earlier this year.

“When Janet called, it was definitely an ‘Oh my gosh’ moment,” said Dick, a professor of molecular genetics at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and a senior scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network.

“I recall being asked to sit on an evaluation panel for the Gairdners in the early 1990s, not long after setting up my lab in Toronto. That seemed like the epitome of achievement and I never imagined in my wildest dreams that one day I’d receive a Gairdner award.”

The John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award went to Zulfiqar Bhutta for his research on community-based and policy interventions in child and maternal health, especially among vulnerable populations.

“I’m very pleased and grateful,” said Bhutta, a professor in the departments of nutritional sciences and pediatrics at Temerty Medicine and at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the director of the Centre for Global Child Health and a senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children.

“There are not many awards for research in global or public health, and the Gairdners occupy a special place in Canada and globally,” said Bhutta, who moved to Toronto in 2013 and maintains a research group at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan. “It really is a pinnacle and most humbling.”

John Dick: Growing Toronto’s stem cell legacy

Dick and his lab were the first to discover and describe leukemia stem cells, which can self-renew and drive both cancer growth and relapse after treatment.

Those findings have led to new clinical approaches for acute myeloid leukemia and related blood cancers, and spurred research on the role of stem cells in solid tumours of the colon, breast and brain, among other sites.

Dick said he didn’t set out to discover leukemia stem cells, but instead began by “plugging away” at basic science on the blood system in mice, experimenting with ways to put genes into stem cells.

In a key advance in the late 1980s, Dick’s lab developed a way to transplant human blood stem cells into immune-deficient mice. This “xenograft assay” was a world-first and enabled Dick and other researchers to track and test the human cells’ growth and replication, albeit in the living system of the mouse.

At the same time, Dick’s lab created the first xenograft models of human leukemia and developed a method to purify leukemia stem cells, allowing for detailed comparisons of those cells and leukemia cells without stem-like properties.

“Most people thought those early experiments wouldn’t work,” said Dick. “But lo and behold some of them worked beautifully, and we were able to characterize leukemia stem cells and non-stem cells. Leukemia is a caricature of normal development and we exploited that.”

Dick and his team began counting individual cells – much like James Till and Ernest McCulloch after their discovery of stem cells in Toronto in 1961, Dick noted. They made the startling finding that stem cells are extremely rare in acute myeloid leukemia – roughly one in a million, in a given population of leukemia cells.

They later found that relapse of acute myeloid leukemia is linked to the survival of leukemia stem cells after therapy and, using patient blood samples, they showed that leukemia stem cells that cause relapse are already present in the blood the day the patient first shows up at the clinic and before therapy begins.

Dick’s lab eventually developed a 17-gene “stemness score” that physicians use to predict patient risk and outcomes, which increasingly helps guide therapeutics. “It’s a new kind of approach for effective patient-specific intervention, which is gratifying,” Dick said.

Dick credits many colleagues for his successes, starting with the trainees in his lab. He said their technical skills and passion were critical, and that their ideas were often essential.

“For most of our findings, no one had the right ideas,” Dick said. “We just threw our thoughts in a melting pot – the good and the bad, and the resulting fusion took us in completely unexpected directions. In that intellectual foment, trainees have contributed so much. They’ve been the best post-docs and graduate students you could imagine.”

He also thanked his clinical collaborators at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and other hospitals, as well as his colleagues at U of T.

“Human disease is the best sourcebook for raising and testing research questions, so I needed that constant interchange with clinicians,” Dick said. “But I benefited hugely from the intellectual rigour and collegiality of my colleagues in molecular genetics. I don’t think I could have done this work anywhere but Toronto.”

Zulfiqar Bhutta: Thinking big for the smallest and vulnerable

Bhutta’s career began in neonatology in Pakistan, but he soon expanded his focus beyond infants.

“I realized you can’t work with babies without working with mothers – and the moment you start working with mothers, you get to social determinants of health,” said Bhutta, the first U of T faculty member to win the John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award.

For more than three decades, Bhutta’s research has influenced policy and practice in global child and maternal health through implementation science, research synthesis and trials, as well as studies of malnutrition and obesity, among other approaches.

