On March 5, 2025, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) received a significant breakthrough in pediatric research with an $11.7 million award from Genome Canada. As part of the Canadian Precision Health Initiative, a total of $81 million in...
ECHO Pitch Agenda
Thursday, October 17, 3:00 – 8:00pm
ECHO PITCH 2024 will feature a keynote presentation followed by pitch presentations from our four venture finalists. The event will conclude with a dinner reception and award announcement.
| Time | Details |
|---|---|
| 3:00 – 3:30 PM | Registration & Networking |
| 3:30 – 3:40 PM | Introductions |
| Dr. Soror Sharifpoor Director-Strategy & Translation, Translational Biology and Engineering Program, University of Toronto, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research |
|
| Dr. Derek Newton Assistant Vice-President, Innovation, Partnerships and Entrepreneurship, University of Toronto |
|
| Dr. Mansoor Husain Executive Director, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research |
|
| 3:40 – 4:25 PM | Keynote Presentation |
| Dr. Jennifer N. Avari Silva Director, Pediatric Electrophysiology, St Louis Children’s Hospital Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship and Professor of Pediatrics & Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St Louis Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer, Sentiar, Inc. Co-Founder & Consultant, Excera, Inc. |
|
| 4:25 – 4:50 PM | Break |
| 4:50 – 6:30 PM | Pitch Competition |
| Dr. Soror Sharifpoor Director-Strategy & Translation, Translational Biology and Engineering Program, University of Toronto, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research |
|
| Pitch-1: AVA | |
| Pitch-2: Leynek Medical | |
| Pitch-3: NorthMiRs | |
| Pitch-4: Panorama Health | |
| 6:30 – 8:00 PM | Dinner Reception & Award Presentation |
| Prof. Craig Simmons Scientific Lead, Translational Biology and Engineering Program, University of Toronto, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research |
|
| 8:00 PM | Program Close |
Seema Mital, MD, FACC, FAHA, FRCPC
Scientific Lead, Cardiac Precision Medicine Program
Dr. Seema Mital is a Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologist and Head of Cardiovascular Research at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. She is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto and a Senior Scientist at the SickKids Research Institute. She is also the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada / Robert M Freedom Chair of Cardiovascular Science, and Scientific Lead of the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research. Mital has a strong translational research program focused on genomics, pharmacogenomics and stem cell applications to model childhood heart disease and discover new therapies. She has extensive experience in the genetics/genomics of congenital heart disease and heart failure, personalized medicine and clinical trials. She established the SickKids Heart Centre Biobank, a multi-centre biorepository of children and adults with childhood onset heart disease for genomics research, one of the largest international repositories of its kind. Mital is the Principal Investigator of the CIHR-funded INSERT-HCM multi-centre project aimed at implementing digital health technology, the NIH-funded Pediatric Heart Network for clinical trials, and leads the international ERAPerMed funded PROCEED network for Personalized Genomics in congenital heart disease.