GALLIE-BATEMAN & MCMURRICH RESEARCH DAY 2011
Ben Alman at the podium with William Gallie in the background
The Department of Surgery staff, residents, postdoctoral fellows and students
highlighted their extraordinary level of research productivity in all of our
surgical specialties again at this year’s Gallie Day. The theme was computers
and robots in surgery. The day included a symposium entitled “Making
Surgeons Obsolete: Computers and Robotics in Surgery” chaired by Benjamin
Alman (A.J. Latner Professor, Vice Chair Research). Participants included
James T. Rutka (Chair, Department of Surgery), who spoke inventively about
“Discovery, Invention and Innovation in Surgery”; Ian McKillop (JW Graham
Research Chair in Health Information Systems, Public Health Program and
Executive Director, University Health Research Office of Research, University
of Waterloo) described “Fostering Innovation: Step One – Check the Water”; and
Christian Veillette (Assistant Professor, Orthopaedic Surgery, U of T) explained
“The Emerging Science of Collective Intelligence”. They gave insightful talks into
how to incorporate innovation into our academic surgical practices, and showed
how computer technology can improve patient outcome - for example computer
assisted collective intelligence can identify the best treatments for patients.
Inderbir S. Gill (Director, USC Institute of Urology,
Professor and Chair, Catherine and Joseph Aresty
Department of Urology, Associate Dean (Clinical
Innovation), Keck School of Medicine, University of
Southern California, Los Angeles, CA) gave the Gordon
Murray Lecture entitled “Minimally Invasive Surgery:
Poster-child or Impostor?”.
Jim Rutka, David Latter and Sharon Latter
There were 10 platform presentations and 54 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 topics and trainees
highlighted the diversity and high quality research being
conducted in our department. A new poster judging
system was introduced this year, and the trainees and
judges felt this provided a more thorough evaluation of
the quality of the work.
Adrienne Weeks
Inderbir S. Gill
Sameer Agnihotri
The Gallie Bateman Award for best work by a trainee
in the Surgeon Scientist Program went to Adrienne Weeks’
oral presentation by - “ECT2 and RASAL2 mediate
mesenchymal-amoeboid transition in human astrocytoma
cells” (James T. Rutka, supervisor); 2nd prize to Eisar
Al-Sukhni – “Diagnostic accuracy of MRI for assessment
of T-category, nodal metastases, and circumferential resection
margin involvement in patients with rectal cancer:
A meta-analysis”, Laurent Milot, Mark Fruitman, Joseph
Beyene, Charles Victor, Selina Schmocker, Robin McLeod
[supervisor], Erin Kennedy; 3rd prize ties went to Barbara
Haas: “Survival of the fittest: The hidden cost of undertriage
of major trauma” (Avery B. Nathens, supervisor); Gregory
W.J. Hawryluk: “Remyelination is the key mechanism
underlying functional recovery from spinal cord injury
following neural precursor cell transplantation” (Michael
G. Fehlings, supervisor); Siba Haykal: “Evaluation of the
extracellular matrix components following decellularization
of tracheal allografts in airway transplantation” (Stefan O.P.
Hofer, Thomas K. Waddell, supervisors)
Amparo Wolf with Ben Alman
Antonio Finelli and Bernard Langer
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Michael D. Taylor and Andres Lozano
1st prize for the McMurrich Award (for research
by a trainee not in the surgeon scientist program) was
awarded to Amparo Wolf: “Hexokinase 2 is a key mediator
of aerobic glycolysis and promotes tumor growth
in human glioblastoma multiforme” (with Sameer
Agnihotri, Johann Micallef, Joydeep Mukherjee, Nesrin
Sabha, Rob Cairns, Cynthia Hawkins [Abhijit Guha,
supervisor]). 2nd prize a 5 way tie (this is the first
time this has happened) went to Sameer Agnihotri: “A
GATA4 regulated tumour suppressor axis is disrupted
in glioblastoma” (Supervisor: Abhijit Guha); Aaron
Gajadhar: “In situ proximity ligation-based analysis
reveals aberrant dimerization and activation of epidermal
growth factor receptors prevalent in glioblastoma multiforme”
(Abhijit Guha, supervisor); Vedant Arun: “A
novel NF1-LRPPRC interaction reveals a role in RNA
granules” (with Joseph C.Wiley, Harpreet Kaur [Abhijit
Guha, supervisor]); Crystal A. Ruff: “Stem cell-based
transplantation strategies for sub-cortical remyelination”
(with Hui Ye, Liang Zhang [Michael G. Fehlings, supervisor];
and Nesrin Sabha: “The impact of mutations on
progression-free and overall survival in human low and
intermediate grade gliomas” (with Christiane Knobbe,
Soha Alomar, Rob Cairns, Benca Cako, Andreas von
Deimling, Tak Mak, Sidney Croul [Abhijit Guha, supervisor]).