“I’ve learned as I went along, but I’ve been fortunate to work in a variety of areas, often on large-scale projects, with opportunities to make a difference in the short- and long-term,” said Bhutta, who is also affiliated with U of T’s Joannah & Brian Lawson Centre for Child Nutrition.

Bhutta and his colleagues at Aga Khan University provided some of the first scientific evidence on the impact of “lady health workers” in community-based interventions in Pakistan. The government of Benazir Bhutto began employing the workers in the mid-1990s, with the goal of reducing child and maternal risk factors and deaths.

Bhutta and his team helped evaluate those interventions in a series of cluster randomized trials – a method common in public health that allows researchers to compare program impacts across groups or clusters of people. Among their findings: using chlorhexidine for cord care during home births reduced neonatal infection and death – and public-sector community health workers working in rural populations could indeed help reduce perinatal fatalities.

They also showed that when women began to visit health facilities, facility-based births increased. Moreover, they found that women’s embrace of the community health system did not falter after the formal period of the intervention ended.

“That’s diffusion of innovation, when improvements become ingrained,” said Bhutta. “People said that women would suffer de-development after the initial intervention, but that did not happen. The lesson was that when you increase capacity around women’s health, you can move away and they never look back.”

Bhutta and his team provided evidence for expansion of the community-based worker model in Pakistan and countries in the Global South, but their work also highlighted the limits of what those workers can achieve.

“You can’t do much about a woman who is bleeding to death without access to a facility with a blood bank,” Bhutta said. “I’ve seen many efforts to upgrade community interventions to physician-level care fall flat because community workers are not physicians.”

Many of those failures were closely linked to social determinants of health, Bhutta said. He recalled that in a Pakistani hospital where his wife worked in the 1990s, pregnant women kept arriving dead at the hospital despite living just a few kilometres away. It turned out the delays were often due to an imbalance in decision-making power between males in females, a lack of money for transport or misunderstanding of the severity of the medical crisis.

“These problems don’t have a biomedical solution,” said Bhutta. “They need education, women’s empowerment, and building social and economic resources at the community level.”

Today, Bhutta continues to pursue research on child and maternal health in the Global South and among marginalized populations in high-income countries. But he is broadening his focus further to address another social determinant of health: climate change.

“I would like to work on solutions to climate change for the poorest of poor before countries agree and develop policy,” said Bhutta. “People are dying now from food shortages and heat shocks. I want to help bring communities together on a self-help basis to promote innovations without the need for external supports. Watch that space.”

The Gairdner Foundation was established in 1957 to recognize research that impacts human health and has since given 402 awards to scientists around the world. About a quarter of those researchers later received Nobel Prizes. The foundation gives seven awards annually. Each recipient receives $100,000 and participates in public lectures, research symposia and other outreach events. The foundation is supported by the Government of Canada.

From astrophysics to literature: 29 researchers at U of T awarded Canada Research Chairs

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 17:15:54 +0000

From astrophysics to literature: 29 researchers at U of T awarded Canada Research Chairs

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 12/16/2020 - 12:15

Cutline

Twenty-nine U of T researchers are among 259 in Canada to receive new or renewed Canada Research Chairs, which support exceptional work across a wide variety of fields (U of T file photo)

Alison Kenzie

Topic

Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Cell and Systems Biology

Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Canada Research Chairs

Chemical Engineering

Electrical & Computer Engineering

English

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

St. Michael's Hospital

Sunnybrook Hospital

Ted Sargent

U of T Mississauga

University Health Network

Vasanti Malik’s research into the dietary and lifestyle risk factors for chronic diseases has far-reaching implications – for both individuals and the world.

By considering risk factors for type 2 diabetes across the lifespan – including in utero exposures, maternal health and childhood obesity – the assistant professor of nutritional sciences in the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine intends to develop a “dietary environmental index.”

The index would allow health practitioners and the public to understand how food and lifestyle choices can affect their own health as well as the health of the planet.

“What we eat has an impact on greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water use and so on,” says Malik, adding that she can envision a smartphone app that helps underscore such connections for Canadians.

Soon, she will also be working with pregnant women in Chennai, India to study how reducing refined carbohydrate intake (for instance, substituting brown rice for white rice) can prevent gestational diabetes. This data could not only improve maternal health, but also potentially reduce childhood obesity, a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes later in life.

