Congratulations to Dr. Sara Nunes Vasconcelos, a scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, for receiving the John Kitson McIvor Chair in Diabetes Research. This endowed Chair was established in 2007 to support research at UHN that will advance diabetes care.
Dr. Vasconcelos has built a translational research program at the interface of biology, medicine, and engineering with the goal of uncovering the cellular and molecular mechanisms of diabetes, identifying novel therapeutic targets, and developing potential treatments for diabetes and diabetes-associated cardiac dysfunction.
Congratulations to Dr. Luka Milosevic, a scientist with UHN's CRANIA Institute, an affiliate scientist at the KITE Research Institute at UHN and a scientist at the Krembil Brain Institute at UHN, for receiving the 2022 Banting-Dystonia Medical Research Discovery Award.
The award, given to just six researchers across Canada annually, is a one-year grant of up to $30,000 to support research related to understanding the causes, mechanisms, prevention, and treatments which could potentially enable medical breakthroughs and transformative healthcare advances relating to dystonia, a disorder characterized by involuntary muscle contractions that cause slow repetitive movements or abnormal postures.
Dr. Milosevic received his PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of Toronto, after which he pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at University of Tübingen Institute in Germany for neuromodulation and neurotechnology. The main interests of his research include neurophysiological mechanisms of action of deep brain stimulation, synaptic plasticity, and pathophysiological processes in Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders.
