An Evening of Transplant Innovation

For those in need of a kidney or liver transplant, living organ donation may offer a shorter pathway to better health - providing faster access to transplant and a quicker recovery. But there are not enough living donors to meet the need.The Centre for Living Organ Donation was created by UHN Transplant (now the Ajmera Transplant Centre) in 2018 to improve access to living organ donation for people who need a life-saving kidney or liver transplant and those who want to give a transformative gift of life.We raise awareness, provide support, promote research and offer hope to thousands of people who are waiting for a kidney or liver transplant - and everyone who wants to be part of their future.We are located at Toronto General Hospital, a member of the University Health Network (UHN), also home to Toronto Western Hospital, the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, and The Michener Institute of Education at UHN. Toronto General Hospital has been at the top of Canada's Top 40 Research Hospitals list since 2011, and in 2020, was named one the world's Top 10 Hospitals by Newsweek magazine.The Ajmera Transplant Centre is the largest organ transplant program in North America. We also partner with SickKids on the largest paediatric living donor transplant program in Canada.For more information about us and what we do, please visitwww.livingorgandonation.ca.The Centre for Living Organ Donation is funded by theUHN Foundation. Thank you to our generous donors for supporting our work.

The Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN

Hosted by the Centre for Living Organ Donation and the Ajmera Transplant Centre, Canada's largest transplant program.

Join us for An Evening of Transplant Innovation, a discussion between experts from the Ajmera Transplant Centre, the largest and most successful transplant program in Canada. As one of the top three transplant research centres in the world, the Ajmera Transplant Centre has pioneered discoveries that have saved countless lives and improved care for patients everywhere. Some of our firsts in transplantation include:<ul><li>The world’s first successful single- and double-lung transplants</li><li>The development and first use of the Ex Vivo Organ Perfusion System to repair donor organs for transplant – significantly increasing the number of organs available</li><li>Canada’s first living donor transplant to treat metastatic cancer in the liver</li></ul>Moderated by non-directed living kidney donor and journalist Wency Leung, An Evening of Transplant Innovation features speakers Dr. Mamatha Bhat, Dr. Marcelo Cypel, Dr. Ana Konvalinka and Dr. Istvan Mucsi.This event is part one of our Virtual Open House series. Due to Covid19 surge in Ontario, it has been tentatively rescheduled from April 21 to May 19, 2021. <a href="https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/explore-a-career-in-transplantation-tickets-151068571163">Part two will take will focus on careers in transplantation.</a> Both events in our Open House series are free and open to all who are interested.<h3>How To Submit Your Questions</h3><ul><li>You can submit your questions upon registration.</li><li>You can submit your questions in advance <a href="https://app.sli.do/event/cvbhw9e6" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a> or at slido.com with the event code #Transplant</li><li>You can submit your question during the event<a href="https://app.sli.do/event/cvbhw9e6" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> here </a>or at slido.com with the event code #Transplant </li></ul><h2>Speakers</h2>Mamatha Bhat MD, MSc, PhD, FRCPCDr. Bhat is a transplant hepatologist and clinician-scientist within the Multi Organ Transplant Program and Division of Gastroenterology at UHN and University of Toronto. Although short-term survival post-liver transplant, long-term survival has not and is frequently compromised by cancer and cardiometabolic disease including fatty liver in the graft. The pathogenesis of these conditions is poorly understood, and Dr. Bhat’s program is using a combination of Systems Biology and Machine learning tools to layers of data from patient samples, using in vitro and in vivo models for validation. She aims to understand the mechanistic basis of these complications in order to implement precisely designed preventive and therapeutic strategies in liver transplant recipients, helping them to achieve the full potential of their transplant. Her research program has been supported by funding from Canadian Liver Foundation, Canadian Donation and Transplant Research Program,, American Society of Transplantation and NSERC. She was the recipient of the Polanyi Prize in 2020, awarded to promising early career researchers in Ontario.Marcelo Cypel MD, MSc, FRCSC, FACSDr. Cypel is a Staff Thoracic Surgeon at University Health Network (UHN) and an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He is the director of the ECLS program at UHN. He received his MD in 1999 and completed his general surgery and thoracic surgery residency program in 2004. In 2005 he started his post-doctoral research fellowship at the Latner Thoracic Surgery Laboratory. During this time, he developed a new method of lung preservation and donor lung repair called Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion (EVLP). This method is now used clinically in Toronto and in many other centers, and has significantly increased the number of transplantable lungs. He subsequently performed a 3 years fellowship in thoracic oncology, cardiac surgery, and lung transplantation at the University of Toronto. During his training, he has received 13 awards, including the McMurrich Award given for the best fundamental science work by any level trainee in the Department of Surgery and the 1st Annual Zane Cohen Clinical Fellowship Achievement Award. He also achieved a large number of 1st and senior author peer review publications including high impact journals such as Science TM and The New England Journal of Medicine. His main clinical interests are in minimal invasive thoracic surgery for lung cancer, treatment of pulmonary metastases, artificial lung devices and lung transplantation. Dr. Cypel currently holds the prestigious Canada Research Chair in Lung Transplantation from the Government of Canada and he is the principal investigator in very innovative clinical trials, such as the use of uncontrolled donation after cardio-circulatory death for lung transplantation and in vivo lung perfusion with chemotherapy to treat patients with lung metastases. He is a Member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) and a Fellow from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (FRCSC). His list of publications can be found <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=cypel%2Cmarcelo" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here.</a>Ana Konvalinka PhD, MD, FRCPCDr. 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)).Istvan Mucsi MD, PhDIstvan Mucsi, MD, PhD is a CIHR funded clinician investigator, transplant nephrologist at the Multi-Organ Transplant Program and Division of Nephrology at the University Health Network in Toronto. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Toronto. Dr. Mucsi is an "expert advisor" of the Canadian Donation and Transplant Research Program. He received his medical degree (1988) and his certification in internal medicine (1993) in Budapest, Hungary and completed nephrology training at the University of Toronto (1994-1997). Initially he had been working as a general nephrologist but later moved to Montreal to work as a transplant nephrologist at McGill University. He has moved to Toronto in April 2014. His current research focuses on understanding and reducing ethnocultural barriers and disparities in access to kidney transplantation and living donor kidney transplantation. He has been collaborating with multiple community agencies and religious organizations develop culturally and religiously competent kidney transplant education for multiple ethnocultural communities in Ontario. He has adapted a patient education program, called Explore Transplant, for use in Ontario. This program is a key educational tool in the Enabling Access to Kidney Transplant-Living Kidney Donation (ENAKT-LKD) provincial initiative managed by the Ontario Renal Network and Trillium Gift of Life Network. Dr. Mucsi has been co-leading the education pillar of that initiative. He also has a strong interest in psychosocial determinants of health; sleep disorders; quality of life studies and patient reported outcomes. Dr. Mucsi will test the effectiveness of routinely measuring Patient Reported Outcome Measures in the everyday clinical care of patients with chronic kidney disease and solid organ transplant recipients, to improve clinical and quality of life outcomes. He published more than140 peer reviewed articles, his H index is 46. Wency Leung (moderator) Wency Leung is a health reporter for The Globe and Mail, based in Toronto. She is among a team of reporters currently covering the COVID-19 pandemic. <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-i-donated-my-kidney-to-help-a-stranger-but-what-about-the-person-i/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Her left kidney was one of 302 live organs donated in Ontario in 2019.</a>

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