Malik is one of 29 researchers at U of T – and among 259 nationwide – to receive new or renewed Canada Research Chairs, which support exceptional work across a wide variety of fields. (See the full list below.)

“I would like to congratulate all the University of Toronto researchers who received a new chair or had their chair renewed in this round,” says University Professor Ted Sargent, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“This important federal support and recognition will enable our leading researchers to pursue critical research across a number of fields, helping generate new knowledge and innovative ideas that could ultimately change the way we live here in Canada and around the world.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Canada Research Chairs program, established by the federal government to attract and retain top Canadian researchers working in a variety of disciplines – from engineering, the natural sciences and health sciences to the humanities and social sciences. The investment is significant: up to $295 million each year.

With 315 chairs total, U of T receives more than $46 million annually in funding from the Canada Research Chairs program.

At the same time, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) – in collaboration with the CRC program – announced support for two U of T researchers through its John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF), which helps universities pay for cutting edge laboratories and equipment. The two U of T researchers are Kieran Campbell and Hartland Jackson, both of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in the Sinai Health System.

As for Malik, her tier two Chair in Nutrition and Chronic Disease Prevention brings with it five years of funding (renewable once) and the chance to pursue an ambitious three-part research project that will span Canada and India and involve collaboration with experts from nutritional science, environmental science and economics.

She says the award seemed “unattainable” during her many years of graduate and post-doctoral training, which she began at U of T and completed at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

Malik adds that being situated within the Temerty Faculty of Medicine is an asset, allowing her to collaborate with clinicians working in partner hospitals and giving her a front row seat to how her research might impact clinical care guidelines.

“My ultimate goal is to create evidence for policy – evidence that links diet and lifestyle choices to chronic disease prevention,” Malik says.

Malik says she is looking forward to the opportunity to collaborate with economists and other researchers at U of T and beyond. She has many questions: Would a plant-based diet be feasible for low-income Canadian households? Would brown rice be easily accessible to Indian families living in poverty? Can governments here and abroad afford not to invest in chronic disease prevention, given the high costs of an unhealthy population?

While COVID-19 has put her travel plans on pause, Malik is excited to prepare for teaching her first class at U of T, a fourth-year international and community nutrition course that aligns with her research interests. As she strategizes how to make the course as interactive as possible, Malik looks forward to the energy generated by her students as they learn and discuss new ideas.

“We’re all figuring this out together,” she says.

Here are the new and renewed Canada Research Chairs at U of T:

New Canada Research Chairs

Jennifer Adese of the department of sociology at U of T Mississauga, tier two in Métis women, politics, and identity
Gillian Booth of the department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, tier one in policy solutions for diabetes prevention and management
Kieran Campbell of the department of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health System, tier two in machine learning for translational biomedicine
Angela Colantonio of the department of occupational science and occupational therapy in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, tier one in traumatic brain injury in underserved populations
Herbert Gaisano of the department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, tier one in diseases of endocrine and exocrine pancreas
Jennifer Gommerman of the department of immunology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, tier one in tissue-specific immunity
Ali Hooshyar of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in electric power systems
Timothy Hughes of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, tier one in decoding gene regulation
Hartland Jackson of the department of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health System, tier two in systems pathology
Hae-Young Kee of the department of physics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier one in theory of quantum materials
David Lie of the department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier one in secure and reliable systems
Radhakrishnan Mahadevan of the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier one in metabolic systems engineering
Vasanti Malik of the department of nutritional sciences in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, tier two in nutrition and chronic disease prevention
Stephen Matthews of the department of physiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, tier one in early development and health
Nick Reed of the department of occupational science and occupational therapy in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, tier two in pediatric concussion
Lisa Robinson of the department of paediatrics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in vascular inflammation and kidney injury
John Rogers of the department of English in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier one in early modern literature and culture
Shoshanna Saxe of the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in sustainable infrastructure
Greg Stanisz of the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Research Institute, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, tier one in cancer imaging
Harindra Wijeysundera of the department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Research Institute, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, tier two in structural heart disease policy and outcomes
Hannah Wunsch of the department of anesthesiology and pain medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Research Institute, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, tier two in critical care organization and outcomes
Azadeh Yadollahi of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and University Health Network, tier two in cardiorespiratory engineering