3rd prize 4 way tie went to Meghan Crookshank:
“Can an atlas-based algorithm quantify femoral shaft
fracture alignment based on a single, cone-beam ct
image of the fractured leg?” (with Emil Schemitsch,
Maarten Beek, Michel Hardisty [Cari Whyne, supervisor]);
Elaine Mau: “SAMD9L – A novel gene mediating
pathogenesis of human osteosarcoma in an in-vitro
model” (with Qingxia Wei [Benjamin A. Alman, Jay S.
Wunder, supervisors]); Stephen C. Mack: “Delineation
of two molecularly and clinically distinct groups of posterior
fossa ependymoma” (Michael D. Taylor, supervisor);
Sean C. Skeldon: “Investigating the risk of bladder
cancer among hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer
(HNPCC) patients with confirmed mismatch repair
(MMR) gene mutations” (with Peter Bostrom, Melyssa
Aronson, Kara Semotiuk, Aaron Pollett, Bas van Rhijn,
Steven Gallinger, Zane Cohen, Neil E. Fleshner, Michael
A. Jewett, Sally Hanna, Cynthia Kuk, Theodorus H. Van
Der Kwast, Andrew Evans, Bharati Bapat [Alexandre R
Zlotta, supervisor]).
Faculty research awards went to Antonio (Tony)
Finelli (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), Michael D.
Taylor (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),
Benjamin A. Alman (Charles Tator Surgeon Scientist
Mentoring Award, to recognize individual supervising
participants in the SSP who emulate Professor Tator’s
qualities, namely excellence in research, commitment
to SSP mentoring and dedication to promotion of
Surgeon-Scientists) and Thomas Waddell (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).
Tailba Alrasheed with a display of her paintings (mainly Arabic calligraphy
with all its different styles)
Mitesh Badiwala receiving the Shafie Fazel Award from Nathalie Fazel and David Latter
Nancy Condo, Val Cabral, Sylvia Perry and James Rutka
The first Shafie Fazel Award was presented to Mitesh
Badiwala by Nathalie Fazel. Zane Cohen Clinical
Fellowship was awarded to Ed Hickey, cardiac surgery
clinical fellow at Sick Kids Hospital. William (Bill)
Kraemer received the Tovee Postgraduate Prize, and
Frances Wright received the Tovee Undergraduate Prize.
At the Gallie day dinner, we had an award accepted using
Skype (another first) and had a wonderful display of
our department member’s artwork again. The scope and
breadth of the creative artistic efforts from our departmental
members was quite amazing. Thanks to Darrell
Ogilvie Harris for organizing the art show.
The 34 judges for the poster competition as well as
the timers, who volunteered their time for this new
poster judging process deserve special thanks. The competition
could not be held without their help (Raghda Al
Atia, Nancy Calabrese-Condo, John Corston, Amandeep
Dhillon, Alina Gaspar, Ronak Ghanbari, Louisa Ho,
Kim Huynh, Raymond Poon, Jason Rockel, Qingxia
Wei). Thanks to the Research Committee member who
reviewed and judged the oral presentations. Thanks to
the Session hosts, George Christakis and Sandro Rizoli.
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 her organizing the
poster sessions 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 organization of
Gallie Day.
Val Cabral (with contributions from Ben Alman)
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