38th Gallie Day: Gallie-Bateman & McMurrich Research Day 2012

Benjamin Alman with Gallie on the background

As surgeons, we remove diseased parts of the body or perform operations to improve function. The field of regenerative medicine focuses on how we can harness the inherent ability of cells to rebuild body parts or improve the function of degenerating organs. Knowledge from regenerative medicine has tremendous potential to improve outcome in surgical patients. This includes using cells in tissue engineering to build new parts outside of the body and then surgically implant them, as well as harnessing progenitor or stem cells to repair or rebuild tissue in-vivo. Members of our faculty have made important inroads into making regenerative medicine a clinical reality, and we learned of their work at this year’s Gallie Day, whose theme was "Building Better Bodies: Regeneration and Tissue Engineering and Surgery".

Abdallah Daar

The day included a symposium in which several of our faculty members reported on advances in diverse areas in regenerative medicine. Participants included Abdallah Daar (Chief, Science & Ethics Officer, Grand Challenges Canada, Professor of Public Health Sciences and Surgery, U of T), who spoke on how regenerative medicine can improve health internationally, and brought up important ethical issues related to the field. Rita Kandel (Chief, Dept of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital; Professor, Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, cross appointed to Surgery, U of T), spoke on her team’s work developing a biologic joint, which could be a longer lasting solution to joint degeneration than conventional total joint replacements. Michael Sefton (University Professor, IBBME, Michael E. Charles Professor, Dept of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, U of T), spoke on rebuilding blood vessels and the importance of vascularity in regenerating multiple organs in the body. Thomas Waddell (Pearson- Ginsberg Chair, Division of Thoracic Surgery, Thomson Family Chair in Translational Research, Dept of Surgery, U of T), spoke on the use of multiple approaches in regenerative medicine to improve outcome in a variety of lung and respiratory diseases. All of the panelists demonstrated an impressive depth and breadth of work in this field, and gave a fascinating glimpse into how their work will revolutionize surgical care in the near future.

Professor Philippe Menasché and Dr. Rosalind Bradford

Professor Philippe Menasché, (Unité de Chirurgie Cardiaque, Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Paris, France) was this year’s GORDON MURRAY LECTURER. His talk was entitled, "Stem cells for the treatment of heart failure: What is still missing for a prime time use?". He outlined the journey that he and others took to study the role of stem cells in cardiac regeneration, and develop their use in the clinic. In addition to his exciting talk and the impact of his work, he gave a touching thank you for his invitation, and for all the help Canada provided to France historically, especially in the Second World War.

There were 10 platform presentations and 46 poster presentations from trainees working with our faculty members. The Gallie Bateman Awards (for Surgeon Scientist Program participants) and the McMurrich Awards (for any trainee working with a member of the faculty of surgery) were judged for both platform presentations and poster presentations. The multiplicity of the topics and researchers highlighted the diversity and high quality of the research being conducted in our Department.

Jonathan Yeung

The Gallie Bateman Award for best work by a trainee in the Surgeon Scientist Program 1st prize went to Jonathan Yeung for his oral presentation "Ex vivo lung perfusion for evaluation and repair of donor lungs for transplantation" (Supervisor: Shaf Keshavjee); 2nd prize tie went to Lakhbir Sandhu for "Separating the wheat from the chaff: Empirically identifying the characteristics of high quality non-randomized studies" (co-authors: George Tomlinson, Erin Kennedy, Alice Wei, Nancy Baxter, [supervisor: David Urbach]), for her poster presentation and to Francis Zih: "Polo-like kinase 4 enhances cancer cell motility and invasion" (Supervisor: Carol Swallow), for his oral presentation; 3rd prize oral presentation award went to Nathan Perlis: "Radical cystectomy with perioperative chemotherapy vs. selective bladder preservation with radiation therapy for muscle- invasive bladder cancer: A decision analysis" (Supervisor: Antonio Finelli).