Renewed Canada Research Chairs

Jo Bovy of the David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in galactic astrophysics
Birsen Donmez of the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in human factors and transportation
Lisa Forman of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, tier two in human rights and global health equity
Alan Moses of the department of cell and systems biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in computational biology
Anthony Niblett of the Faculty of Law, tier two in law, economics and innovation
Laura Rosella of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, tier two in population health analytics
Arjumand Siddiqi of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, tier two in population health equity

U of T and SickKids researchers use common diabetes drug to stimulate repair of brain cells

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 15:19:01 +0000

U of T and SickKids researchers use common diabetes drug to stimulate repair of brain cells

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 07/28/2020 - 11:19

Cutline

Cindi Morshead, Freda Miller and Donald Mabbott are co-authors of a study that shows the Type 2 diabetes drug metformin could change the way childhood brain injury is treated (photos supplied)

Julie Crljen

Topic

Breaking Research

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Brain

Medicine by Design

Molecular Genetics

Psychology

Metformin, a common drug used to treat diabetes, may one day be used to repair brain injuries, a study by researchers and clinicians from the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) has found.

“No one’s actually shown before that you can take a drug where there’s a known mechanism on endogenous stem cells and demonstrate that it’s even possible to induce brain growth and positive recovery,” says Donald Mabbott, program head and senior scientist in the neurosciences and mental kealth program at SickKids and an associate professor of psychology at U of T.

Mabbott is co-author of a study published in Nature Medicine this week. He says metformin is a potential game-changer in terms of how childhood brain injury is treated.

“We’re really moving from a model that says ‘let’s help children manage and compensate for their injury,’ to ‘let’s actually treat the injury itself in an active way by harnessing the brain’s own capacity for repair,’” says Mabbott.

The published research showed that metformin has positive sex-dependent effects on neurogenesis, which is the process of growing neurons in the brain, and cognition in animals, while also demonstrating that it is safe to continue into a Phase 3 clinical trial on humans. The human participants in this study were pediatric brain tumour survivors who had received cranial radiation.

“This study is so novel compared to most studies because it looked at both animal models and human participants. And we found these really consistent and interesting effects in terms of memory and brain recovery,” says study co-author Cindi Morshead, a professor at U of T’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and chair of the division of anatomy in the department of surgery in U of T’s Faculty of Medicine. “This pre-clinical work in animal models will inform the design of the new study, currently in place, to help the brain recover from injury.”

Morshead, whose work is funded by Medicine by Design, says that she is excited not only by the promising results of the study, but also by the way its novel design encouraged clinical translation.

“There’s a lot of history of pre-clinical models not working – drug therapies that go to the clinic and then don’t make it to the next phase. That can be devastating for a lot of reasons. But I think, in us combining human and animal work, it really promoted the translation of this work into human testing,” Morshead says.

Medicine by Design provided crucial support for the study. In a past multi-disciplinary project led by Gary Bader, a professor at U of T’s Donnelly Centre and the department of molecular genetics in the Facult of Medicine – and also involving Freda Miller, a senior scientist in the neurosciences and mental Health program at SickKids and a U of T professor of molecular genetics, and Morshead, both co-authors on the Nature Medicine publication – the team mapped brain development over time using single cell genomics. Insights into the circuits that control brain tissue growth led to the identification of compounds that can stimulate resident stem cells to promote brain tissue repair, including metformin.

“I am so excited by this paper since it describes a potential endogenous stem cell-based therapy for brain disorders that are currently untreatable,” says Miller. “And, just as importantly, the metformin story provides a classic example of why we need to support basic research, and why working in collaborative teams is essential. The original finding that metformin recruits endogenous brain stem cells came from fundamental studies on how stem cells build the brain developmentally, and then it was moved forward to animal models and humans by highly interdisciplinary scientists and clinicians like Dr. Morshead and Dr. Mabbott.”

Miller is continuing her work to develop endogenous repair strategies for both brain and muscle in another Medicine by Design-funded team project.

