Behind the Breakthrough

We are once again bringing you inside UHN's Krembil Brain Institute – one of North America's largest and most innovative neurological centres – to meet the scientists and physicians advancing discovery, the patients who inspire us and the care teams who support them. This season, we're exploring some big new research in brain health, including: What young women need to know about preventing a stroke? Can loneliness re-wire your brain? And how you can reduce your chances of Alzheimer's. We'll also take you to the forefront of AI-powered brain science, dive into the link between genetics and reading disabilities and find out why getting a good night's sleep is crucial for brain health. There are a million amazing things to know about your complex brain – and we couldn't be more excited to explore them with you. Season 3 launches on March 19, with episodes every other Tuesday. Subscribe to Your Complex Brain so you don't miss a thing.

UHN’s Dr. Gelareh Zadeh sits down to talk about her pioneering research of meningiomas – or skull based tumors, and her discovery of the biology – or makeup – of these meningiomas. She also speaks to her amazing career journey, starting with her family's decision to escape their homeland in Iran following the Iranian Revolution, landing in Winnipeg on a cold Boxing Day in 1988. From their she tracks her successful professional trajectory, and rise as a medical leader - including her appointment as Chair of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto in 2020 - the first woman ever in Canada to lead a university neurosurgical program.

Dr. Howard Abrams leads a team that is pioneering an innovative solution to the gap in housing for older adults, along with providing health supports so that they can age at home with dignity. It’s called NORC – short for Naturally Occurring Retirement Community. What is a NORC? Everything from a co-op to a condo to an apartment building where older people make up the majority of residents. “Most older Canadians want to age in place, they want to age at home…it's where they've lived most of their life, and they know how to do that best,” says Dr. Abrams. So he and a team at the UHN NORC Innovation Centre in Toronto are helping to organize a structure for providing the necessary supports that allow these hubs of older adults to age in place as opposed to moving into a residential home or long term care. In addition to identifying and organizing a building to become a NORC, the UHN NORC Innovation Centre supports can include helping residents get to doctors appointments, and providing medical expertise for mana

In the latest episode of UHN podcast Behind the Breakthrough we feature KITE researcher Dr. Tatyana Mollayeva, who talks about her pioneering research on sleep disruption and its impact on patients with neurological disease and brain injury. Her research, for example, reveals a connection between a patient’s ability to recover from mild traumatic brain injury and sleep disruption, and, she’s been able identify risk factors such as adverse cognitive reactions and loss of reaction time in people with mild TBI who have sleep issues. Dr. Mollayeva also speaks to her role as an educator, and, advocacy work promoting sleep health awareness, including with the World Health Organization where she has pushed for the inclusion of sleep as integral to brain health.   And Dr. Mollayeva reveals her inspiring journey to becoming an award winning research scientist, beginning at age 16 after graduating high school in her hometown of Novyi Rozdil , Ukraine when she left to study the sciences and earn a medical degree in Mosc

Dr. Laurie Ailles is an award winning senior scientist at UHN's Princess Margaret Cancer Center whose pioneering research revealed the origins of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Her discovery is now paving the way towards more accurate and individualized prognoses that better inform potential treatments and improve outcomes for patients with the disease. Dr. Ailles’ also speaks to her career path as a successful medical science researcher, which traces back to her peripatetic childhood journey of living in several countries around the world as the daughter of a CIDA employee. She credits those experiences for shaping her outlook and contributing to her resilience as a researcher.

The human microbiome consists of viruses, fungi, bacteria - even parasites and protozoa - that live on and in our bodies. And today the microbiome is having a ‘scientific moment’. Researchers are testing its uses to improve health, and, as a therapeutic agent to treat everything from bloodstream infection to the ill effects of cancer treatment. In this episode of UHN's ‘Behind the Breakthrough’ leading Canadian microbiome research scientist Dr. Bryan Coburn explains how our understanding of the microbiome is growing exponentially, and the human clinical trials he’s conducting to determine if it can be a therapeutic tool to treat patients.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Cristina Nostro, a Senior Scientist at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute at UHN, on her developments in curing type one diabetes through the use of stem cells. She dives into the uptake of islet transplantation as a treatment option, along with the different methods and technological advancements to improve the life of people living with this autoimmune disease. 

