Five interdisciplinary projects awarded 2025 LMP Catalyst Fund support
Each year, the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology (LMP) brings faculty members together from across its clinical, research and educational sites for Faculty Development Day - an opportunity to connect, exchange ideas and explore new opportunities for collaboration.
A key component of the event is the Collaboration Café, where faculty members participate in focused discussions on emerging challenges and opportunities in laboratory medicine, pathology and translational research. These conversations can then evolve into applications for the LMP Catalyst Fund, which provides seed funding to spark new cross-institutional and interdisciplinary initiatives. Another great reason to attend Faculty development day.
LMP is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 Catalyst Fund, supporting five new collaborative projects spanning transplantation, computational pathology, cancer biology, trauma care and research commercialization:
- Accurate quantification of HLA target could help improve the positive predictive value of DSA presence
- Understanding the path to commercialization
- "Last mile" gap in computational pathology implementation
- Why are distinct regions of skin and oral epithelia resistant or sensitive to oncogenic mutations?
- Implement a patient blood management pathway in the postdischarge setting for patients who are hospitalized for traumatic injury
Read more about the funded projects below and save the date for Faculty Development Day 2026 – November 11!
Accurate quantification of HLA target could help improve the positive predictive value of DSA presence
Team members: Dr. Jeffrey Kiernan (UHN), Dr. Jinguo Wang (UHN), Dr. Anita Nagy (Hospital for Sick Children), Dr. Roger Hsu (UHN), Dr. Michael Seidman (UHN), Dr. Michael Garton (Institute of Biomedical Engineering)
This project aims to improve the diagnosis of antibody-mediated rejection (AMR) in heart and lung transplant recipients by developing a novel tissue-based immunoassay.
Currently, AMR diagnosis relies on a combination of donor specific antibody (DSA) testing, biopsy findings and immunohistochemistry markers such as CD68 and C4d. However, the presence and strength of DSA do not always correlate well with clinical or pathological evidence of rejection, particularly in heart and lung transplantation. Researchers believe one reason for this inconsistency may be variation in the amount of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) expressed within donor tissue.
The project will investigate whether directly measuring HLA expression in transplant biopsy tissue could improve the predictive value of DSA testing and provide a more accurate assessment of rejection risk. To do this, the team plans to use monoclonal antibodies that specifically target unique HLA epitopes. These antibodies will be modified, or “murinized,” to reduce background interference and enable clearer fluorescent immunohistochemistry staining in human tissue samples.
Using heart and lung biopsy tissue alongside patient serum data, the researchers will compare HLA expression patterns with established markers of AMR, tissue injury and clinical evidence of rejection. The study will explore whether patients with strong DSA but little evidence of rejection have lower HLA target expression, while patients with weaker DSA and significant rejection may show higher HLA expression within donor tissue.
By combining expertise in transplant pathology, HLA testing, antibody engineering and synthetic biology, the project seeks to establish a new approach that could improve the diagnosis and classification of transplant rejection in heart and lung allografts.
Understanding the path to commercialization
Team members: Dr. Susan Done (UHN), Dr. Carlo Hojilla (Sinai Health), Dr. Michelle Bendeck (U of T), Dr. Janice Robertson (Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Disease), Dr. Adele Changoor (Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health), Dr. Michael Laflamme (UHN), Dr. Edyta Marcon (Translational Research Program – TRP)
This project aims to strengthen knowledge and collaboration around research commercialization by creating an accessible educational program for clinical and scientific faculty interested in translating discoveries into real-world applications. All of these individuals have been involved in commercialization or have a great interest in it.
The initiative was developed in response to common questions raised by faculty members navigating the early stages of commercialization, including how to protect intellectual property, work with industry partners, secure funding and move innovations toward regulatory approval. While many researchers generate promising ideas, technologies and discoveries, formal training in commercialization pathways is often limited within academic medicine and science.
To address this gap, the project team plans to deliver a series of introductory virtual seminars focused on key aspects of commercialization. Topics will include regulatory approval processes, funding and licensing models, intellectual property ownership, industry partnerships and the commercialization supports available through the University of Toronto and affiliated institutions. The sessions will feature speakers with expertise in commercialization, technology transfer, entrepreneurship and translational research.
