Recognizing Research: 2018 Research Day Award Winners
The Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences hosted its 2018 Departmental Research Day on April 17th, 2018. This annual event features platform and poster presentations by residents, graduate students, PhD candidates, and postdoctoral fellows. The 2018 program featured research on imaging techniques, epilepsy, glioma, neurosurgical techniques, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease, obsessive compulsive disorder, cognition, neuropathic pain, and many more unique and fascinating topics. Dr. Adrianna Ranger, Dr. Rudy Noppens, and special guest Dr. Tom Mikkelsen judged the 20 platform presentations and 29 poster presentations.
The day was concluded by Dr. Tom Mikkelsen, neurologist and President and Scientific Director of the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) who provided the keynote address. Dr. Mikkelsen received his MD from the University of Calgary and completed clinical training in neurology at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Following this, he did post-doctoral training in tumour and molecular biology at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Montreal and then in La Jolla, California.
Dr. Mikkelsen's presentation, titled The Ontario Brain Institute – Team Science for Research with Impact, focused on the OBIs activities in its next phase, highlighting the opportunities for innovating within the healthcare delivery sector for neurologic disorders. Major themes included; the learning healthcare system, data sharing and partnering with academic, corporate and government players. Shared strategies from the CNS cancer experience were also shared.
Research Day concluded with recognition of the best presentations of the day. The Best Neurology Platform Presentation Award went to Dr. Ana Suller-Marti (Epilepsy/EEG Fellow) for her presentation, An assessment on the efficacy of VNS in generalized epilepsy. Best Neurosurgery Platform Presentation went to Dr. Jonathan Lau (Neurosurgery PGY6) for his presentation, Identification of electrode locations within hippocampal substructures using 7-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging. Andrew Deweyert (PhD Candidate) received Best Graduate Student Platform Presentation for his work on Developing novel electrotherapeutic interventions for glioblastoma and pediatric diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. The Best Neurology Poster Award went to Dr. Adrian Budhram (Neurology PGY4) for his poster on Evaluating the positive predictive value of onconeural antibody testing in patients with suspected paraneoplastic neurologic syndromes. The award for Best Neurosurgery Poster went to Dr. Michael Staudt (Neurosurgery PGY5) for his poster on High rate of spinal nerve root stimulation for the treatment of chronic neuropathic pain. Victoria Jaremek (4th year BMSc) received the award for Best Graduate Student Poster for her work Assessing cardiac dysfunction post-stroke in the insular cortex ischemic stroke rat model.
Thank you to everyone who submitted their research as well as the faculty members who have provided guidance and encouragement to these up and coming researchers.
