UofTMed Summer 2016 University of Toronto Medicine TOMORROW STARTS HERE Toronto is at the forefront of medical research and innovative ideas that are changing the world. Canada’s Downtown is the perfect backdrop for your next congress. Business Events Toronto has all of the tools and resources you need for success. As your partner, we provide complimentary expert advice and professional guidance on the following: • Reviewing and analyzing Conference Hosting Guidelines • Crafting strategic response in conjunction with the local chair and committee • Creating a conference budget (if required) • Customized bid book production PUBLISHER • Coordinated site inspections Linda Quattrin 04 • Complimentary Attendance Marketing Program • Providing information on Canada Customs and Immigration The Great • PR and Media Relations EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Heidi Singer Unknowns We share your passion for success and we will work with you to ensure Medical mysteries that your conference exceeds every expectation. ART DIRECTION + DESIGN keep us up at night. Raj Grainger For expert advice, please contact: ALICE AU CONTRIBUTORS Director of Sales, International Congress 14 Susan Bélanger Business Events Toronto Erin Howe The Secret Dir: 416-203-3819 Barbara Kamienski M: 647-242-9935 Science of John Lorinc [email protected] Beth McAuley World War II Liam Mitchell To join The Leaders Circle, please email: 28 Medical researchers at Carolyn Morris KATHY NICOLAY U of T were engaged in Julia Soudat The Genome Leaders Circle Manager a number of top-secret [email protected] Stephen Strauss Redux projects. The story of one Erich Weidenhammer that saved many lives. BusinessEventsToronto.com For 30 years, reporter Stephen Strauss has — waited for a genomic revolution that lived up to PUBLISHED BY its promise. Is it CRISPR? University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine 6 Queen’s Park Crescent West Suite 306, Toronto, ON M5S 3H2 18 Phone: 416-978-7752 Mystery Facebook: U of T Medicine Devices Twitter: @UofTMedicine Instagram: @UofTMedicine 24 What are these curious YouTube: UofTMed Mystery of medical artifacts? Help the Faulty us identify them! [email protected] Heart Valve The University of Toronto respects your privacy. We do not rent, trade or sell our mailing lists. It took a pathologist to pick out the dangerous pattern. — Printed by Somerset in Canada on Lynx FSC® certified paper. 2 1 Dial M for Medicine “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever More Mysteries observes.” Can’t get Are you a mystery or a history buff? We have a challenge for you! Go online — Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s enough? to help us determine the function of our The Hound of the Baskervilles. antique medical instruments. Share Good. your answers with us on twitter or instagram (@uoftmedicine) or email them What makes for a really good mystery? It isn’t just A mystery is rarely solved by There’s to [email protected]. an interesting question or sparring with a particularly revealing what’s unknown. It’s Guesses will be posted online. Can’t wait evil villain. A good mystery is born from the tension the careful re-evaluation of what’s more to get started? Flip to page 18. that builds as our hero pursues the truth, often right in front of us that makes against the odds. the truth self-evident. What I online! Secrets of WW II see when I look at the Faculty In many ways, that’s what happens every day in of Medicine is a community Military history fans will love reading the Faculty of Medicine. Our students and faculty committed to uncovering facts — about U of T Professor Wilbur Franks don’t just struggle with novel questions but pursue and by doing so, finding solutions and his anti-gravity suit (page 14). Check evidence through research and rigorous examination. to some of the most complex out even more archival photos online They see their fair share of villains, sometimes in the problems in science and medicine. of Franks and the invention that saved form of devious pathogens, but more often revealed And that, to anyone who observes many pilots’ lives during World War II. by a dog that doesn’t bark, like from an Arthur Conan us, is obvious. Doyle tale. Physicians and medical researchers are A Moving Tribute frequently confronted by mysteries that demand not just strong clinical and scientific skills but also a Globe and Mail reporter Ian Brown, the gumshoe determination to uncover the facts. We are father of a special-needs child, brought both Sherlock and Dr. Watson. the house down with his tribute to Denis Daneman, the departing Chair of This issue of UofTMed delves into the realm of Paediatrics, at a recent SickKids event. mysteries to find the inherent drama that rests Read what he said. behind questions and examine how we persevere Trevor Young to reveal the answers. The process is sometimes MD, PGME (Psychiatry) ’88, MSc ’89, PhD ’95 The British Connection frustrating and at other times exhilarating, but it’s Dean, Faculty of Medicine never dull. Vice-Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions Do you know the mystery of the three paintings by Sir Frederick Banting? Read new details about Miss Nancy Archer, the works’ original owner, and go online to see → uoft.me/medmag all three paintings. 