GALLIE-BATEMAN & MCMURRICH
RESEARCH DAY 2011

Ben Alman at the podium with William Gallie in the background

The Department of Surgery staff, residents, postdoctoral fellows and students highlighted their extraordinary level of research productivity in all of our surgical specialties again at this year’s Gallie Day. The theme was computers and robots in surgery. The day included a symposium entitled “Making Surgeons Obsolete: Computers and Robotics in Surgery” chaired by Benjamin Alman (A.J. Latner Professor, Vice Chair Research). Participants included James T. Rutka (Chair, Department of Surgery), who spoke inventively about “Discovery, Invention and Innovation in Surgery”; Ian McKillop (JW Graham Research Chair in Health Information Systems, Public Health Program and Executive Director, University Health Research Office of Research, University of Waterloo) described “Fostering Innovation: Step One – Check the Water”; and Christian Veillette (Assistant Professor, Orthopaedic Surgery, U of T) explained “The Emerging Science of Collective Intelligence”. They gave insightful talks into how to incorporate innovation into our academic surgical practices, and showed how computer technology can improve patient outcome - for example computer assisted collective intelligence can identify the best treatments for patients.

Inderbir S. Gill (Director, USC Institute of Urology, Professor and Chair, Catherine and Joseph Aresty Department of Urology, Associate Dean (Clinical Innovation), Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA) gave the Gordon Murray Lecture entitled “Minimally Invasive Surgery: Poster-child or Impostor?”.

Jim Rutka, David Latter and Sharon Latter

There were 10 platform presentations and 54 poster presentations from trainees working with our faculty members. The Gallie Bateman Awards (for Surgeon Scientist Program participants) and the McMurrich Awards (for any trainee working with a member of the faculty of surgery) were judged for both platform presentations and poster presentations. The topics and trainees highlighted the diversity and high quality research being conducted in our department. A new poster judging system was introduced this year, and the trainees and judges felt this provided a more thorough evaluation of the quality of the work.

Adrienne Weeks

Inderbir S. Gill

Sameer Agnihotri

The Gallie Bateman Award for best work by a trainee in the Surgeon Scientist Program went to Adrienne Weeks’ oral presentation by - “ECT2 and RASAL2 mediate mesenchymal-amoeboid transition in human astrocytoma cells” (James T. Rutka, supervisor); 2nd prize to Eisar Al-Sukhni – “Diagnostic accuracy of MRI for assessment of T-category, nodal metastases, and circumferential resection margin involvement in patients with rectal cancer: A meta-analysis”, Laurent Milot, Mark Fruitman, Joseph Beyene, Charles Victor, Selina Schmocker, Robin McLeod [supervisor], Erin Kennedy; 3rd prize ties went to Barbara Haas: “Survival of the fittest: The hidden cost of undertriage of major trauma” (Avery B. Nathens, supervisor); Gregory W.J. Hawryluk: “Remyelination is the key mechanism underlying functional recovery from spinal cord injury following neural precursor cell transplantation” (Michael G. Fehlings, supervisor); Siba Haykal: “Evaluation of the extracellular matrix components following decellularization of tracheal allografts in airway transplantation” (Stefan O.P. Hofer, Thomas K. Waddell, supervisors)

