With a mission to support novel approaches to managing and preventing heart failure, the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research uses its Innovation Fund to propel emerging research with great potential. The 2024-25 Innovation Fund Seed Grants are currently open and you...
The Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research is delighted to welcome Iris Cohn as the new Innovator in Genomic Translation - also recently promoted to Director of the Pharmacogenetics (PGx) Program at The Hospital for Sick Children. A trained pharmacist, Iris established...
NorthMiRs Inc., an innovative cardiovascular biotech start-up, has won $250,000 in funding from the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research’s Entrepreneurship for Cardiovascular Health Opportunities (ECHO) PITCH 2024 competition. Since its launch in 2018, the ECHO...
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most commonly occurring birth anomaly. Despite a strong genetic basis, almost 90% of cases remain genetically undiagnosed. However, the surge of new technology is enabling a search for hidden gene defects not detectable on...
Entrepreneurship for Cardiovascular Health Opportunities (ECHO) is a 12-month national training program supporting cardiovascular research commercialization through education, mentorship, networking, and funding. Led by a diverse team of experts, ECHO fosters...
Entrepreneurship for Cardiovascular Health Opportunities (ECHO) is a 12-month national training program supporting cardiovascular research commercialization through education, mentorship, networking, and funding. Led by a diverse team of experts, ECHO fosters...
The Ted Rogers Centre funds two biobanks containing extensive collections of human blood and cardiovascular tissue specimens at our children and adult hospital partners.
We recognize a biobank’s extraordinary and unique value in spurring the types of novel research ideas we need to combat heart failure. Both rich repositories contain associated sample data and are managed according to professional standards.
We thank patients who have contributed their own biospecimens for their voluntary support of heart failure research.
The SickKids Heart Centre Biobank, funded by the Ted Rogers Centre, is among the largest international biorepositories for childhood onset heart disease in the world. It was established in 2008, the first of its kind in Ontario.
The biobank has over 10,000 participants of all ages, spanning children and adults, and involves multiple sites across Ontario. It provides researchers and clinicians access to vital genetic samples and data – an invaluable resource for studying the genetic and environmental causes of heart failure, pursuing personalized care, and developing new treatments.
Samples from over half of participants have already been accessed in support of over 70 studies locally, nationally and internationally.
The Peter Munk Cardiac Centre Cardiovascular Biobank is a key resource in empowering translational research within and beyond the Ted Rogers Centre. It is one of the first biobanks registered with the Research Ethics Board and includes an oversight committee staffed by experts in various disciplines who can judge the quality and validity of any proposed study.
As of 2022, the biobank team had consented 17,000 patients from 12 clinics across University Health Network. It now stores over 275,000 of their samples – a figure that rises by about 50,000 each year.
Through such patient participation, the biobank can support investigators seeking to decipher how heart disease progresses at molecular and genetic levels, discover new biomarkers for diagnostic and prognostic purposes, and identify new therapeutic targets. It is now used as a service for a wide variety of clinical trials.
