Most people try hard not to think about the trillions of microorganisms – bacteria, viruses and fungi – that live on and inside our bodies, but like it or not, these microbes have a tremendous impact on many aspects of health and disease. 

They’re also at the heart of Dana Philpott's research and a new $6-million Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)-funded research project – U of T’s Host-Microbiome Research Network.

Philpott’s project is one of nine research projects at U of T that have been awarded a total of $21 million from the CFI. 

Philpott, an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Immunology, says these microbes may cause inflammation inside the body, which many scientists believe is the root cause of many chronic diseases, including diabetes and obesity.

“Right now, we have no idea what a normal microbial profile looks like, but we do know that some bacteria can cause inflammation,” says Philpott, who, along with Ken Croitoru, professor in the Department of Medicine and Division of Gastroenterology at Mount Sinai Hospital, will lead U of T’s Host-Microbiome Research Network, located in U of T and Mount Sinai Hospital laboratories.

“If we can get rid of the inflammation-causing bacteria using targeted antibiotics or probiotic cocktails, we might be able to treat or even prevent disease. This could represent a new aspect of personalized medicine.  We can’t see them, but in the future these microbes will play a pivotal role in how diseases like cancer and heart disease are detected, treated and one day, prevented.”

As part of the new initiative, Mount Sinai Hospital will open Canada’s largest clinical research unit dedicated to investigating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and helping to find better treatments to improve the lives of some 200,000 Canadians.

The clinical research unit will allow Croitoru and his colleagues to integrate IBD research and clinical care under one roof, so that when patients visit the hospital for care, research studies will allow for patients to undergo state-of-the-art MRI imaging of the intestine to be correlated with the degree of inflammation, the nature of the gut microbiome and changes in the immune response. The goal is to create a personalized profile of a patient’s risk of developing the disease and to determine their specific triggers based on their immune responses and the profile of the microbes in their bodies.

The awards are part of a total of $166 million awarded by the CFI to institutions across Canada.  The CFI is an independent corporation created by the Government of Canada to fund research infrastructure.  This round of investment is from the CFI’s Leading Edge Fund and New Initiatives Fund.  CFI announced the funding on January 15.
For more information, please contact:

Leslie O’Leary                                              
Senior Specialist, Media Relations and Public Affairs
Mount Sinai Hospital
416-586-4800 ext. 8306
lo’leary2@mtsinai.on.ca

Nicole Bodnar
Media Relations & Communications Specialist
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
416-978-5811
Nicole.bodnar@utoronto.ca

University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine researchers have uncovered a genetic basis for fundamental differences between humans and other vertebrates that could also help explain why humans are susceptible to diseases not found in other species.

Scientists have wondered why vertebrate species, which look and behave very differently from one another, nevertheless share very similar repertoires of genes. For example, despite obvious physical differences, humans and chimpanzees share a nearly identical set of genes.

The team sequenced and compared the composition of hundreds of thousands of genetic messages in equivalent organs, such as brain, heart and liver, from 10 different vertebrate species, ranging from human to frog. They found that alternative splicing — a process by which a single gene can give rise to multiple proteins — has dramatically changed the structure and complexity of genetic messages during vertebrate evolution.

The results suggest that differences in the ways genetic messages are spliced have played a major role in the evolution of fundamental characteristics of species. However, the same process that makes species look different from one another could also account for differences in their disease susceptibility.

“The same genetic mechanisms responsible for a species’ identity could help scientists understand why humans are prone to certain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and particular types of cancer that are not found in other species,” says Nuno Barbosa-Morais, the study’s lead author and a computational biologist in U of T Faculty of Medicine’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research.  “Our research may lead to the design of improved approaches to study and treat human diseases.”

One of the team’s major findings is that the alternative splicing process is more complex in humans and other primates compared to species such as mouse, chicken and frog.

“Our observations provide new insight into the genetic basis of complexity of organs such as the human brain,” says Benjamin Blencowe, Professor in U of T’s Banting and Best Department of Research and the Department of Molecular Genetics, and the study’s senior author.

“The fact that alternative splicing is very different even between closely related vertebrate species could ultimately help explain how we are unique.”

The study, “The Evolutionary Landscape of Alternative Slicing in Vertebrate Species”, is published in the December 21 issue of Science.

For more information, please contact:
Nicole Bodnar
Media Relations and Communications Specialist
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
416-978-5811
Nicole.bodnar@utoronto.ca

New research has answered one of the most common questions parents ask their doctors: How much milk should I be giving my children?

