Researchers at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research have developed an innovative approach to better understanding the complex signaling mechanisms underlying heart failure. A recent publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers...
Theme : Innovation Starts with Collaboration
Tuesday, October 3, 7:30am – 6:00pm
7:30 – 8:30 AM Registration & Breakfast
8:30 – 8:45 AM Opening Remarks & Land Acknowledgement
8:45 – 9:45 AM Session I: Journey Towards Equitable Access to Care
KEYNOTE: Working in Partnership – Indigenous Cardiovascular Care
Bernice Downey, McMaster University
“It Helped Me, Motivated Me And Inspired Me”: Experiences of Adolescent Heart and Lung Transplant Recipients Participating in the iPeer2Peer Mentorship Program
Samantha Anthony, Hospital for Sick Children
Bridging physical and virtual care for heart failure patients in rural Ontario: Facilitators and impacts of Telehomecare adoption for heart failure patients living in rural/remote communities
Aleksandra Stanimirovic & Sonia Meerai, University Health Network
9:45 – 10:00 AM Flash Science Presentations
10:15 – 11:20 AM Concurrent Session II A: Understanding the Cellular Basis of Heart Failure
Scaled Pluripotent Stem Cell Expansion and Cardiomyocyte Differentiation Using the Vertical-Wheel Bioreactor System
Faisal Alibhai, University Health Network
Role of Vascular Progenitors in Cardiovascular Disease: Villain Or Victim?
Mansoor Husain & Tao Wang, University Health Network
Macrophages Improve Function of Immunoengineered Cardiac Microtissues
Homaira Hamidzada, University Health Network
Multifactorial Development of Non-Ischemic Cardiomyopathy
Danielle Altieri, University Health Network
10:15 – 11:20 AM Concurrent Session II B: New Analytical Technologies
MR Imaging of Stem Cells and Biomaterials for Regenerative Medicine
Hai-Ling Cheng & Keyu Zhuang, University of Toronto
Peripheral Blood Flow Measurements from a Smart Watch?
Daniel Franklin & Rawad Alkallas, University of Toronto
Genome-Wide Characteristics of Tandem Repeats in Cardiomyopathy
Ryan Yuen, Hospital for Sick Children
Development of an all-in-one high-frequency ultrasound system to assess the microstructural, contractile, and mechanical properties of engineered cardiac tissues
Joseph Sebastian, University of Toronto
11:20 – 11:30 AM Break
11:30 – 12:30 PM Workshop: Presence, Perspective, and Pace: Understanding the Journey to Care Transformation through Meaningful Partnership
Learning Objectives:
- Apply and integrate different engagement methods for greater inclusivity and representation within clinical tool development
- Implement reflexive approaches to partnership building for more dynamic and sustainable clinical collaborations
Sahr Wali, Mena Gewarges, Jillian Macklin, Sam Petrie, Angela Robertson, Anne Simard, University Health Network
12:30 – 1:20 PM Lunch
1:20 – 2:30 PM Poster Session
2:30 – 3:40 PM Session III: Tools for More Precise & Predictive Care
KEYNOTE: Evaluation of Large Language Models in Clinical Reasoning
Adam Rodman, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Physician Intuition vs Model Prediction to Estimate Mortality in Heart Failure
Ana Carolina Alba & Tayler Buchan, University Health Network
Comparison of Machine Learning and Conventional Statistical Modeling for Predicting Readmission Following Acute Heart Failure Hospitalization
Karem Abdul-Samad, University Health Network
SnakChat 2.0: An AI Based Dietary Mobile Application For Outpatient Monitoring and Up-titration of GDMT in the HFrEF
Tina Marvasti, University Health Network
3:40 – 5:00 PM Session IV: Targeting Metabolism
KEYNOTE: Translating Basic Science for Clinical Impact: From Diabetic Kidney Disease to Novel Therapies for Retinopathy
Susan Quaggin, Northwestern University
Mechanisms of Cardiac Microvascular Dysfunction in Diabetic HFpEF
Jason Fish, University Health Network
TBD
TBD
Metabolic Improvements Induced by Pediatric Cardiac Progenitor Cell Secretomes Enhance Cardiomyocyte Function during Cardiac Ischemia
Fatemeh Mirshafiei, Hospital for Sick Children
Reducing the risks of complex pediatric cardiovascular surgery using GLP-1 peptides
Robert Lao, Hospital for Sick Children
5:00 – 6:00 PM Social Hour & Awards Announcement
Margaret (Hai-Ling) Cheng, PhD
Prof. Cheng is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Trained as an electrical engineer, she worked in industry on synthetic aperture radar surveillance before completing her PhD in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto and spending the next decade at SickKids as an MRI physicist. She joined the university in 2014, where she expanded her suite of quantitative physiological MRI capabilities to target cardiovascular disease. Her current research is focused on real-time MRI, chemistry for molecular imaging, and early diagnostics for heart failure.
Matthias Friedrich, MD, FESC, FACC
Dr. Matthias G. Friedrich earned his MD at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen/Nuernberg, Germany. He completed his training as an internist and cardiologist at the Charité University Medicine Center, Humboldt University in Berlin. He is currently a full professor at the Departments of Medicine and Diagnostic Radiology and acts as Chief of Cardiovascular Imaging and Scientific Director of the Courtois Cardiovascular Signature Program at the McGill University Health Centre. He also has an appointment with the Department of Medicine at Heidelberg University in Germany. He has focused the research activities of his team of 20+ researchers on cardiac MRI of myocardial injury, including acute ischemic and inflammatory conditions.
Milica Radisic, PhD
Dr. Milica Radisic is a Professor at the University of Toronto, Tier I Canada Research Chair and a Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute. She is also the Associate Editor for ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, the Director of the NSERC CREATE Training Program in Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering and Entrepreneurship and a co-Founder and co-Director of CRAFT. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada-Academy of Science, Canadian Academy of Engineering, AIMBE and TERMIS. The long term objective of her research is to enable cardiovascular regeneration through tissue engineering and development of new biomaterials. Her research findings were presented in over 260 publications with h-index of 68 and over 18,500 citations. She is a co-founder of two companies TARA Biosystems, that uses human engineered heart tissues in drug development and safety testing, and Quthero that advances regenerative hydrogels.
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.