Using stem cells for liver regeneration
Stem cell pioneer Gordon Keller, director of the University Health Network's McEwen Stem Cell Institute, leads a team of eight labs focused on harnessing the liver’s power to regenerate. Read more.
Mapping the liver
The University of Toronto's Gary Bader, along with University Health Network researchers Sonya MacParland, and Ian McGilvray, have collaborated on a world first: generating a “map” of all cells of the human liver. Read more.
Making a bile duct
The University of Toronto's Axel Guenther’s lab has developed collagen tubes that hold potential to be developed into lab-grown bile ducts, with the aim of being able to replace this part of the organ in a patient. Read more.
Studying cystic fibrosis-linked liver disease
Christine Bear's lab at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), along with other labs, is working on treating cystic fibrosis-linked liver disease with regenerative medicine approaches. Read more.
Moving liver cell therapy toward the clinic
Shinichiro Ogawa, a scientist at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute, University Health Network, is focused on the early-stage translation of the liver cells from experiment to clinical application. Read more.
Reprogramming cells in the brain with a gene therapy
A Medicine by Design team is working on reprogramming brain cells — a strategy that has demonstrated brain repair in animal models of stroke. "Think of it as a bespoke strategy for brain repair,” says Maryam Faiz, one of the team's researchers. Read more.
Helping the brain repair itself
Stem cells can repair tissues and organs damaged by acute injury, genetic disease or the aging process. Freda Miller leads a team that is tackling the question of how to activate stem cells to repair the brain on demand. Read more.
“Mini brains” — or organoids — to model disease
A Medicine by Design team lead by Jeff Wrana aims to use organoids to gain unique insights into the human-specific aspects of signaling networks associated with conditions such as autism. Read more.
Electrical stimulation for brain repair
A project led by Cindi Morshead is investigating electrical stimulation's promise for neural repair through promoting neuroplasticity and facilitating neural regeneration. Read more.
An integrated approach to treating blindness
An interdisciplinary team of scientists led by Molly Shoichet is working on a ground-breaking research project to restore vision using retinal stem cells. Read more.
Developing functional pancreatic cells
Cristina Nostro, senior scientist at McEwen Stem Cell Institute, UHN, is a pioneer in developing insulin-producing cells as a cell therapy. She collaborates with UHN’s Sara Nunes Vasconcelos, a senior scientist who’s a vasculature, or blood vessel, expert. Together, they are developing a cell therapy for type 1 diabetes. Read more.
Cloaking insulin-producing cells to evade the immune system
A team led by Andras Nagy, senior investigator at Sinai Health System, has been developing a method called cloaking to enable treatments for type 1 diabetes. The cloaking technology turns off certain genetic switches in the cells to avoid detection and rejection by the immune system. Read more.
Engineering the immune system to accept insulin-producing cells
A team led by Sunnybrook Research Institute’s Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker, is working on immune-engineering techniques to enable a treatment for type 1 diabetes. The team’s strategy is to finely tune the immune system to maintain a healthy system while not rejecting a therapeutic transplant. Read more.
A targeted immune-cell therapy for diabetes
Sarah Crome, a scientist at UHN, is working on an innovation that could have an impact on type 1 diabetes as well as the success of organ transplants. Her team is testing a new immune-cell therapy approach using a subset of immune cells with anti-inflammatory properties. Read more.
Developing an under-skin delivery method for diabetes therapy
Michael Sefton, scientific director of Medicine by Design and University Professor at U of T, is developing a method to transfer insulin-producing cells to a patient under the skin. Read more.