The answer is two cups per day.

“We started to research the question because professional recommendations around milk intake were unclear and doctors and parents were seeking answers,” said Jonathon Maguire, a Professor in the University of Toronto’s Department of Paediatrics and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. Maguire and his team looked at how cow’s milk affected body stores of iron and vitamin D — two of the most important nutrients in milk — in more than 1,300 children aged two to five years. They found that children who drank more cow’s milk had higher Vitamin D stores but lower iron stores.

“We saw that two cups of cow’s milk per day was enough to maintain adequate vitamin D levels for most children, while also maintaining iron stores. With additional cow’s milk, there was a further reduction in iron stores without greater benefit from vitamin D,” said Maguire, who is also a pediatrician at St. Michael’s Hospital.

The journal Pediatrics today published the results online today.

The researchers recruited healthy children during routine doctors’ appointments between 2008 and 2010. Parents were asked to fill out an extensive questionnaire about their children’s milk drinking habits and other factors that could affect iron and Vitamin D stores. A blood sample was obtained from each child to determine body stores of iron and Vitamin D.

The study also found that children with darker skin pigmentation may not have enough vitamin D stores during the winter months. Maguire suggested that instead of consuming more milk to increase these levels, wintertime vitamin D supplementation may be a more appropriate way of increasing vitamin D stores while preserving iron stores. 

“Vitamin D deficiency in children has been linked to bone health issues and iron deficiency has been linked to anemia and delays in cognitive development,” Maguire said. “Being able to answer parents' questions about healthy cow’s milk intake is important to avoiding these potentially serious complications of low vitamin D and iron stores.”

The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends that cow’s milk not be started before one year of age.

The study was part of TARGet Kids!, a collaboration between children’s doctors and researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital and The Hospital for Sick Children, and was funded in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation.

For more information, please contact:

Kate Taylor
Communications Adviser
St. Michael's Hospital
416-864-6060 Ext. 6537
TaylorKa@smh.ca
 

New research has answered one of the most common questions parents ask their doctors: How much milk should I be giving my children?

The answer is two cups per day.

“We started to research the question because professional recommendations around milk intake were unclear and doctors and parents were seeking answers,” said Jonathon Maguire, a Professor in the University of Toronto’s Department of Paediatrics and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. Maguire and his team looked at how cow’s milk affected body stores of iron and vitamin D — two of the most important nutrients in milk — in more than 1,300 children aged two to five years. They found that children who drank more cow’s milk had higher Vitamin D stores but lower iron stores.

“We saw that two cups of cow’s milk per day was enough to maintain adequate vitamin D levels for most children, while also maintaining iron stores. With additional cow’s milk, there was a further reduction in iron stores without greater benefit from vitamin D,” said Maguire, who is also a pediatrician at St. Michael’s Hospital.

The journal Pediatrics today published the results online today.

The researchers recruited healthy children during routine doctors’ appointments between 2008 and 2010. Parents were asked to fill out an extensive questionnaire about their children’s milk drinking habits and other factors that could affect iron and Vitamin D stores. A blood sample was obtained from each child to determine body stores of iron and Vitamin D.

The study also found that children with darker skin pigmentation may not have enough vitamin D stores during the winter months. Maguire suggested that instead of consuming more milk to increase these levels, wintertime vitamin D supplementation may be a more appropriate way of increasing vitamin D stores while preserving iron stores. 

“Vitamin D deficiency in children has been linked to bone health issues and iron deficiency has been linked to anemia and delays in cognitive development,” Maguire said. “Being able to answer parents' questions about healthy cow’s milk intake is important to avoiding these potentially serious complications of low vitamin D and iron stores.”

The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends that cow’s milk not be started before one year of age.

The study was part of TARGet Kids!, a collaboration between children’s doctors and researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital and The Hospital for Sick Children, and was funded in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation.

For more information, please contact:

Kate Taylor
Communications Adviser
St. Michael's Hospital
416-864-6060 Ext. 6537
TaylorKa@smh.ca
 

Dramatic patient resuscitations. Fierce competition. Obscure medical cases. Popular television shows like Grey’s Anatomy and House make residency seem like a non-stop barrage of scary emergencies and romantic workplace rendezvous. But as Dr. Tiffany Florindo will tell you, it’s about real people, real lives and real issues.