(from left to right) Francis Zih, Lakhbir Sandhu and Ben Alman

(from left to right) David Shih Shabana, Ben Alman and Shabana Amanda Ali

Mojgan Hodaie with Bernard Langer

1st prize tie for the McMurrich Award (for research by a trainee not in the Surgeon Scientist Program) was awarded to David Shih (supervisor: Michael D. Taylor): "Genomic copy-number profiling identifies actionable targets in medulloblastoma subgroups"; and Shabana Amanda Ali (Alvin Lin, Heather Whetstone, [supervisor: Benjamin Alman]): "Identifying hedgehog signaling target genes in osteoarthritis using an optimized method for RNA extraction from human cartilage". 2nd prize three way tie: Julia Izrailit (supervisor: Michael Reedijk): "TRB3 regulates MAPK- and SMAD-dependant notch activation in breast cancer"; Wenxi Gao (supervisors: Mingyao Liu, Shaf Keshavjee): "Alpha 1-antitrypsin improves lung function in a rat lung transplantation model"; Elaine Mau (Yufa Wang, David Wright, David C. Silkstone, Benjamin A. Alman Heather Whetstone, Cari Whyne, [supervisor: Diane Nam): "T-lymphocytes enable osteoblast maturation via il-17f during the early phase of fracture repair". 3rd prize four-way tie: Anna Bendzsak (Nancy Baxter, Gail Darling, Peter Austin, [supervisor: David Urbach]): "Within hospital change in surgical volume and operative mortality in lung cancer: does practice make perfect?"; Crystal Ruff (Hui Ye, Natasha Stribbell, Jean Legasto, Jian Wang, Liang Zhang, [supervisor: Michael Fehlings]): "Stem cell based transplantation strategies for perinatal sub cortical remyelination"; Kathryn Ottolino-Perry ( Nan Tang, [supervisor: Judith Andrea McCart]): "Combined oncolytic virotherapy and chemotherapy treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis"; Alenoush Vartanian (Abhijit Guha, [supervisor: Gelareh Zadeh]): "Metabolic modulation of glioblastoma multiforme (gbm) by depleting hexokinase II: Potentiating the effect of standard therapies".

Teodor Gratcharov with Andy Smith

(left to right) Albert Yee, Robin McLeod and Cari Whyne

(from left to right) David Latter, Nathalie Fazel and Kristen Davidge

Faculty research awards went to Helen MacRae (Surgical Skills Centre Distinguished Educator Award); Mojgan Hodaie (Bernard Langer Surgeon Scientist Award, awarded to an outstanding graduate of the Surgeon Scientist Program in the Department, who shows the greatest promise for a career in academic surgery), Teodore Grantcharov (George-Armstrong Peters Prize, awarded to a young investigator who has shown outstanding productivity during his initial period as an independent investigator as evidenced by research publications in peer reviewed journals, grants held, and students trained), Albert Yee and Cari Whyne (Charles Tator Surgeon Scientist Mentoring Award, to recognize individual supervising participants in the SSP who emulate Professor Tator’s qualities of excellence in research, commitment to SSP mentoring and dedication to promotion of Surgeon-Scientists) and Ren- Ke Li (Lister Prize, awarded to an investigator who has shown outstanding and continuing productivity of international stature as evidenced by research publications, grants held, students trained and other evidence of stature of the work produced). The second Shafie Fazel Award was presented to Kristen Davidge by Nathalie Fazel. The Zane Cohen Clinical Fellowship was awarded to Benedict Rogers and Boris Krischek. Peter Ferguson received the Tovee Postgraduate Prize, and Georges Azzie received the Tovee Undergraduate Prize. Georges accepted his prize via Skype because he was out of our continent.

Ren-Ke Li with Ori Rotstein

(from left to right) Zane Cohen, Benedict Rogers and Boris Krischek

Ron Levine with Peter Ferguson

The 30 judges for the poster competition as well as the timers, who volunteered their time for the poster judging process deserve special thanks, as well as the Research Committee member who reviewed and judged the oral presentations. The day could not have gone as well as it did without everyone’s participation and collaborative efforts. Thanks again this year to Andrea McCart for organizing the poster sessions, Thomas Lindsay and Donna McRitchie for moderating the talks, and Sylvia Perry for her help with the arrangements. A very special thanks goes to Val Cabral for her incredible dedication and hard work to organize the Surgeon Scientist Program, and the day’s organization of Gallie Day.

Val Cabral (with contributions from Ben Alman)