This interactive session will feature shortlisted research and pilot projects designed to raise awareness, increase access and improve the experience of living organ donation and transplantation.

A distinguished panel will score entries based on the following criteria:

• Importance – is the topic timely? Does it address an unmet need or gap in knowledge or care? Is it relevant to the mission of the Centre for Living Organ Donation or the Ajmera Transplant Centre at UHN?
• Contribution – does the project or research advance our understanding of the topic? Is it new or innovative? Could the findings lead to significant improvements in awareness, access to services, patient care or living donor experience?
• Clarity – Is the research or proposed project presented in an engaging way? Is it described clearly and succinctly? Is there a logical link between research question/goals, methods/activities and findings/outcomes?
• Operationalization – Are limitations and implications well described? Is the workplan reasonable/doable? Are sustainability and replicability considered?
• Popular Support – Showcase viewers may vote online (Youtube thumbs up) for their favourite poster/project. Youtube likes will be taken into account in the selection and final scores of all entries. The top voted video pitch will automatically receive a wildcard spot in the Competition.

Winning pitches will receive up to $10,000 to further study or implement their innovative idea in collaboration with the Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN.

To view shortlisted pitches, click here or tune in at 11:30 AM EST for livestream pitch preview.

• Living Donation TO
• Home-Based Dance Exercise Program
• Scoring System for Waitlisted Liver Patients
• Transplant Talk Peer Education Mobile App
• Kidney Transplant Learning Project
• Enhancing Living Donor Experience Through Peer Support Program
• Examining Disparities in Liver Transplant

Who will win? Join us to find out.

Generously supported by the Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation.

Judges' Panel

Markus Selzner MD

In December 1993 Dr. Selzner graduated from Medical School at the University of Münster, Germany, and pursued a residency in the Department of Surgery at the University of Cologne between 1994 and 1997. In 1997, he went to the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina for a three-year research fellowship focusing on hepatic reperfusion injury. In 2000, he continued my residency at the Department of Visceral-and Transplantation Surgery at the University Hospital of Zurich, Switzerland, and was board certified in Surgery in 2002. After his residency, he completed a clinical fellowship in Liver/Pancreas Surgery and Liver Transplantation in Zürich between 2003 and 2005, and was appointed Assistant Professor of Surgery and Surgical Attending at the University of Zürich in 2003. After his fellowship in Zürich, he completed a second Abdominal Organ Transplant Fellowship at the Toronto General Hospital in Toronto between 2005 and 2007. Following the fellowship in Toronto, he was appointed as Clinical Associate at the University of Toronto in 2007, and promoted to Assistant Professor in July 2009 and Associate Professor in 2015. Currently he is the Surgical Director of the UHN Liver Transplant Program at the Toronto General Hospital/ University of Toronto and the Co-Director of the Abdominal Organ Transplant Fellowship.

Ana Konvalinka PhD, MD, FRCPC

Dr. Ana Konvalinka was recruited in 2015, as a transplant nephrologist and a Clinician Scientist at Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. Dr. Konvalinka completed medical studies at the University of Ottawa in 2003. She then completed internal medicine and nephrology training in Toronto in 2008. She subsequently embarked on a PhD in basic science at the University of Toronto. Her PhD thesis addressed the effect of angiotensin II on the proteome of primary human proximal tubular cells, and the relevance of this effect in vivo. Following completion of her PhD in 2013, she went on to complete the clinical kidney transplant fellowship at Toronto General Hospital. Her main clinical and research interests are in antibody-mediated rejection and kidney allograft fibrosis. She utilizes systems biology approaches and proteomics to enhance the understanding of the mechanisms, derive novel markers and to repurpose drugs for treatment of kidney disease. Dr. Konvalinka is the director of the Multi-Organ Transplant biobank for kidney, pancreas and liver transplant programs. She is also the co-director of the Drug Discovery research group. She has received international research awards (the Human Proteome Project (2016), the American Society of Transplantation Faculty-Development Research Grant (2016) and the Advances in Organ Transplantation Award (2015)) and national research awards (Canadian Society of Nephrology New Investigator Lectureship (2017) and the KRESCENT New Investigator Award (2016)).

Melissa Sidhu

Melissa is a Research Ethics Coordinator, Women’s College Hospital and a Living Liver Donor.

Cristina Howorun

Cristina joined the CityNews team in 2015 and is thrilled to be reporting about her hometown, on a station she grew up watching.

Cristina was born and raised in Toronto and Brampton, but spent the past decade moving around Ontario for school and work. After earning a Master’s degree in Political Studies from Queen’s University and working for the government, she answered her true calling and became a journalist.

Cristina earned a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Ryerson University while flying around in a helicopter delivering traffic reports for a variety of radio and TV stations. After graduating, she worked as a Political Affairs reporter for CTV News Windsor and CTV News London.

Cristina has covered every election since 2008, she’s been embedded with the troops in Mojave Desert, tracked down a suspected terrorist in Libya, exposed shocking levels of abuse and negligence in long-term care homes and shined a light on the dangerous living and working conditions in Ontario’s jails.

She is passionate about holding the government to account and fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves. Her work has been recognized by several organizations, earning her the UNIFOR Southern Ontario News Media Guild award for Labour Journalism, four Edward R. Murrow awards for Investigative Journalism, an RTDNA Canada award for investigative journalism and multiple team awards.

Diagnosed with end stage kidney disease in March 2018, Cristina began peritoneal dialysis that fall. In June 2019, Cristina’s cousin Saved her life by becoming a living organ donor and now Cristina is healthier than she’s been in years.

She lives in the same west-end neighbourhood she grew up in, and can often be seen palling around with her Havanese, Molly.