Amparo Wolf with Ben Alman

Antonio Finelli and Bernard Langer

Michael D. Taylor and Andres Lozano

1st prize for the McMurrich Award (for research by a trainee not in the surgeon scientist program) was awarded to Amparo Wolf: “Hexokinase 2 is a key mediator of aerobic glycolysis and promotes tumor growth in human glioblastoma multiforme” (with Sameer Agnihotri, Johann Micallef, Joydeep Mukherjee, Nesrin Sabha, Rob Cairns, Cynthia Hawkins [Abhijit Guha, supervisor]). 2nd prize a 5 way tie (this is the first time this has happened) went to Sameer Agnihotri: “A GATA4 regulated tumour suppressor axis is disrupted in glioblastoma” (Supervisor: Abhijit Guha); Aaron Gajadhar: “In situ proximity ligation-based analysis reveals aberrant dimerization and activation of epidermal growth factor receptors prevalent in glioblastoma multiforme” (Abhijit Guha, supervisor); Vedant Arun: “A novel NF1-LRPPRC interaction reveals a role in RNA granules” (with Joseph C.Wiley, Harpreet Kaur [Abhijit Guha, supervisor]); Crystal A. Ruff: “Stem cell-based transplantation strategies for sub-cortical remyelination” (with Hui Ye, Liang Zhang [Michael G. Fehlings, supervisor]; and Nesrin Sabha: “The impact of mutations on progression-free and overall survival in human low and intermediate grade gliomas” (with Christiane Knobbe, Soha Alomar, Rob Cairns, Benca Cako, Andreas von Deimling, Tak Mak, Sidney Croul [Abhijit Guha, supervisor]). 3rd prize 4 way tie went to Meghan Crookshank: “Can an atlas-based algorithm quantify femoral shaft fracture alignment based on a single, cone-beam ct image of the fractured leg?” (with Emil Schemitsch, Maarten Beek, Michel Hardisty [Cari Whyne, supervisor]); Elaine Mau: “SAMD9L – A novel gene mediating pathogenesis of human osteosarcoma in an in-vitro model” (with Qingxia Wei [Benjamin A. Alman, Jay S. Wunder, supervisors]); Stephen C. Mack: “Delineation of two molecularly and clinically distinct groups of posterior fossa ependymoma” (Michael D. Taylor, supervisor); Sean C. Skeldon: “Investigating the risk of bladder cancer among hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) patients with confirmed mismatch repair (MMR) gene mutations” (with Peter Bostrom, Melyssa Aronson, Kara Semotiuk, Aaron Pollett, Bas van Rhijn, Steven Gallinger, Zane Cohen, Neil E. Fleshner, Michael A. Jewett, Sally Hanna, Cynthia Kuk, Theodorus H. Van Der Kwast, Andrew Evans, Bharati Bapat [Alexandre R Zlotta, supervisor]).

Faculty research awards went to Antonio (Tony) Finelli (Bernard Langer Surgeon Scientist Award, awarded to an outstanding graduate of the Surgeon Scientist Program in the Department, who shows the greatest promise for a career in academic surgery), Michael D. Taylor (George-Armstrong Peters Prize, awarded to a young investigator who has shown outstanding productivity during his initial period as an independent investigator as evidenced by research publications in peer reviewed journals, grants held, and students trained), Benjamin A. Alman (Charles Tator Surgeon Scientist Mentoring Award, to recognize individual supervising participants in the SSP who emulate Professor Tator’s qualities, namely excellence in research, commitment to SSP mentoring and dedication to promotion of Surgeon-Scientists) and Thomas Waddell (Lister Prize, awarded to an investigator who has shown outstanding and continuing productivity of international stature as evidenced by research publications, grants held, students trained and other evidence of stature of the work produced).

Tailba Alrasheed with a display of her paintings (mainly Arabic calligraphy with all its different styles)

Mitesh Badiwala receiving the Shafie Fazel Award from Nathalie Fazel and David Latter

Nancy Condo, Val Cabral, Sylvia Perry and James Rutka

The first Shafie Fazel Award was presented to Mitesh Badiwala by Nathalie Fazel. Zane Cohen Clinical Fellowship was awarded to Ed Hickey, cardiac surgery clinical fellow at Sick Kids Hospital. William (Bill) Kraemer received the Tovee Postgraduate Prize, and Frances Wright received the Tovee Undergraduate Prize. At the Gallie day dinner, we had an award accepted using Skype (another first) and had a wonderful display of our department member’s artwork again. The scope and breadth of the creative artistic efforts from our departmental members was quite amazing. Thanks to Darrell Ogilvie Harris for organizing the art show.

The 34 judges for the poster competition as well as the timers, who volunteered their time for this new poster judging process deserve special thanks. The competition could not be held without their help (Raghda Al Atia, Nancy Calabrese-Condo, John Corston, Amandeep Dhillon, Alina Gaspar, Ronak Ghanbari, Louisa Ho, Kim Huynh, Raymond Poon, Jason Rockel, Qingxia Wei). Thanks to the Research Committee member who reviewed and judged the oral presentations. Thanks to the Session hosts, George Christakis and Sandro Rizoli. The day could not have gone as well as it did without everyone’s participation and collaborative efforts, Thanks again this year to Andrea McCart for her organizing the poster sessions and Sylvia Perry for her help with the arrangements. A very special thanks goes to Val Cabral for her incredible dedication and hard work to organize the Surgeon Scientist Program, and the organization of Gallie Day.

Val Cabral (with contributions from Ben Alman)