At the core of Medicine by Design’s team projects is convergence – bringing together experts from a range of disciplines including stem cell biology, computational science, biomedical engineering and clinical medicine. The Nature Medicine study exemplifies the translational impact that a multi-disciplinary team-based approach can have, particularly when pre-clinical and clinical studies are run in parallel.

This study presents important evidence that stimulating resident stem cells is a feasible approach for tissue repair in settings where regeneration does not readily occur. And, since metformin is an approved drug, the timeline for further clinical testing and regulatory approval could be accelerated.

The results from both the rodent and human trials have informed a Phase 3 clinical trial on paediatric brain tumour survivors treated with cranial radiation currently starting at 14 hospitals in Canada and Australia.

In the lab, investigators found that metformin enhanced the recovery of endogenous neural precursor cells (NPCs) in the dentate gyrus (DG), a part of the brain that plays a critical role in learning and memory. But the results were sex-dependent: Metformin was sufficient to rescue neurogenesis and behaviour in females, but not males.

In addition to the results to the lab study, a concurrent study with 24 children found that metformin is safe to use, with no significant adverse events reported, and is well tolerated by this population.

Both Mabbott and Morshead say their work is motivated not just by the novel science of activating cells that are already resident in the brain to repair injury, but also by their desire to offer hope to a vulnerable population.

“Working as a clinical psychologist with families for 20 years, it was really the families that motivated me – in fact, they challenged me,” says Mabbott. “My job was to tell parents that while their child was successfully treated for brain cancer there was a cost, as their child will have learning problems, cognitive disabilities and some will never live independently. It was a parent who said to me, ‘That’s not good enough, you have to figure out a way to help our kids recover better.’ That’s what motivated me to start to look at how to harness brain plasticity for repair.”

“Until recently, our after-care programs were offering very little to children suffering the consequences of radiation treatment to their brain,” says study invesitgator Eric Bouffet, director of the brain tumour program, haematology/oncology and senior associate scientist at SickKids, who is also a professor of pediatrics at U of T. “This study suggests that we can repair some of the damage associated with radiation to the brain, and children with brain tumours worldwide may potentially benefit from this discovery.”

For Medicine by Design, accelerating the translation of new regenerative medicine therapies into patient impact is a strategic priority. The implications of this work go beyond childhood brain tumour survivors, says Morshead. Toronto researchers are also looking at metformin and cerebral palsy, and metformin as a preventative treatment for cranial radiation.

Major funders on this study include Brain Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Garron Family Cancer Centre, SickKids Foundation, Ontario Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Network.

U of T plays leading role in effort to develop COVID-19 treatment from recovered patients' blood plasma

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 18:38:41 +0000

U of T plays leading role in effort to develop COVID-19 treatment from recovered patients' blood plasma

geoff.vendeville Tue, 04/21/2020 - 14:38

Cutline

Researchers at more than 40 Canadian hospitals and several universities, including Jeannie Callum of U of T and Sunnybrook, seek to test whether blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients can be used as a treatment (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Topic

Global

Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology

Sunnybrook Hospital

Researchers at the University of Toronto are playing a leading role in a national effort to study the efficacy of using blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients to treat those who are sick with the disease.

The joint effort with researchers at more than 40 Canadian hospitals, the Université de Montréal, University of Ottawa, McMaster University and the University of British Columbia seeks to test whether it helps to transfuse plasma – the pale yellow liquid from whole blood that is rich in antibodies – from people who have recovered from COVID-19 to patients suffering from the illness.

Antibodies in what’s known as “convalescent plasma” could give a boost to the immune system of COVID-19-infected patients to help them fight the disease, says Dr. Jeannie Callum, a professor in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine and an associate scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

“Antibodies are kind of like little forks that stick into the virus and assist your immune system,” Callum says, adding that the body’s immune system sees the virus attached to the end of the fork and tells macrophages and other immune cells to attack it. “It’s like your immune system is at war and you provided more tanks to fight the enemy.”

Doctors in China and other countries have experimented with antibody-rich convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19 patients, Callum notes. One Chinese study published last month focused on 10 “severe adult cases” and suggested that a dose of plasma from recovered patients was “well tolerated and could significantly increase or maintain the neutralizing antibodies at a high level.”

