Gairdner Award / en John Dick and Zulfiqar Bhutta win Canada Gairdner Awards /news/john-dick-and-zulfiqar-bhutta-win-canada-gairdner-awards <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">John Dick and Zulfiqar Bhutta win Canada Gairdner Awards</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/John%20Dick%20and%20Zulfiqar%20Bhutta%20-%20Gairdner%202022.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=yHyNx4I5 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/John%20Dick%20and%20Zulfiqar%20Bhutta%20-%20Gairdner%202022.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=LWdfnd73 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/John%20Dick%20and%20Zulfiqar%20Bhutta%20-%20Gairdner%202022.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=Bq5oNcOF 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/John%20Dick%20and%20Zulfiqar%20Bhutta%20-%20Gairdner%202022.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=yHyNx4I5" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2022-04-05T09:20:56-04:00" title="Tuesday, April 5, 2022 - 09:20" class="datetime">Tue, 04/05/2022 - 09:20</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">John Dick and Zulfiqar Bhutta have been honoured with 2022&nbsp;Canada Gairdner Awards,&nbsp;the country’s most prestigious awards for medical and health science (photos courtesy of Images by Delmar and The Hospital for Sick Children)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jim-oldfield" hreflang="en">Jim Oldfield</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/princess-margaret-cancer-centre" hreflang="en">Princess Margaret Cancer Centre</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/temerty-faculty-medicine" hreflang="en">Temerty Faculty of Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/pediatrics" hreflang="en">Pediatrics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/dalla-lana-school-public-health" hreflang="en">Dalla Lana School of Public Health</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/gairdner-award" hreflang="en">Gairdner Award</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/hospital-sick-children" hreflang="en">Hospital for Sick Children</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/molecular-genetics" hreflang="en">Molecular Genetics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/nutritional-sciences" hreflang="en">Nutritional Sciences</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research-innovation" hreflang="en">Research &amp; Innovation</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/university-health-network" hreflang="en">University Health Network</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Two researchers at the Ƶ and its hospital partners&nbsp;– one a stem cell biologist, the other a global health researcher&nbsp;– <a href="https://gairdner.org/">have been honoured with 2022&nbsp;Canada Gairdner Awards</a>,&nbsp;the country’s most prestigious awards for medical and health science.</p> <p><strong>John Dick</strong>&nbsp;was recognized with a Gairdner International Award&nbsp;for the discovery of leukemic stem cells and later work on the diagnosis and treatment of acute myeloid leukemia. He first received the news from&nbsp;<strong>Janet Rossant</strong>,&nbsp;president and scientific director of the Gairdner Foundation, earlier this year.</p> <p>“When Janet called, it was definitely an ‘Oh my gosh’ moment,” said Dick, a professor of&nbsp;molecular genetics&nbsp;at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and a senior scientist at&nbsp;Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network.</p> <p>“I recall being asked to sit on an evaluation panel for the Gairdners in the early 1990s, not long after setting up my lab in Toronto. That seemed like the epitome of achievement&nbsp;and I never imagined in my wildest dreams that one day I’d receive a Gairdner award.”</p> <p>The John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award went to <strong>Zulfiqar Bhutta</strong>&nbsp;for his research on community-based and policy interventions in child and maternal health, especially among vulnerable populations.</p> <p>“I’m very pleased and grateful,” said Bhutta, a professor in the departments of&nbsp;nutritional sciences&nbsp;and&nbsp;pediatrics&nbsp;at Temerty Medicine and at the&nbsp;Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the director of the&nbsp;Centre for Global Child Health&nbsp;and a senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children.</p> <p>“There are not many awards for research in global or public health, and the Gairdners occupy a special place in Canada and globally,” said Bhutta, who moved to Toronto in 2013 and maintains a research group at the&nbsp;Aga Khan University&nbsp;in Pakistan. “It really is a pinnacle and most humbling.”&nbsp;</p> <h4>John Dick: Growing Toronto’s stem cell legacy</h4> <p>Dick and his lab were the first to discover and describe leukemia stem cells, which can self-renew and drive both cancer growth and relapse after treatment.</p> <p>Those findings have led to new clinical approaches for acute myeloid leukemia and related blood cancers, and spurred research on the role of stem cells in solid tumours of the colon, breast and brain, among other sites.</p> <p>Dick said he didn’t set out to discover leukemia stem cells, but instead began by “plugging away” at basic science on the blood system in mice, experimenting with ways to put genes into stem cells.</p> <p>In a key advance in the late 1980s, Dick’s lab developed a way to transplant human blood stem cells into immune-deficient mice. This “xenograft assay” was a world-first&nbsp;and enabled Dick and other researchers to track and test the human cells’ growth and replication, albeit in the living system of the mouse.</p> <p>At the same time, Dick’s lab created the first xenograft models of human leukemia&nbsp;and developed a method to purify leukemia stem cells, allowing for detailed comparisons of those cells and leukemia cells without stem-like properties.</p> <p>“Most people thought those early experiments wouldn’t work,” said Dick. “But lo and behold some of them worked beautifully, and we were able to characterize leukemia stem cells and non-stem cells. Leukemia is a caricature of normal development&nbsp;and we exploited that.”</p> <p>Dick and his team began counting individual cells – much like&nbsp;<strong>James Till</strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Ernest McCulloch</strong>&nbsp;after their discovery of stem cells in Toronto in 1961, Dick noted. They made the startling finding that stem cells are extremely rare in acute myeloid leukemia&nbsp;– roughly one in a million, in a given population of leukemia cells.</p> <p>They later found that relapse of acute myeloid leukemia is linked to the survival of leukemia stem cells after therapy&nbsp;and, using patient blood samples, they showed that leukemia stem cells that cause relapse are already present in the blood the day the patient first shows up at the clinic and before therapy begins.</p> <p>Dick’s lab eventually developed a 17-gene “stemness score” that physicians use to predict patient risk and outcomes, which increasingly helps guide therapeutics. “It’s a new kind of approach for effective patient-specific intervention, which is gratifying,” Dick said.</p> <p>Dick credits many colleagues for his successes, starting with the trainees in his lab. He said their technical skills and passion were critical, and&nbsp;that their ideas were often essential.</p> <p>“For most of our findings, no one had the right ideas,” Dick said. “We just threw our thoughts in a melting pot – the good and the bad, and the resulting fusion took us in completely unexpected directions. In that intellectual foment, trainees have contributed so much. They’ve been the best post-docs and graduate students you could imagine.”</p> <p>He also thanked his clinical collaborators at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and other hospitals, as well as his colleagues at U of T.</p> <p>“Human disease is the best sourcebook for raising and testing research questions, so I needed that constant interchange with clinicians,” Dick said. “But I benefited hugely from the intellectual rigour and collegiality of my colleagues in molecular genetics. I don’t think I could have done this work anywhere but Toronto.”</p> <h4>Zulfiqar Bhutta: Thinking big for the smallest and vulnerable</h4> <p>Bhutta’s career began in neonatology in Pakistan, but he soon expanded his focus beyond infants.</p> <p>“I realized you can’t work with babies without working with mothers&nbsp;– and the moment you start working with mothers, you get to social determinants of health,” said Bhutta, the first U of T faculty member to win the John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award.</p> <p>For more than three decades, Bhutta’s research has influenced policy and practice in global child and maternal health through implementation science, research synthesis and trials, as well as studies of malnutrition and obesity, among other approaches. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>“I’ve learned as I went along, but I’ve been fortunate to work in a variety of areas, often on large-scale projects, with opportunities to make a difference in the short- and long-term,” said Bhutta, who is also affiliated with U of T’s Joannah &amp; Brian Lawson Centre for Child Nutrition.</p> <p>Bhutta and his colleagues at Aga Khan University provided some of the first scientific evidence on the impact of “lady health workers” in community-based interventions in Pakistan. The government of&nbsp;Benazir Bhutto began employing the workers in the mid-1990s, with the goal of reducing child and maternal risk factors and deaths.</p> <p>Bhutta and his team helped evaluate those interventions in a series of cluster randomized trials – a method common in public health that allows researchers to compare program impacts across groups or clusters of people. Among their findings: using chlorhexidine for cord care during home births reduced neonatal infection and death&nbsp;– and public-sector community health workers working in rural populations could indeed help reduce perinatal fatalities.</p> <p>They also showed that when women began to visit health facilities, facility-based births increased. Moreover, they found that women’s embrace of the community health system did not falter after the formal period of the intervention ended.</p> <p>“That’s diffusion of innovation, when improvements become ingrained,” said Bhutta. “People said that women would suffer de-development after the initial intervention, but that did not happen. The lesson was that when you increase capacity around women’s health, you can move away and they never look back.”</p> <p>Bhutta and his team provided evidence for expansion of the community-based worker model in Pakistan and countries in the Global South, but their work also highlighted the limits of what those workers can achieve.</p> <p>“You can’t do much about a woman who is bleeding to death without access to a facility with a blood bank,” Bhutta said. “I’ve seen many efforts to upgrade community interventions to physician-level care fall flat&nbsp;because community workers are not physicians.”</p> <p>Many of those failures were closely linked to social determinants of health, Bhutta said. He recalled that in a Pakistani hospital where his wife worked in the 1990s, pregnant women kept arriving dead at the hospital&nbsp;despite living just a few kilometres away. It turned out the delays were often due to an imbalance in decision-making power between males in females,&nbsp;a lack of money for transport&nbsp;or misunderstanding of the severity of the medical crisis.</p> <p>“These problems don’t have a biomedical solution,” said Bhutta. “They need education, women’s empowerment, and building social and economic resources at the community level.”</p> <p>Today, Bhutta continues to pursue research on child and maternal health in the Global South&nbsp;and among marginalized populations in high-income countries. But he is broadening his focus further to address another social determinant of health: climate change.</p> <p>“I would like to work on solutions to climate change for the poorest of poor before countries agree and develop policy,” said Bhutta. “People are dying now&nbsp;from food shortages and heat shocks. I want to help bring communities together on a self-help basis&nbsp;to promote innovations without the need for external supports. Watch that space.”</p> <p>The Gairdner Foundation was established in 1957 to recognize research that impacts human health&nbsp;and has since given 402 awards to scientists around the world. About a quarter of those researchers later received Nobel Prizes. The foundation gives seven awards annually. Each recipient receives $100,000&nbsp;and participates in public lectures, research symposia and other outreach events. The foundation is supported by the Government of Canada.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Tue, 05 Apr 2022 13:20:56 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 173976 at U of T’s Lewis E. Kay named Canada Gairdner International Award Laureate /news/u-t-s-lewis-e-kay-named-canada-gairdner-international-award-laureate <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">U of T’s Lewis E. Kay named Canada Gairdner International Award Laureate</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-03-27-kay-sized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=JPlSB4-X 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2017-03-27-kay-sized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=VCj1I30S 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2017-03-27-kay-sized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=XvdRW_JH 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-03-27-kay-sized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=JPlSB4-X" alt="photo of Kay"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>lanthierj</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-03-28T09:01:50-04:00" title="Tuesday, March 28, 2017 - 09:01" class="datetime">Tue, 03/28/2017 - 09:01</time> </span> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/erin-howe" hreflang="en">Erin Howe</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Erin Howe</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-medicine" hreflang="en">Faculty of Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/gairdner-award" hreflang="en">Gairdner Award</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/awards" hreflang="en">Awards</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Ƶ Professor <strong>Lewis E. Kay</strong> has been named a 2017 Canada Gairdner International Award laureate. The Gairdner Awards – Canada’s highest prize for medical science – are often a forerunner to the Nobel Prize. &nbsp;</p> <p>He is recognized for his role in developing modern nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy which is used to study the structure and dynamics of large molecules like proteins. His findings have applications for molecular machines and rare protein conformations.&nbsp;</p> <p>Kay’s methods allow researchers to see how the &nbsp;shapes of molecules change over time, a process that allows molecules to function. The result is new insight into the flexible nature of protein structure and how important that flexibility is to function and malfunction. Findings from the Kay lab could pave the way for drug targeting.&nbsp;</p> <p>Kay holds the title of <a href="http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/awards/uprofessors.htm">University Professor</a> – the highest faculty rank U of T bestows – and is appointed to the departments of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular genetics. He is also a Senior Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). His open source approach to research has allowed hundreds of scientists in academia and industry to use NMR methods developed by the Kay team.&nbsp;</p> <p>“I am honoured by this recognition and am proud to be doing work that advances knowledge of how proteins change shape to affect our health while also setting the stage for further investigation,” says Kay.</p> <p>Kay is one of two Canadians among the seven researchers recognized by the Gairdner Awards this year. He is one of five researchers being honoured this year with a Canada Gairdner International Award, which is given to biomedical scientists who have made original contributions to medicine, increasing understanding of human biology and disease.&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/gairdners-awards-2017-winners-medical-science/article34433286/"><u>Read the <em>Globe and Mail </em>article</u></a></h3> <h3><a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/2-canadians-win-gairdner-awards-for-contributions-to-medical-science-1.3343699"><u>See the CTV story</u></a></h3> <p>Earlier this year, Kay was named Officer of the Order of Canada. Over the course of his career, he has been honoured with several awards including the Merck Frosst Award, the Steacie Prize from the National Research Council of Canada, the Flavelle Medal from the Royal Society of&nbsp;Canada, the Founders Medal from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems and the Gunther Laukien Prize. Kay is also a member of the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society (London). In 2005, Kay was listed in the Institute of Scientific Information’s database of Highly Cited Researchers.</p> <p>“On behalf of the Ƶ, I am proud to extend congratulations to Professor Kay for this well-deserved recognition by the Gairdner Foundation,” says Professor <strong>Vivek Goel</strong>, vice-president, research and innovation. “Not only are Professor Kay’s findings providing new insight into key regions within molecules for possible drug targets, his research could have implications for a variety of diseases like cancer, ALS, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”&nbsp;</p> <p>To date, more than 325 researchers have been recognized with a Canada Gairdner International Award. More than a quarter of those award recipients have later won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Dr. Kay’s groundbreaking discoveries in molecular biochemistry and medical imaging science have advanced our knowledge of protein structure and function, giving us a deeper understanding of diseases and potential therapies,” says Dr. Michael Apkon, president and CEO of SickKids. “On behalf of the entire SickKids community, I congratulate Dr. Kay for being recognized as a leader in medical science with this prestigious award.”</p> <p>The announcement was made this morning at the Toronto Reference Library.&nbsp;</p> <p>Each year, the Gairdner Foundation honours biomedical researchers in three categories for their contributions to medicine. In addition to five international awards, one award is given to a scientist who has demonstrated outstanding national leadership in medicine and medical science in Canada. And a global health award goes to a scientist whose advances have (or potentially will have) a significant impact on health outcomes in the developing world. Each award is for $100,000.</p> <p>This year’s awardees will be celebrated at an annual black-tie gala at the Royal Ontario Museum in October.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Tue, 28 Mar 2017 13:01:50 +0000 lanthierj 106231 at