My career as a clinician and a scientist: an LMP Alumni Career Panel
We are delighted to announce the first of our Alumni Career Panel series.
Open to all. Online via Zoom.
Join us as we explore the variety of career paths following studies at the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto.
Our first panel will discuss their careers as clinicians and scientists.
You may submit questions to the panelists on the night, or submit a question via the registration form.
Agenda
5:10 pm Introduction by Dr. Gino Somers (MBBS, BMedSc, PhD, FRCPA)
Alumnus of the LMP Anatomical Pathology Residency Program, Head of Pathology at SickKids Hospital, Professor in LMP, and Chair of the LMP Alumni Committee.
5:20 pm Dr. Rita Kandel (MD, FRCPC)
Alumna of the LMP Anatomical Pathology Residency Program, Chief of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Mount. Sinai Hospital, and Department Chair in LMP
5:40 pm Dr. Phedias Diamandis (MD, PhD, FRCPC)
Alumnus of the UofT MD/PhD and Neuropathology Residency Programs, Neuropathologist and Clinician Scientist at University Health Network and Assistant Professor in LMP
6:00 pm Dr. Susan Done (MA, MB, BChir, MBA, PhD, FRCPC, FCAP, FRCPath, FCCMG)
Alumna of the LMP PhD program, Pathologist at the University Health Network, Associate Professor in LMP and Director of Residency Training Programs in LMP
6:20 pm Panelist Q&A
Moderated by graduate student and CLAMPS Co-President, Maryam Khalil.
6:40 close
Speakers
Host: Dr. Gino Somers, MBBS, BMedSc, PhD, FRCPA
Gino graduated with a medical degree (M. B., B. S.) from Monash Medical School in Melbourne in 1991 with First Class Honours and went on to complete his PhD thesis at the University of Melbourne in 1998. He then completed his specialty training in Anatomical Pathology from the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in 2002. He moved to Toronto in 2003 and completed a Pediatric Pathology fellowship in LMP.
Gino is currently the Head of the Division of Pathology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He is the Physician Lead for Wellness at SickKids and is a member of the peer support program. He is Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto, Chair of the LMP Alumni Committee and a member of the LMP Wellness, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Committee.
Moderator: Maryam Khalil
Maryam completed her undergraduate degree at University of Toronto with a double major in Biochemistry and Health and Disease. She is currently a 3rd year PhD candidate in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology.
Her work in Dr. Ming Tsao’s lab at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre revolves around immune-checkpoint activation after chemotherapy in non-small cell Lung cancer (NSCLC). She studies the underlying mechanism through which chemotherapy augments anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy in advanced NSCLC patients.
She is also the co-president of CLAMPS (Confederation of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology Students). She hopes to continue her work for CLAMPS in future years.
Dr. Rita Kandel, MD, FRCPC
Alumna Anatomical Pathology Residency
Chief of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Mount. Sinai Hospital, and Department Chair in LMP
Rita completed medical school and a residency in Anatomical Pathology at the University of Toronto.
Rita is a clinician-investigator and in addition to her roles in LMP, is the Chief of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Sinai Health System and Women's College Hospital. She is cross-appointed to the Department of Surgery and is a member of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. Among her many awards, she is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Her clinical expertise was in the pathologic diagnosis of soft tissue and bone tumours. Her research interest is in the bioengineering of tissues for articular cartilage and intervertebral disc repair/replacement. Her lab is part of a multidisciplinary group of investigators, including engineers, biologists, stem cell biologists, and clinicians who work together to develop novel treatments for cartilage and disc diseases. Her work is funded by CIHR and NSERC.
She has published over 240 papers and multiple book chapters and has trained numerous undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.
Dr. Phedias Diamandis, MD, PhD, FRCPC
Alumnus MD/PhD and Neuropathology Residency
Neuropathologist and Clinician Scientist at University Health Network and Assistant Professor in LMP
Phedias completed his combined MD/PhD and residency training in neuropathology at the University of Toronto. His graduate work focused on designing high-throughput screening platforms to chemically profile neural precursors. This work resulted in the identification of novel regulators of neural and cancer stem cell function.
Following the completion of his training in 2016, he was hired as a Neuropathologist at the University Health Network. He was appointed as a Scientist at Princess Margaret in 2019. Here, his research focuses on using chemical biology, deep learning and mass spectrometry-based proteomics to resolve phenotype-level heterogeneity in different brain and glioblastoma niches.
Dr. Diamandis' faculty profile
Dr. Susan Done, MA, MB, BChir, MBA, PhD, FRCPC, FCAP, FRCPath, FCCMG
Alumna LMP PhD program
Pathologist at the University Health Network, Associate Professor in LMP and Director of Anatomical Pathology Residency Training Program
Susan completed her medical training at Cambridge University in the UK and then moved to Canada where she completed a residency in Anatomical Pathology at the University of Calgary. She then moved to Toronto for fellowship training where she completed a PhD and an MBA at U of T. Since then she has been a pathologist at the University Health Network (which includes Toronto General Hospital and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre) and a researcher at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center. She is currently an Associate Professor in LMP with a cross-appointment in the Department of Medical Biophysics and Director of the Anatomical Pathology Residency Program.
Her research is predominantly translational and is focused on breast cancer intratumoural heterogeneity, circulating tumour cell markers, and early events in invasion and metastasis. She also collaborates on a diverse range of breast cancer related projects involving molecular epidemiology, imaging physics, artificial intelligence and novel radiopharmaceutical agents, among others.
How to volunteer to be a panelist for future events
If you are alumni of any undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate program from LMP and would like to speak at a future event, please contact Jenni Bozec lmp.communications@utoronto.ca.
Find out more about future events in this series