The Canadian researchers plan to recruit 1,200 adults and 100 children to participate in separate trials to get a much better idea of whether the technique works and, possibly, answer lingering questions about the novel coronavirus, including why it affects adults differently than children.

Dr. Donald Arnold, a hematologist at McMaster University, Dr. Philippe Bégin, an immuno-allergist at the Université de Montréal, and Dr. Julia Upton, an assistant professor of pediatrics at U of T and staff physician at the Hospital for Sick Children, are leading the trials.

Canada’s blood suppliers, Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec, will be managing donations of plasma from those who have recovered from COVID-19.

“This is the most promising thing I’ve seen in a while,” tweeted David Fisman, a professor of epidemiology in U of T’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health who is cross-appointed to the Faculty of Medicine. Rather than use convalescent serum in intensive care units, Fisman, who isn’t involved in the trial, said he could see it being used “upstream” to treat patients before their condition worsens.

Doctors have experimented with convalescent plasma as a potential treatment for other illnesses, including SARS and MERS, which belong to the same coronavirus family. The history of the approach dates back even longer – to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

“We know from the use of the [plasma] product in the 1918 pandemic – it suggested that the earlier you use the product the more likely it is to change the patient’s outcome,” Callum says.

The researchers have chosen to do the trial in an “intermediate” group of patients, meaning those who have been hospitalized but aren’t so sick that they require intensive care and ventilation.

“We’re hoping to turn it around so that the person doesn’t need to go on a ventilator or go to the ICU, stays a shorter time in hospital and gets back home,” Callum says.

Dr. Rulan Parekh, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at U of T and associate chief of clinical research at the Hospital for Sick Children, is part of the SickKids group leading the pediatrics component of the trial. Although children tend to have better outcomes from COVID-19, they may have underlying conditions that put them at greater risk and that differ from those often seen in older adults, like diabetes, Parekh says.

“Even though there are few deaths [among children with COVID-19] that have been reported, it’s more likely that they will have a worsening of their clinical symptoms,” she says. “We want to see if the convalescent plasma will improve their respiratory findings.”

Because they expect to have fewer study participants in the pediatric trial, researchers will be able to follow patients over a longer period, Upton says.

Parekh – who is also a staff physician in nephrology at the University Health Network – is also leading a study, with Dr. Dana Devine of UBC and Canadian Blood Services, to follow the donors of convalescent plasma to understand factors that impact immunity.

“We want to study systematically if the virus-neutralizing antibody [concentration] is associated with outcomes in both children and adults,” Parekh says.

Even if the clinical trials support the use of blood plasma as a treatment for COVID-19, it wouldn't make the development of a vaccine any less important. The plasma treatment may help COVID-19 patients get better, but a vaccine would help prevent infection in the first place. “The vaccine is the holy grail,” Callum says, adding that the plasma treatment could help buy time until one is developed – a process that experts say may take 12 to 18 months.

For the clinical trial to go forward, Callum says Canadians who have fully recovered from COVID-19 have to be “ready to step up to the plate” and donate plasma – more than once if possible. “We’re going to be wholly dependent on their goodwill,” she says, adding that the procedure is less taxing than donating whole blood.

Richard Carl, a former COVID-19 patient who recovered at Sunnybrook, told the Globe and Mail that he already plans to donate. “The thought of asking someone to help fix this thing – I couldn’t say yes fast enough,” he said.

U of T to support high-impact coronavirus research projects through Toronto COVID-19 Action Fund

rahul.kalvapalle — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 20:34:01 +0000

U of T to support high-impact coronavirus research projects through Toronto COVID-19 Action Fund

rahul.kalvapalle Mon, 04/20/2020 - 16:34

Cutline

(photos by Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images, Christopher Morris/Corbis/Getty Images, Nick Iwanyshyn)

Topic

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation

Biochemistry

Chemistry

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Information

Global

Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Research & Innovation

Sociology

St. Michael's Hospital

Sunnybrook Hospital

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

University Health Network

Vivek Goel

The University of Toronto will support more than 30 research projects through the nearly $9-million Toronto COVID-19 Action Fund – set up less than a month ago to support high-impact research by U of T and its hospital partners that contributes to the global fight against the novel coronavirus.

