Messages
Message From the President and CEO,
and Chair of the Board
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
David Agnew (left) and Dr. Barry McLellan (right)
At Sunnybrook, scientists and their teams need not look far to find inspiration. As they walk through the halls of Canada's largest single-site hospital to get to their labs and offices, they are reminded time and again of the urgent need for solutions to critical health care challenges.
These challenges are many, and we at Sunnybrook see the most complex of them. Such challenges demand innovation and dedication of the highest order.
We are proud that such is emblematic of the work our doctors, allied health professionals, scientists, and research and hospital staff do every day.
One notable example is found within the Centre for Research in Image-Guided Therapeutics, which we opened in 2012. It brings together scientists and researchers working to invent better ways to detect, diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, musculoskeletal disorders, immune deficiencies, stroke and dementia. The teams are already making advances, such as the completion of Canada's first clinical trial testing focused ultrasound to treat essential tremor.
In another milestone, we opened the Louise Temerty Breast Cancer Centre, the largest of its kind in this country, thanks to a visionary, $10-million donation from Jim and Louise Temerty. It provides expanded areas for specialized clinics, integrated breast imaging research and clinical trials. It will transform breast cancer care.
We celebrate such innovation and dedication thanks not only to the effort of our staff, but also to the support of our funding, government and community partners. As we look back over the last year, we are pleased to share our successes with you, and look forward to achieving many more.
David Agnew
Chair, Board of Directors
Barry A. McLellan
President and CEO
Message From the Vice-President, Research
Sunnybrook Research Institute
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Dr. Michael Julius
Our mandate at Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) is make discoveries and achieve clinical impact—and we're doing it.
Imagine replacing today's model of generalized therapy for all patients with one that treats disease precisely, guided by knowing how a patient will respond based on his or her genetic makeup and medical history. Add to that being able to tell if a therapy is working within weeks, not months, so that doctors can adjust it as quickly, if needed. This is the future. We're making it happen.
We're doing so by developing gene-screening technologies to identify "druggable" disease targets, and inventing imaging tools able to visualize what was once invisible, guide therapy delivery and monitor outcomes, thereby achieving what was "impossible": incisionless surgery.
Our new structure makes possible this work. Our discovery platforms in biological, evaluative clinical and physical sciences collapse barriers among fields and are tethered to the hospital's clinical programs, ensuring efficient translation of results.
Moving discoveries into the clinic is a high-cost, high-risk endeavour that needs private sector support. Our government funders appreciate this and have created enabling partnership programs. We lead in capitalizing on these programs. Last year, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario made a multimillion-dollar investment, one of its largest, in SRI and our company partners. With it, we are developing and commercializing new technologies-the only way to get results to patients.
Welcome to this year's SRI Magazine. We hope you enjoy the stories that aim to share with you our passion for medical science—what we're doing, why it matters and the global impact of SRI discoveries.
Michael Julius
Vice-President, Research
Professor, Departments of Immunology and Medical Biophysics
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