3 What makes for a great medical mystery? Seven faculty members share the unsolved cases that keep By Heidi Singer them up at night — and some of the great questions still unanswered in medicine. Where Cancer Doesn’t Tread hy do our muscles almost never get Penney Gilbert cancer? This disease is infamous is an Assistant for becoming very invasive, travel- Professor at ling everywhere in the body — but the Institute for Resisting skeletal muscle is never the place it Biomaterials Wgoes. It’s just this really interesting observation that and Biomedical Our Genetic people have made, and we don’t have an explanation Engineering. for it. As far as I can tell, nobody has dug down and fig- Destiny ured out why, and there might be some important infor- mation to use in the fight against cancer. For example, there could be unique proteins in muscle that prevent here are kids with autism who can cite Stephen Scherer tumour cells from wanting to put down roots in this every name, address and number in a (MSc ’91, PhD ’95) type of tissue. Or it could be something fairly simple — phone book but have trouble tying their is Professor of muscle is always moving, so maybe it’s difficult for shoes. Sometimes I wonder which is the Molecular Genetics cancer cells to enter this tissue. bigger medical mystery — their amazing and Director, Tmemories and motor deficiencies, or everybody else’s McLaughlin Centre; memory deficiencies but adeptness at other, perhaps Senior Scientist, simpler things? The Hospital for Sick Children. Studying the genetics of autism brings up a very fun- damental mystery: Why do some people who have massive genetic irregularities never develop autism (or other disorders), but their children do? This mys- terious ability that some people have to resist their genetic destiny is utterly fascinating. Scientists all over the world are now combing through the genomes of healthy people, looking for those rare ones. These miraculous genomes have learned to resist adversity, so maybe they’ll show us the way. Genetic “resiliency” is perhaps the biggest diagnostic mystery of 21st -cen- tury science — and potentially the key to solving our LONDON LIBRARY, WELLCOME most complex medical questions. THOMAS FISHER RARE BOOK LIBRARY BOOK RARE FISHER THOMAS 6 Solving a 50-Year- Old Mystery few‌‌ years ago, my lab discovered a cru- Richard Hegele cial receptor for respiratory syncytial (MD ’84, PGME ’89) virus (RSV), which frequently causes the is Vice Dean of common cold and serious lung infec- Research and tions like pneumonia. Researchers had Innovation and The Mystery Aknown about this virus since the ’50s, but we hadn’t a Professor in made much progress on a treatment because nobody the Department of the Aging, had identified the molecule that allows the virus to bind of Laboratory to the cell. We looked at our quest as a mystery that Medicine and Failing Brain needed solving — and I believe that mindset helped us. Pathobiology. First we determined the virus sticks to protein, not sugars or lipids. But which one? The cell surface con- ging, failing brains are normal enough — Graham tains thousands of proteins so, we had to narrow it anyone who lives a long time will probably Collingridge is down. We separated cell surface proteins on a gel and feel this decline. Of course dementia is far Professor and got a common “hit” for all the cell types and RSV strains more tragic than “normal” memory loss, Chair of the we tested. We identified the protein we thought was but why should we lose any part of the Department of responsible for these hits, and after a series of experi- Athoughts and memories that make us human? I don’t Physiology. ments using different techniques, we established the think it’s a given that our brains should wear out like evidence that this unusual molecule was indeed an RSV other parts of our bodies. Why should the aging pro- receptor. The answer wasn’t intuitive, but came from a cess wipe out our very identities? great deal of trial and error — gumshoe detective work that solved a 50-year-old mystery. We’ve never solved this mystery, and as a result the medical landscape is littered with failed drugs to treat The main lessons were to keep an open mind, expect dementia. But recently, we have started to take a step the unexpected and understand your tools.