The projects, which range from medical interventions to measures aimed at supporting the economy and vulnerable populations, were chosen on the basis of their potential to have a positive impact on individuals, communities and public health systems within a timeframe of a year or less.

They were selected from among 338 applicants via a fast-tracked, peer-reviewed competition. Less than 30 days elapsed between the creation of the fund and the winning projects being announced.

“The Toronto COVID-19 Action Fund is a testament to the University of Toronto’s unique ability to quickly mobilize its resources, engage the creativity and ingenuity of its researchers and draw on the strength of its partnerships with partner hospitals to respond to the most urgent public health, economic and societal challenge of our time,” said Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“COVID-19 presents an array of unprecedented global problems that require urgent attention and expertise from experts in a wide variety of disciplines – from medical specialists and public health researchers to economists, social scientists and mathematicians.

“We are confident these projects will each, in their own way, make important contributions to the global fight against this pandemic.”

The projects include an initiative to research the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic response on marginalized people, led by Ahmed Bayoumi, a professor in the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and a scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, part of Unity Health Toronto.

In the realm of medical interventions, Jordan Feld, associate professor in U of T’s department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and a senior scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute at the University Health Network, plans to carry out a phase two drug trial for the treatment of COVID-19.

Also funded were research projects by Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre's Samira Mubareka and Robert Kozak, both of the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology at U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, that could pave the way to better understanding and treatment of the novel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2.

The role of genetics in the pandemic response will be explored by Aled Edwards, professor at the Donnelly Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Research and director of the Structural Genomics Consortium. He will lead work on the Toronto Open Access COVID-19 Protein Manufacturing Centre.

Other research projects will address social, economic and public policy issues.

Janet Smylie is a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, director of Well Living House at St. Michael’s Hospital and an expert in public health in the context of Indigenous populations. She will use an action fund grant to support the rapid implementation of a shared COVID-19 tracking and response platform for First Nations, Inuit and Métis populations.

U of T Mississauga anthropologist and lecturer Madeleine Mant will receive support for her project titled, “Going viral: COVID-19 and risk in young adult health behaviour models.”

The impact of COVID-19 on the economy is another area of significant concern, with Professor Scott Schieman, chair of the department of sociology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, leading a project to explore the impacts of COVID-19 on the quality of work and economic life in Canada.

The funding for these and other projects was drawn from U of T and other university sources, including the McLaughlin Centre, Medicine by Design, partner hospitals and philanthropic donors. Successful applicants are also eligible for additional support for a trainee through a generous agreement with MITACS.

“We would like to extend our thanks to all the scholars who submitted proposals to the Toronto COVID-19 Action Fund, and we will continue to work hard to find ways to support our researchers in their efforts to devise solutions to this crisis,” said Goel. “I would also like to thank the reviewers that provided assessment in a short period of time and our staff that worked diligently and around the clock to complete this record-setting peer review process.”

“U of T takes very seriously its public responsibility to make key contributions to the response to COVID-19, and I would like to congratulate everybody involved in the rapid creation and execution of the action fund for their tireless efforts.”

Goel noted that additional projects may be funded through the action fund as funds continue to be raised and additional partners contribute. All those that were not selected are being directed to other funding sources, including those listed on the Centre for Research and Innovation Support’s COVID-19 research website.

Here are the researchers being supported by the Toronto COVID-19 Action Fund:

Note: this list was updated with additional projects on May 8, 2020

Upton Allen of the department of paediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the Hospital for Sick Children – Immune responses to COVID-19: Correlates across the age spectrum

Robert Batey of the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science – Synthetic chemistry as a core technology platform for the response to the COVID-19 pandemic: chemistry COVID-19 core facility

Ahmed Bayoumi of the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Unity Health Toronto –The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic response for people who are marginalized

Laurent Brochard of the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Unity Health Toronto – Careful ventilation in patients with ARDS induced by COVID-19

Jeannie Callum of the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre – Convalescent plasma for COVID-19 research trial

Warren Chan of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – A quantum dot portable diagnostic device for COVID-19

Angela Cheung of the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the University Health Network – The Ontario COVID-19 prospective cohort study

Leo Chou of the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – Enzyme-free, one-step nucleic-acid detection for point-of-care COVID-19 diagnostic screening

