Trainees present their posters.

Trainees present their posters at the Medicine by Design symposium on Dec. 4, 2018. (Photo by Neil Ta)

More than 350 people attended the third annual Medicine by Design Symposium on Dec. 4, 2018. Focused on cell and gene therapy, the symposium featured four invited speakers — Bénédicte Chazaud (Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), Yvonne Chen (University of California, Los Angeles), Rudolf Jaensich (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Lorenz Studer (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) — as well as Medicine by Design-funded principal investigators from diverse fields.

More than 70 trainees presented posters. Congratulations to the following award winners:

1st place:

  • Suja Shrestha (Santerre lab) “Synthetic Non-Viral Nanoparticles for CRISPR-Cas9 Delivery as Treatment Intervention for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: Cytotoxicity and Transfection Evaluation”

2nd place (tie):

  • Wahiba Dhahri (Laflamme lab) “In vitro matured hESC-derived cardiomyocytes electrically couple and form improved intra-cardiac grafts in injured guinea pig hearts”
  • Margaret Ho (Shoichet lab) “Combinatorial strategies to deliver cells and biomolecules to the retina”

Translation award:

  • Mitchell Doughty (Ghugre lab) “MRI Driven Augmented Reality Guidance System for Targeted Cardiac Procedures”

Thank you to our sponsors, BlueRock Therapeutics and STEMCELL Technologies.

The third annual Medicine by Design symposium was held at the MaRS auditorium in downtown Toronto.
Volunteers help attendees find their name tags at the registration table.
Attendees wait for the symposium to start.
Medicine by Design Executive Director Michael Sefton opens the symposium.
Vivek Goel, vice-president of research and innovation at the University of Toronto, delivers welcome remarks.
Ariana Bradford, outgoing director of strategic planning & operations at Medicine by Design, is recognized for her work with the initiative.
Medicine by Design Investigator and SickKids researcher Julien Muffat moderates the morning session.
Medicine by Design Investigator and University Health Network researcher Stephanie Protze gives a talk on translating human heart development to biological pacemaker therapies.
Michael Laflamme, a principal investigator at University Health Network, gives a talk on heart regeneration with pluripotent stem cells.
Molly Shoichet from the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry and the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering, asks a question after a talk.
Keynote speaker Rudolf Jaenisch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gives a talk on epigenetic regulation in development, aging and disease.
Brendan Innes, a PhD candidate in Gary Bader's lab, asks a question after a talk.
Gordon Keller, a principal investigator at University Health Network, introduces keynote speaker Rudolf Jaenisch.
Laura Prochazka, a post-doctoral fellow, presents a talk on synthetic decision-making gene circuits for differentiation control in human pluripotent stem cells.
Photo of symposium audience listening to a talk.
Suja Shrestha from Paul Santerre's Lab won first place in the poster competition.
Jennifer Mitchell (Department of Cell & Systems Biology) presents a talk on using CRISPR genome engineering to probe regulatory networks in stem cells.
Trainees present their posters.
Graduate student Elli Kubarakos presents her poster.
Trainees present their posters.
Two trainees talk at the symposium.
Trainees present their posters.
Invited speaker Lorenz Studer (left) waits to give his talk on cell and gene therapy for regenerative medicine.
Medicine by Design Investigator and SickKids researcher Yun Li gives a talk on modelling human development and diseases in neurons and brain organoids.
Alain Dabdoub from Sunnybrook Research Institute gives a talk on endogenous regeneration of auditory neurons for the treatment of hearing loss.
Symposium volunteer and graduate student Aaron Trotman-Grant gets read to throw a microphone during a question-and-answer session.
Wahiba Dhahri from Michael Laflamme's lab tied for second place in the poster award competition.
Invited speaker Bénédicte Chazaud (Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1) talks with symposium attendees during a break.
Post-doctoral fellow Laura Prochazka (left) and PhD candidate Ashton Trotman-Grant talk during a break.
Alán Aspuru-Guzik from the departments of Chemistry and Computer Science at the University of Toronto, talks about artificial intelligence methods for generating drug candidates.
Invited speaker Yvonne Chen from the University of California, Los Angeles, delivers her talk.
Sarah Crome (right), a Medicine by Design Investigator at University Health Network, answers questions while moderator Melanie Woodin looks on.
Lorenz Studer (left), a keynote speaker from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, talks with Andras Nagy, a principal investigator at Sinai Health System.

All photos by Neil Ta