Behind the Breakthrough

We are once again bringing you inside UHN's Krembil Brain Institute – one of North America's largest and most innovative neurological centres – to meet the scientists and physicians advancing discovery, the patients who inspire us and the care teams who support them.

This season, we're exploring some big new research in brain health, including: What young women need to know about preventing a stroke? Can loneliness re-wire your brain? And how you can reduce your chances of Alzheimer's.

We'll also take you to the forefront of AI-powered brain science, dive into the link between genetics and reading disabilities and find out why getting a good night's sleep is crucial for brain health.

There are a million amazing things to know about your complex brain – and we couldn't be more excited to explore them with you. Season 3 launches on March 19, with episodes every other Tuesday. Subscribe to Your Complex Brain so you don't miss a thing.

UHN’s Dr. Gelareh Zadeh sits down to talk about her pioneering research of meningiomas – or skull based tumors, and her discovery of the biology – or makeup – of these meningiomas. She also speaks to her amazing career journey, starting with her family's decision to escape their homeland in Iran following the Iranian Revolution, landing in Winnipeg on a cold Boxing Day in 1988. From their she tracks her successful professional trajectory, and rise as a medical leader - including her appointment as Chair of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto in 2020 - the first woman ever in Canada to lead a university neurosurgical program.

Dr. Howard Abrams leads a team that is pioneering an innovative solution to the gap in housing for older adults, along with providing health supports so that they can age at home with dignity. It’s called NORC – short for Naturally Occurring Retirement Community. What is a NORC? Everything from a co-op to a condo to an apartment building where older people make up the majority of residents. “Most older Canadians want to age in place, they want to age at home…it's where they've lived most of their life, and they know how to do that best,” says Dr. Abrams. So he and a team at the UHN NORC Innovation Centre in Toronto are helping to organize a structure for providing the necessary supports that allow these hubs of older adults to age in place as opposed to moving into a residential home or long term care. In addition to identifying and organizing a building to become a NORC, the UHN NORC Innovation Centre supports can include helping residents get to doctors appointments, and providing medical expertise for managing everything from foot care to cardiac issues to high blood sugar due to diabetes. There are now three NORC Innovation Centre projects up and running in Toronto, with more in the works. Dr. Abrams explains that the project team is gathering evidence and data for publication that will lead to proof of concept for NORC’s. If successful the goal is to scale this innovative solution for older adults across Ontario and the country.

In the latest episode of UHN podcast Behind the Breakthrough we feature KITE researcher Dr. Tatyana Mollayeva, who talks about her pioneering research on sleep disruption and its impact on patients with neurological disease and brain injury. Her research, for example, reveals a connection between a patient’s ability to recover from mild traumatic brain injury and sleep disruption, and, she’s been able identify risk factors such as adverse cognitive reactions and loss of reaction time in people with mild TBI who have sleep issues. Dr. Mollayeva also speaks to her role as an educator, and, advocacy work promoting sleep health awareness, including with the World Health Organization where she has pushed for the inclusion of sleep as integral to brain health.

And Dr. Mollayeva reveals her inspiring journey to becoming an award winning research scientist, beginning at age 16 after graduating high school in her hometown of Novyi Rozdil , Ukraine when she left to study the sciences and earn a medical degree in Moscow. In the early 1990s, she fled the collapsing Soviet Union to Turkmenistan, where she met her husband. After stints in Wyoming and then back to Turkmenistan, Dr. Mollayeva and her family were accepted in 2003 to come to Canada under the Independent Immigrant Program. In her 2022 acceptance speech upon receiving a prestigious Canada Research Chair, Dr. Mollayeva paid homage to all immigrants who take the risk of leaving their homeland to seek new opportunity.

“As an immigrant, this award is not just for me. It is for all immigrants who have a passion and take the often frightening step of changing their professional identity.” 

Dr. Laurie Ailles is an award winning senior scientist at UHN's Princess Margaret Cancer Center whose pioneering research revealed the origins of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Her discovery is now paving the way towards more accurate and individualized prognoses that better inform potential treatments and improve outcomes for patients with the disease. Dr. Ailles’ also speaks to her career path as a successful medical science researcher, which traces back to her peripatetic childhood journey of living in several countries around the world as the daughter of a CIDA employee. She credits those experiences for shaping her outlook and contributing to her resilience as a researcher.

The human microbiome consists of viruses, fungi, bacteria - even parasites and protozoa - that live on and in our bodies. And today the microbiome is having a ‘scientific moment’. Researchers are testing its uses to improve health, and, as a therapeutic agent to treat everything from bloodstream infection to the ill effects of cancer treatment. In this episode of UHN's ‘Behind the Breakthrough’ leading Canadian microbiome research scientist Dr. Bryan Coburn explains how our understanding of the microbiome is growing exponentially, and the human clinical trials he’s conducting to determine if it can be a therapeutic tool to treat patients.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Cristina Nostro, a Senior Scientist at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute at UHN, on her developments in curing type one diabetes through the use of stem cells. She dives into the uptake of islet transplantation as a treatment option, along with the different methods and technological advancements to improve the life of people living with this autoimmune disease. 

The podcast "Behind the Breakthrough" features Dr. Hance Clarke, an anesthesiologist and director of

On this episode of Behind the Breakthrough, Dr. Mamatha Bhat shares how she and her team of UHN researchers are leveraging artificial intelligence to help predict complications resulting in long-term outcomes for liver transplant patients. This novel, world-first approach has the ability to determine the personalized predictors of outcome for each patient – for example, increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and cardiovascular events are examples of what compromise long-term survival following transplantation, especially after the one year mark. This precision medicine approach can help identify which patients are at risk of which complications to help simulate diagnostic and therapeutic responses from a clinical practice perspective. Dr. Bhat speaks to the journey involved throughout the research process, as well as how she encourages future clinician-scientists to foster resiliency while engaging in their work as well as being opportunistic and creative.

Season 5 launches with an interview with pioneering social medicine advocate Dr. Boozary, who speaks to how UHN is tackling one of the biggest challenges to health for those who are marginalized – homelessness. Dr. Boozary and UHN helped create an ambitious hospital-first in Canada – the construction of a supportive housing site in Parkdale, Toronto. In this wide-ranging and thoughtful interview Dr. Boozary makes the wider case that hospitals must expand their mission and lead innovations in a collaborative way to address the root causes of health problems. And he speaks to the immigrant journey of his Iranian-born parents and how their sacrifice to give him and his sister new opportunities in life shapes the work he does today.