Gerald Chaim Cupchik of the department of psychology at U of T Scarborough – Managing coping strategies and avoiding anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic: A multilevel analysis from epidemiology to psychology and education

Paul Dorian of the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Unity Health Toronto – Evaluation of a small gas-powered and patient-responsive automated resuscitation/ventilation

Aled Edwards of the Donnelly Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Research – Toronto Open Access COVID-19 Protein Manufacturing Centre

Jordan Feld of the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and the University Health Network – Interferon lambda for immediate antiviral therapy at diagnosis: a phase II randomized, open-label, multicentre trial to evaluate the effect of peginterferon lambda for the treatment of COVID-19

Jessica Fields of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Health & Society at U of T Scarborough – Impact of COVID-19 on the mental health and vulnerability of sexual and gender minorities living in Toronto

Benjamin Fine of the department of medical imaging in the Faculty of Medicine and Trillium Health Partners – Building a real-time health system COVID collaborative data and analytics hub in Ontario

Joseph Hermer of the department of sociology at U of T Scarborough – Pandemic policing of the homeless: from crime control to public health strategy

Shana Kelley of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy – Accelerated, centralized development of diagnostics and therapeutics to combat the COVID-19 pandemic

Robert Kozak of the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre – Development of models of pathogenesis and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2

Madeleine Mant of the department of anthropology of U of T Mississauga – Going viral: COVID-19 and risk in young adult health behaviour models.

Rhonda McEwen of the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at U of T Mississauga – Digital technologies and Chinese interpersonal communication on the mainland and in the diaspora: the case of COVID-19

Allison McGeer of the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Mount Sinai Hospital – Working on control of COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care

Andrew Miles of the department of sociology at U of T Mississauga – Using pro-social behaviour to safeguard mental health and foster emotional well-being

Jason Moffat of the Donnelly Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Research – Identification of host dependency factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection and replication to accelerate drug repurposing efforts

Samira Mubareka of the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre – Just-in-time pathogenomics for SARS-CoV-2, data for immediate action

Elizabeth Peter of the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing – Reducing the moral distress of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic

Blake Poland of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health – Connected communities in a time of physical distancing: community-led responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in City of Toronto

Mohammad Qadura of the department of surgery in the Faculty of Medicine and Unity Health Toronto – Keeping everyone safe: Using contactless transdermal optical imaging to obtain patient vitals and symptom report in the time of COVID-19

Matt Ratto of the Faculty of Information – Toronto Emergency Device Accelerator

Scott Schieman of the department of sociology in the Faculty of Arts & Science – COVID-19 impacts on the quality of work and economic life in Canada

Michelle Science of the department of paediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children – Health-care worker seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

James Scott of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health – Improving and evaluating aerosol PPE and containment devices for the COVID-19 virus

Jayeeta Sharma of the department of historical and cultural studies at U of T Scarborough – Feeding our city, pandemic and beyond: documenting food system experiences, community challenges and local resilience, lessons for sustainable food solutions

Janet Smylie of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Unity Health Toronto – Rapid implementation of a shared COVID-19 tracking and response platform for First Nations, Inuit and Metis populations in Canada

Igor Stagljar of the department of biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine – Immunotyping of COVID-19 Patient Sera Using Novel Protein Complementation-Based Assays

Rima Styra of the department of psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine and the University Health Network – Mental health outcomes in health-care workers during COVID-19

Jeff Wrana of the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine and Mount Sinai Hospital – A massively parallel, ultra-high throughput next-generation sequencing platform for widespread screening of COVID-19 and associated risk factors

William Yun Yu of the department of computer and mathematical sciences at U of T Scarborough – Privacy-preserving contact tracing app

Children who drank whole milk, as opposed to reduced-fat, less likely to be overweight: U of T study

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 16:54:32 +0000

Children who drank whole milk, as opposed to reduced-fat, less likely to be overweight: U of T study

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 01/09/2020 - 11:54

Cutline

The study's findings, which are at odds with Canadian and international guidelines, were based on a meta-analysis of existing studies involving almost 21,000 children (photo by Dragonimages via Getty Images)

Topic

Breaking Research

Joannah & Brian Lawson Centre for Child Nutrition

Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation