A generous collaboration for the benefit of children
Eileen Mercier, a former member of the Board of Trustees at University Health Network, recently met with Dr. Ren-Ke Li, who is the Canada Research Chair in Cardiac Regeneration and a senior scientist at the McEwen Centre, in order to discuss his latest initiatives. The result of that meeting is a tissue-engineering project focused on repairing heart damage in children. In total, Ms. Mercier and ING Foundation have jointly donated over $356,000 to this area of research. Through that support, three significant research papers have been published, and data presented in them is currently being used in clinical trials in Japan.
Photo – Dr. Ren-Ke Li
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Endowed Chairholder and Fellowship at the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine
Endowed Chairs, Professorships, Directorships and Fellowships are established to provide a perpetual source of income to support our top medical and scientific minds. We thank those donors who have made an invaluable contribution to the ongoing and future needs of our Hospitals.
Robert R. McEwen Chair in Cardiac Regenerative Medicine
Dr. Rüdiger von Harsdorf
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Fellowships – St. George’s Society of Toronto Fellowship in Regenerative Medicine
McEwen Fellowships support work of promising young scientists
Over a period of three years, the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine has awarded $600,000 in grants to support leading research. These grants fund the work of four young scientists pursuing postdoctoral research in the labs of McEwen scientists.
Award recipients include:
- Dr. Laurent Balenci, who is evaluating the regenerative potential of retinal stem cells with the hope of generating findings that could lead to treatments for blindness.
- Dr. Yakov Lipitsky, who is working to develop tools to activate neural stem cells to help restore nerve function after stroke.
- Dr. Erica Nieuwenhuis, who will be characterizing dermal stem cells, which develop into skin cells, in order to understand their potential to regenerate damaged skin.
- Dr. Christopher Sturgeon, who is studying the process of generating blood and heart cells from mouse and embryonic stem cells, which could ultimately provide an abundant supply of cells for therapeutic testing.
Six additional fellowships will be awarded over the next two years.