The 25-year-old is a first-year resident in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She is also the star of the hospital’s A Day in the Life of a Resident video log (vlog) series. Geared towards preparing medical students and potential medical students and educating the general public, the videos provide insight into the health care system and residency process while showcasing doctors in a relatable—and human—light.

“TV shows make it seem like medicine is insanely demanding or that residents are always partying. The truth is it’s not always chaotic, but most of the time it’s not a party either. Residency takes a lot of dedication and hard work,” says Florindo.

From wondering if she’ll be “the worst resident in the history of residents” to discussing her first experience with the death of a patient, Florindo gives an honest account of what residency is really like in the vlog series. The episodes – which have already received thousands of views on YouTube – catalogue her experience with transitioning to residency, treating patients and work-life balance.

The fourth installment of the series is now available online here, but the hospital plans to release a new episode every month until summer 2013.

“Residency can seem like a huge beast and new residents often feel inadequate. The reality is, your colleagues are all very supportive and it isn’t as difficult as you think,” says Florindo, who has also received great feedback from patients who’ve watched the episodes.

“We wanted to explore the different emotions, areas and issues associated with residency in a lively and accessible manner. Medical students, residents and patients can really relate to Tiffany and, as a result, not feel so isolated or alone,” says Monica Matys, the communications advisor at Sunnybrook who developed the video series.

“Tiffany’s vlogs help alleviate some of the apprehension I feel about the future. It’s great to get a sneak peek into what residency is like at one of our affiliate hospitals,” says Latif Murji, a first-year medical student at the University of Toronto.

Visit sunnybrook.ca/dayinthelife to watch the series or follow them on Twitter (@SunnybrookHSC) to get the latest updates.

“It is estimated that we will need to decode 100,000 genomes worldwide to begin to make sense of those genetic variants that are involved in disease and those which protect us from it,” says Dr. Stephen Scherer, Director of the University of Toronto’s McLaughlin Centre and The Centre for Applied Genomics at The Hospital for Sick Children.

Dr. Scherer’s group is actively involved in research studying the genomes of individuals with disorders like autism. His team also hosts the Database of Genomic Variants, a resource that supports diagnostic laboratories worldwide in their interpretation of clinical genetic data.

“Genome sequencing is entering mainstream medicine and we need to know from the Canadian perspective how to deal with the data from all aspects of the technology, information sciences, privacy and health economic impact,” says Scherer.

Through a partnership with Life Technologies, PGP-C recently used the Ion Proton™ System to complete the whole genome sequence of the first research participant, Jill Davies or “PGPC-1,” and aims to incrementally grow the number of individuals with genome sequences over time.  Davies is a genetic counselor at Toronto’s Medcan Clinic, Canada’s largest private clinic.  The Clinic is supporting Scherer’s research team to enable the collection of participants and to help determine the clinical significance of the data.  Each genome encodes six billion genetic letters, which now takes about a week to sequence and twice that time to generate a rudimentary description of its contents.  PGP-C will accelerate the process of understanding how to fully decode this information.

The dramatic decline in the cost of whole genome sequencing now makes it possible for large numbers of Canadians to have their genomes analyzed.

“Run out of the University of Toronto’s McLaughlin Centre, the project will educate medical students, physicians, and health care workers and help them understand and apply the new genomic data to benefit patients and families,” says Dr. Catharine Whiteside, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Volunteers who are interested in sharing their genetic and self-reported health information should visit: http://www.personalgenomes.ca/.

Other collaborators in the project include: Toronto’s Medcan Clinic, The Centre for Applied Genomics at The Hospital for Sick Children and Life Technologies.
 

There is new evidence about the benefits of marriage.

Women who are married suffer less partner abuse, substance abuse or post-partum depression around the time of pregnancy than women who are cohabitating or do not have a partner, a new study has found.

Marcelo Urquia, a Professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said that as more children are being born to unmarried parents, he wanted to delve deeper into the risks and benefits of not just single vs. cohabitating parents but the various kinds of relationships.

“What is new in this study is that for the first time we looked at the duration of unmarried cohabitation and found the shorter the cohabitation, the more likely women were to suffer intimate-partner violence, substance abuse or post-partum depression around the time of conception, pregnancy and delivery,” said Urquia, who is also an epidemiologist at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael’s Hospital. “We did not see that pattern among married women, who experienced less psychosocial problems regardless of the length of time they lived together with their spouses.”

The study found that unmarried women who lived with their partners for less than two years were more likely to experience at least one of the three problems; however, these problems became less frequent the longer the couple lived together.
The problems were most common among women who were separated or divorced, especially if the couple parted less than 12 months before their child was born.

The American Journal of Public Health published the results today.

Urquia said knowing the differences between married and cohabitating partners was important as the number of children born outside marriages rises. Thirty per cent of children in Canada are born to unmarried couples, up from 9 per cent in 1971. In several European countries, births out of wedlock outnumber those to married couples.

Urquia said it was unclear whether problems such as partner or substance abuse were the cause or result of separations.

Cancer scientists have found a way to follow single tumour cells and observe their growth over time. By using special immune-deficient mice to spread human colorectal cancer, they found that genetic mutations, regarded by many as the chief suspect driving cancer growth, are only one piece of the puzzle. The team discovered that biological factors and cell behaviour – not only genes – drive tumour growth, contributing to therapy failure and relapse.

Led by John Dick, Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology, says the findings are “a major conceptual advance in understanding tumour growth and treatment response.”  Dick is a senior scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute, the research arm of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and University Health Network’s McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine.

By tracking individual tumour cells, they found that not all cancer cells are equal: only some cancer cells are responsible for keeping the cancer growing. Within this small subset of cancer cells, some kept the cancer growing for long time periods – up to 500 days – while others stopped within 100 days. They also discovered a class of cancer cells that could lie dormant before being activated. Importantly, the mutated cancer genes were identical for all of these different cell behaviours.

When chemotherapy was given to mice in which the human tumours were growing, the team made the unexpected finding that the long-term cancer cells were generally sensitive to treatment. The dormant cells were not killed by drug treatment and became activated, causing the tumour to grow again. The cancer cells that survived therapy had the same mutations as the sensitive cancer cells proving that cellular factors not linked to genetic mutation can be responsible for therapy failure.

The research challenges conventional wisdom in the cancer research field that the variable growth properties and resistance to therapy of cancer cells are solely based on the spectrum of genetic mutations within a tumour, says Dick. Instead, the scientists have validated a developmental view of cancer growth where other biological factors and cell functions outside genetic mutations are very much at play in sustaining disease and contributing to therapy failure.

Dick says the findings convinced him that the conventional view that only explores gene mutations is no longer enough in the quest to accelerate delivery of personalized cancer medicine to patients – targeted, effective treatments customized for individuals.

“The data show that gene sequencing of tumours to find the spectrum of their mutations is definitely not the whole story when it comes to determining which therapies will be most effective,” says Dick.

“This is a paradigm shift that shows research also needs to focus on the biological properties of cells. For example, finding a way to put dormant cells into growth cycles could make them more sensitive to chemotherapy treatment. Targeting the biology and growth properties of cancer cells could expand the repertoire of usable therapeutic agents and provide better outcomes for patients.”

Dick is renowned for pioneering the cancer stem cell field by identifying leukemia stem cells in 1994 and colon cancer stem cells in 2007. Also in 2011, Dick isolated the normal human blood stem cell in its purest form – as a single stem cell capable of regenerating the entire blood system. Collectively, Dick’s research is paving the way for better clinical cancer therapy.

The research work was primarily carried out in Toronto by Antonija Kreso, Catherine O’Brien, and other members of the Dick lab with support from clinician-scientists at Mount Sinai Hospital and at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and from genome scientists at St Jude Research Hospital, Memphis, and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

The research was funded by Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and a Premier’s Summit Award with funds from the Province of Ontario, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, as well as The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

Ayodele Odutayo, a fourth-year medical student at the Faculty of Medicine, has been named a 2013 Ontario Rhodes Scholar.

The prestigious and highly competitive scholarship, awarded to 11 Canadians a year, is one of the world’s most celebrated academic honours. It comes with a stipend and tuition expenses to pursue a degree at the University of Oxford.

Having spent the first 12 years of his life between Nigeria and the British Virgin Islands, Odutayo developed a keen interest in improving health care internationally. As a nephrology research trainee at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and former intern with the World Health Organization (WHO), his goals include improving management of kidney diseases beyond Canada’s borders.

The committed volunteer and student leader previously served as co-director of U of T’s International Health Program (UTIHP) and currently represents Canadian medical students on the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) Committee on Healthcare and Promotion.

U of T Medicine asked Odutayo about the scholarship, his work and his future goals.

What’s it like to win a Rhodes scholarship?

The entire experience has been surreal and has taken time to sink in. I am extremely humbled to have been chosen along with Connor Emdin and Joanne Cave of U of T. The process has been very meaningful, because it challenges you to reflect on your experiences and develop a clear sense of what motivates you and what contribution you hope to make.

What do you plan to do with the scholarship?

I am interested in health care quality improvement in nephrology, particularly through increasing access to health information and research capacity building efforts aimed at renal disease and its precursors. At Oxford, I plan to expand on this interest by pursing a Master’s degree in public health and health policy. Using the research time within this degree path, I hope to return to work with a United Nations organization such as the WHO or a non-governmental organization (NGO)

What do you plan to do after?

My goal is to return to Canada to enroll in a general internal medicine residency program, with a likely sub-specialization in nephrology. Building on my knowledge of public health and health policy, I hope to expand my work to look at health care quality improvement in nephrology.

I also hope to stay involved with the Faculty of Medicine’s Summer Mentorship Program as a resident and mentor, assisting students who are underrepresented in the health sciences to pursue a career in health care.

Why did you come to the University of Toronto?

As an undergraduate student, I was attracted to U of T’s Doctor of Medicine program because of the broad clinical exposure that could be obtained in this multicultural and diverse city. The ability to work in varied hospital settings was also appealing and I enjoyed my clinical placements at Sunnybrook, St. Michael’s and Toronto Western Hospitals.

Why is nephrology an area of interest for you?

Although nephrology is sub-specialized, it provides exposure to all aspects of medicine. From managing the precursors of kidney disease to treating patients with chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, nephrology involves the entire spectrum of health care.

Tell me about the most memorable part of your experience as a trainee at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

My most memorable experience was assessing new data from a human physiology study conducted by our research group and being selected as a top 10 trainee abstract at the 2010 Canadian Society of Nephrology (CSN) meeting.  After presenting at the conference, I was awarded first place - a testament to my mentors, Michelle Hladunewich (Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology and physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre) and David Cherney (Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology and physician at University Health Network).

What work that you’ve done has made the most impact on you?

Leading U of T’s International Health Program (UTIHP) alongside Andy Tran (former U of T student) from 2010-2011 to increase student activism in global health was very rewarding.  With a 100-student team, we introduced new initiatives, including the Global Health Education website that allows students to discuss health care disparities. We also revitalized the Refugee Health program, where students can conduct health care seminars for Canadian refugees.

Why is this kind of volunteer work important?

The world is becoming much more interconnected and learning about challenges in other areas broadens our perspective and informs our decision-making. There is also a basic social responsibility to work to the betterment of our society, and involvement in global health initiatives is one avenue to fulfilling that duty.

Who are the faculty mentors and friends who've have had the most impact on your time here?

Among my mentors, Michelle Hladunewich stands out. It is because of her support that I have been able to pursue diverse learning opportunities such as working with the WHO and develop a broad network of professional relationships. I am also fortunate to have been mentored by David Cherney, Ron Wald (Assistant Professor, Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto and physician at St. Michael's Hospital) and Diana Alli (retired head of U of T Medicine’s Office of Health Professions Student Affairs). 

I am humbled to be a member of the 1T3 class and to have worked with students on global health initiatives. I have learned so much from our joint efforts.

Last but not least, my mother has made numerous sacrifices in support of my education and I would not have any of these opportunities without her.

What do you hope for the future of your studies and career?

In the immediate future, I look forward to joining a diverse learning community through the Rhodes Scholarship and being able to apply the knowledge gleaned through my graduate study during my residency.

I hope to obtain a position as an attending physician at a tertiary care centre. Ultimately, I hope to take on a leadership role within an academic institution or a national/international organization and make a meaningful contribution to health care delivery in nephrology.

Some of the world’s leading researchers in neuroscience are gathering in Brazil Dec. 7-8 for a conference co-hosted by the University of Toronto and the University of São Paulo (USP).

“Our hope is that this conference will be a watershed that leads to a new era of cooperation between Brazil and Canada and successful collaboration in neuroscience research and education,” said Dean Catharine Whiteside.

The conference will address four key neuroscience topics: aging, behaviour disorders, neurogenetics (the role of genetics in the development and function of the nervous system) and neuroimaging (creating and interpreting images of the structure, function or pharmacology of the brain) and neuroanatomy. Whiteside will be joined at the conference by U of T President Dr. David Naylor, along with leading clinicians and researchers from the university.

“At the University of Toronto, our critical mass of neuroscience researchers and clinicians are addressing the biggest challenges in brain health — from neurodegeneration and mood disorders to traumatic brain injury,” Whiteside said. “By working with our global peers, discovery is accelerated - and the University of São Paulo offers an excellent opportunity for such collaboration.”

Professor Cheryl Grady, from the Department of Psychiatry, is looking forward to sharing her work on aging at the conference. Grady focuses on age-related changes in memory, studying why particular types of memory are more vulnerable than others. Using neuroimaging techniques, she measures brain activity during cognitive tasks, comparing the brain activity of older adults with that of younger adults, to learn how the aging brain changes and adapts.

“I have always been interested in the brain and how it works. My first job out of graduate school was in the National Institute on Aging (in the US),” said Dr. Grady. “It was clear to me early on that aging was actually a very interesting and complex area of study, and I have been fascinated by it ever since.”

“There is considerable overlap in our neuroscience interests and those of the faculty at USP,” she adds. “Sharing data is becoming more and more important in the brain imaging field of research. By combining data across labs and countries we can begin to ask questions that can’t be addressed with the small numbers of participants that we typically collect in our experiments.”

Professor James Rutka, Chair of U of T’s Department of Surgery, Division of Seurosurgery, will also be speaking at the conference. Dr. Rutka's primary research and clinical interests relate to the science and surgery of human brain tumours. His laboratory interests lie in the molecular biology of human brain tumours - specifically in the determination of the mechanisms by which brain tumours grow and invade.

“With our research, we hope to unravel the molecular complexities of these tumours and come upon better treatment strategies by identifying novel targets for drug design,” said Rutka. “Fortunately, we have been collaborating with our Brazilian colleagues in the field of human brain tumours for some time.

“The combined expertise in the molecular genetics and biology of human brain tumours at both institutions (U of T and USP) will lead to the opportunity to pilot key clinical trials once druggable targets have been identified and tested in models in our labs – it will be a true collaborative effort.”  

Other experts representing the U of T at the neuroscience conference include: Dr. Stephen Strother (neuroimaging and neuroanatomy), Dr. Trevor Young (the molecular basis of mood disorders and their treatments) and Dr. Jim Kennedy, a neurogenetics expert who specializes in the susceptibility of genes for psychiatric disorders, the genetics behind a patient’s response to medication or side effects (pharmacogenetics) and the genetics of neuroimaging (such as magnetic resonance imaging and PET – or positron emission tomography – scans.)

The roster of U of T experts attending the conference also includes:

• Associate Professor Bernhard Ross, Department of Medical Biophysics, who combines basic research about brain function and how this is reflected in electromagnetic brain activity with potential clinical application.
• Associate Professor Jed Meltzer fo the Department of Psychology. Dr. Meltzer’s research deals with the neural mechanisms responsible for understanding and producing language.
• Professor Sid Kennedy, Department of Psychiatry, and Psychiatrist-in-Chief, University Health Network. Dr. Kennedy's research involves anxiety, bipolar disorder, clinical trials, major depression, mood disorders, neuroimaging, pharmacotherapy, neuroimaging and Neurostimulation.
• Assistant Professor Ana Andreazza, Departments of Psychiatry, Pharmacology & Toxicology Medicine. Andreazza's research interests include; Neuroscience; Pharmacology; Toxicology and Pharmaceutics; Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; Psychology.
• Assistant Professor Clement Hamani, Department of Surgery, Division of Neurosurgery. Dr. Hamani's research interests are in the field of the neurosurgical treatment of movement disorders, epilepsy, pain and psychiatric disorders.
• Professor Allan Kaplan, Vice-Chair, Research, Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Kaplan has worked in the field of eating disorders for 30 years, has lectured widely on various topics in the field, published 150 peer reviewed articles, two books, 50 book chapters and over 200 abstracts.
• Associate Professor Jeff Daskalakis, Department of Psychiatry, Director of the Brain Stimulation Research and Treatment Program at CAMH an expert on the neurophysiology of severe psychiatric disorders.
• Associate Professor Berge Minassian, Department of Paediatrics, Canada Research Chair Pediatric Neurogenetics. Dr. Minassian’s Lab has identified two genes related to a teenage-onset fatal inherited epilepsy syndrome (Lafora disease) and is close to identifying a third.
• Assistant Professor Aristotle Voineskos, Department of Psychiatry. His work uses neuroimaging and genetics approaches to map gene effects in the brain with a view to discovering vulnerability pathways for severe mental illness.
• Claudia Faria, Ph.D Student, Rutka Lab whose research focuses on medulloblastoma - working towards a personalized therapy in pediatric brain cancer.