Submit Your Questions

We will be using Slido throughout Living Donation Week 2020. Slido allows you to submit questions in advance and in real time.

You can submit anonymously or with your name. Vote other questions up or down to determine the order in which they are asked.

Submit your questions here or go to slido.com and enter event code #LU5.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Competition & Pitch Showcase

Q Are you interested in improving quality of care for underserved or marginalized groups?

Q Are you a Canadian student or emerging researcher in kidney or liver disease, medicine, health equity or other relevant topic?

Q Do you have an important research topic or brilliant idea to increase access, raise awareness or improve the experience of living organ donation and transplantation?

If your answer is YES! to at least two of these questions, consider submitting your idea to Innovation in Living Donation Care, Research & Education, a "Dragons' Den" style competition at Living Donation Week 2020.  Submissions will consist of:

• A 2-4 minute video pitch recorded on your computer or mobile device, and
• A backgrounder explaining your study or project and why it merits attention and resources. The backgrounder can be an academic research poster or a PDF document (max 500 words) and optionally, a relevant graphic appropriate for sharing on social media.

All accepted entries will be profiled during the Living Donation Week 2020 Program. The video pitches will be available on the Centre for Living Organ Donation’s Youtube Channel. While there, check out the presentations at last year’s Symposium on Access & Equity in Living Organ Donation.

The top submissions will be invited to participate in an online Dragon’s Den Q & A Session and Awards Presentation to be held on September 18, 2020 starting at 12 noon Eastern.

To increase your chances of being shortlisted for the Competition, submit by the early bird deadline and encourage friends and colleagues to like your project on Youtube in the lead up to the competition.

Why Participate?

In addition to bragging rights for being part of the Living Donation Week 2020 Pitch Showcase, applicants shortlisted for the Competition will be invited to present their project or research before a distinguished panel and a live online audience.

Winning entries will receive planning and implementation support from the Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN, including:

• up to $10,000 to cover costs associated with further research, pilot testing or scaling the proposed project; and/or
• mentorship and support from our distinguished faculty of educators, transplant researchers, and kidney and liver disease specialists.

A total of $17,500 will be awarded by the Judges' Panel, with prizes for the top 3 entries and possibly more, depending on the number and quality of submissions received. Only those who participate in the pitch competition will be eligible cash awards although the Panel may decide to recognize Pitch Showcase participants as well.

Eligibility & Selection Criteria

High school students, students currently enrolled in a Canadian college or university, research and clinical fellows at UHN and beyond, and volunteers and staff of community-based organizations with a presence in Ontario are eligible to participate.

Entries will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Importance – is the topic timely? Does it address an unmet need or gap in knowledge or care? Is it relevant to the mission of the Centre for Living Organ Donation or the Ajmera Transplant Centre at UHN?

Contribution – does the project or research advance our understanding of the topic? Is it new or innovative? Could the findings lead to significant improvements in awareness, access to services, patient care or living donor experience?

Clarity – Is the research or proposed project presented in an engaging way? Is it described clearly and succinctly? Is there a logical link between research question/goals, methods/activities and findings/outcomes?

Operationalization – Are limitations and implications well described? Is the workplan reasonable/doable? Are sustainability and replicability considered?

Popular Support – Poster Showcase viewers may vote online for their favourite poster/project starting on Wednesday September 9. Youtube likes will be taken into account in the selection and final scores of all entries. The top voted video pitch will automatically receive a wildcard spot in the Competition.

Winning projects must be conducted in partnership with the Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN.

Application Process & Timelines

Early bird submissions are due by Tuesday, September 1, 2020. Submissions will be accepted until September 8, 2020. The earlier you submit the more time you will have to prepare.

To apply and submit background materials please visit https://bit.ly/DragonShowcase

Submissions that pass the initial screening will receive an email confirmation of acceptance to the Showcase, ideally within 24 hours of submission.

Entries shortlisted for the pitch competition will be notified within 8 days of submission. For example, those who submit on September 1 will be notified by September 9. Those who submit on September 8, or were selected by popular vote, will be notified by September 17, 12 noon at the latest.

Questions?

Please email us at livingorgandonation@uhn.ca or visit www.livingorgandonation.ca.

Other Sessions You Might Be Interested In

Live Donor Kidney Transplantation

• International Perspectives on Access & Equity in Living Kidney Donation & Transplantation
• ACTION: Improving Access & Equity in Living Donor Kidney Transplantation
• In Conversation with the Kidney Transplant Team
• Living Donor Kidney Transplantation in Indigenous Communities

Live Donor Liver Transplantation

• ACCESS LT: Improving Access to Liver Transplantation in Diverse Communities
• In Conversation with Psychosocial & Ethics
• Sex-Based Disparities in Liver Transplantation & Living Organ Donation
• In Conversation with the Liver Transplant Team

Research & Innovation

• Thought Leadership Panel: The Future of Transplantation & Living Donation
• Innovation in Living Donation Care, Education & Research: Pitch Competition

Lifestyle

• Healthy Eating Pre & Post Transplant & Living Donation: Your Nutrition Questions Answered
• Living Donation & Faith Communities

Celebration

• Living Transplant Podcast: The Gratitude Episode, Letter Exchanges
• In Conversation with Living Donors & Transplant Recipients
• Celebration Event

For more information about Living Donation Week click here.

About Living Donation Week

Please note, event details are subject to change.

Living Donation Week is an online event hosted by the Centre for Living Organ Donation from Sep 14-18, 2020 to raise awareness about living kidney and living liver donation, and celebrate living donors, recipients and everyone who wants to be a part their future.

For more information about Living Donation Week click here.