The podcast "Behind the Breakthrough" features Dr. Hance Clarke, an anesthesiologist and director of pain services at Toronto's University Health Network, discussing the challenges of managing pain after surgery. Dive into the consequences of the lack of a protocol and the scope and scale of addiction in Canada as a result of post-surgery pain. Dr. Clarke discusses the need for a balance between patient comfort and preventing addiction, and how his research protocols are used to achieve this balance. The opioid crisis has led to a focus on pain as a part of the process, and how to support patients through the hospital system

On this episode of Behind the Breakthrough, Dr. Mamatha Bhat shares how she and her team of UHN researchers are leveraging artificial intelligence to help predict complications resulting in long-term outcomes for liver transplant patients. This novel, world-first approach has the ability to determine the personalized predictors of outcome for each patient – for example, increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and cardiovascular events are examples of what compromise long-term survival following transplantation, especially after the one year mark. This precision medicine approach can help identify which patients are at risk of which complications to help simulate diagnostic and therapeutic responses from a clinical practice perspective. Dr. Bhat speaks to the journey involved throughout the research process, as well as how she encourages future clinician-scientists to foster resiliency while engaging in their work as well as being opportunistic and creative.

Season 5 launches with an interview with pioneering social medicine advocate Dr. Boozary, who speaks to how UHN is tackling one of the biggest challenges to health for those who are marginalized – homelessness. Dr. Boozary and UHN helped create an ambitious hospital-first in Canada – the construction of a supportive housing site in Parkdale, Toronto. In this wide-ranging and thoughtful interview Dr. Boozary makes the wider case that hospitals must expand their mission and lead innovations in a collaborative way to address the root causes of health problems. And he speaks to the immigrant journey of his Iranian-born parents and how their sacrifice to give him and his sister new opportunities in life shapes the work he does today. 

Season 5 is just around the corner, coming Fall 2023. Until then check-out our friends at UHN's Krembil Brain Institute as they launch season two of Your Complex Brain!  Well, it’s no surprise. Since last season, our brains haven’t gotten any less complex! But that just means there are even more stories to share about the mysteries, myths and science behind how our brains work, and what keeps our brains healthy and fit. On Season 2 of our podcast Your Complex Brain, we’ll highlight the latest research, technology and innovations in brain science by speaking with thought leaders & experts, as well as patients, their families and the dedicated care teams on the front lines of keeping our brains healthy - and fixing them when illnesses arise. This season, we’ll be looking for answers to some pretty big questions – such as, ‘Is stress contagious?’ ‘Why are many women living with brain disease experiencing a delay in diagnosis?’ And, ‘How could advances in technology improve outcomes for patients who undergo d

Renowned UHN surgeon scientist Dr Shaf Keshavjee sits down with Behind the Breakthrough podcast Host Christian Cote’ and takes listeners on a behind-the-scenes journey of his ground breaking medical discoveries – two of which have had a profound impact on lung transplant around the world. For his Master’s thesis in the late 1980’s he developed a lung preservation solution – LDP – which is now the standard for lung preservation worldwide. Twenty years later he followed that up with the invention of a lung perfusion machine that preserves and treats damaged donor lungs outside the body – or ex vivo. The Toronto Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion System has doubled the number of lungs available for transplant and is now in use around the world. Today the system is being tested to treat other damaged organs including the liver, kidney, and heart. In this wide-ranging and revealing conversation Sprott Department of Surgery’s Dr. Keshavjee speaks to the importance of mentorship, the qualities necessary to be a successful scien

Restoring vision for the visually impaired has been a dream of scientists and clinicians for centuries. Neurodegenerative eye diseases like glaucoma or age-related macular degeneration affect visual information processing.  But the visual system in humans is smart–it can compensate for a loss in connectivity caused by disease. The potential for virtual reality cognitive retraining may improve the quality of life in visually impaired individuals. These retraining devices are effortlessly portable; therefore, protocols can be completed from the comfort of someone’s home.

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease with poor survival rates. Huge contributors to this dire outcome are the fact it is typically diagnosed at an advanced stage, has limited treatments, and no cure. This is what makes the discovery of Dr. Rama Khokha and her lab so profound. In this episode of Behind the Breakthrough podcast the senior scientist at UHN's Princess Margaret Cancer Centre walks us through her world first discovery - mapping the biology of a pancreatic cancer tumor. Dr. Khokha found three distinct tumor microenvironments [TME’s] for pancreatic cancer – Resistant; Deserted; and Intermediate. The Resistant TME was found to be the most aggressive, while the Deserted MTE was found to resist - and grow  - during chemotherapy. Dr. Khokha’s mapping discovery now gives researchers a clear understanding of the behavior of pancreatic cancer. It has the potential of far reaching impact – contributing to research for new and improved treatments, the potential for earlier diagnosis, as well applying he

Dr. Lorraine Kalia’s research looks at testing different compounds in C. Elegans and how it can lead to a better understanding of Parkinson’s disease and new therapeutic targets. The best part: some of these compounds are already approved for use in humans. Through Dr. Kalia’s research we may be able to repurpose these compounds for the neurodegenerative condition.

In this episode of Behind the Breakthrough, Dr. Eleanor Fish dives into her groundbreaking research of treating viruses by harnessing a naturally occurring antiviral protein in our body called Interferons. Dr. Fish, an Emerita Scientist at Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, is a world leading immunology researcher and a passionate about the importance of Interferons in fighting pandemics and virus outbreaks such as COVID-19, SARS, and Ebola.

Dr Jonathan Irish was on a path to competing for Canada at the Olympics in the sport of canoeing before he decided helping patients conquer cancer was his chosen path. He reflects on his years as a pioneering researcher and head and neck surgeon, and explains how AI helps surgeons get better results. But, he emphasizes, nothing will ever replace the surgeon. pioneering researcher and head and neck surgeon, and explains how AI helps surgeons get better results. But, he emphasizes, nothing will ever replace the surgeo

Each year over 20,000 Canadians are sustain a traumatic brain injury, which affects an individuals personality, well-being and those around them. In this episode of Behind the Breakthrough, we sit down with Dr. Carmela Tartaglia at UHN's Krembil Brain Institute to discuss her research. The goal: to better understand concussion, their effects and eventually develop diagnostic tools for conditions like Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. 

Being in lockdown is hard. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us that. But for long-term care (LTC) homes – where resources were limited, and public health measures failed to take into account the needs of patients with dementia – lockdown was even harder.   This is what prompted Dr. Andrea Iaboni, a geriatric psychiatrist and clinical researcher at UHN’s Toronto Rehab and Medical Lead of the Specialized Dementia Unit, to develop the Dementia Isolation Toolkit (DIT), a comprehensive guide to caring for long-term care patients amid the pandemic. Her motivation behind it? A commitment to delivering compassionate care to patients with dementia, while also upholding government mandated infection prevention and control measures. Since launching in 2020, the DIT has been downloaded more than 9,000 times across 94 different countries, helping LTC staff care for adults with dementia on a global scale. 

In this episode of Behind the Breakthrough Dr. Gordon Keller talks about his staggering legacy of advancing the field of regenerative medicine, including his lab’s world-first discovery of the hemangioblast. The hemangioblast is the precursor cell that goes on to form blood vessels and other blood cells in the body. That 1997 discovery led to the next step in Dr. Keller's research – successfully ‘differentiating’ or coaxing precursor cells into becoming a specific cell type that could potentially replace or regrow damaged parts of the body. This seminal work laid the foundation for the research he oversees today at UHN’s McEwen Stem Cell Institute harnessing stem cells to repair damaged organs such as the heart, liver and pancreas.