The seminar series will be followed by an in-person “Dragon’s Den”-style competition, where participants will pitch research ideas or technologies to a panel of adjudicators drawn from academia, venture capital, biotechnology and technology transfer offices. In addition to competing for a financial award, participants will receive constructive feedback intended to support the development and advancement of their ideas.
Beyond the educational programming, the project also aims to foster a stronger community of faculty and trainees within LMP who are interested in innovation and commercialization. By bringing together researchers with varying levels of experience, the initiative seeks to build knowledge-sharing networks and encourage future interdisciplinary collaborations across the department and broader research ecosystem.
"Last mile" gap in computational pathology implementation
Team members: Dr. Phedias Diamandis (UHN), Dr. Susan Done (UHN), Dr. Sharon Nofech-Mozes (Sunnybrook Health Science Centre), Dr. Fang-I Lu (Sunnybrook Health Science Centre), Dr. Kiran Jakate (Unity Health Toronto), Dr. Adrienn Bourkas (Neuropathology Resident) and Dr. Shane Eaton (Neuropathology Resident)
This collaboration aims to address one of the biggest challenges in computational pathology: integrating artificial intelligence (AI) tools into real-world clinical workflows across diverse healthcare environments.
While AI technologies have shown strong potential to support pathology tasks such as tumour classification and biomarker quantification, widespread implementation has been limited by proprietary software systems, expensive infrastructure requirements and concerns surrounding data privacy. This project seeks to overcome those barriers by validating “OnSight Pathology,” a platform-agnostic AI framework developed within LMP that can analyze the content displayed on a pathologist’s monitor in real time, regardless of the digital pathology platform being used.
Unlike many existing AI systems, OnSight does not require standardized scanners, cloud-based processing or specialized hardware. The lightweight software can run locally on consumer-grade computers and has also shown promise when used with traditional microscope camera feeds, creating opportunities for use in both digital and non-digital pathology workflows.
The project will expand testing of the software beyond a single institution by deploying it across multiple hospital sites with varying pathology systems and workflows. Collaborators will evaluate the software using routine pathology cases to assess the accuracy and responsiveness of features such as mitosis detection and Ki-67 quantification. The team will also conduct a structured user-feedback phase focused on usability and workflow integration, including interactive “human-in-the-loop” tools such as chat assistance and adjustable detection thresholds.
Feedback gathered through cross-site testing will guide refinement of the platform prior to broader public release. By bringing together technical developers, subspecialty pathologists and trainees from multiple institutions, the project aims to support the development of interoperable AI tools that can function across diverse pathology environments and help bridge the gap between innovation and clinical implementation.
Why are distinct regions of skin and oral epithelia resistant or sensitive to oncogenic mutations?
Team members: Dr. Rod Bremner (Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health) and Dr. Marco Magalhaes (Faculty of Dentistry)
This Catalyst Fund project will investigate why some regions of the skin and oral cavity are highly susceptible to cancer-causing mutations, while others remain resistant despite carrying similar oncogenic changes.
Although many tissues throughout the body accumulate mutations associated with cancer, most mutated cells never develop into tumours. Researchers increasingly recognize that understanding why certain cells resist transformation could provide important new strategies for cancer prevention. Building on recent findings that cancer-prone cells tend to have shorter cell cycle lengths, the project will explore whether differences in cell cycle timing help explain regional differences in cancer susceptibility within the same tissue type.
The study will focus on two established mouse models of epithelial cancer. One model uses activation of the oncogene Kras to study tumour formation in skin and mucocutaneous junctions, while the second uses the carcinogen 4-NQO to model oral squamous cell carcinoma associated with smoking-related disease. In both systems, some epithelial regions are highly prone to tumour development while neighbouring regions remain resistant.
To investigate these differences, researchers will measure total cell cycle length in cancer-prone and cancer-resistant regions at early stages following oncogenic activation or carcinogen exposure. Mice will receive timed cellular labeling injections prior to tissue analysis, allowing the team to track cell division dynamics within different epithelial layers. The researchers will then compare cell cycle timing across susceptible and resistant regions.
The project brings together complementary expertise in cell cycle biology and oral cancer models to explore a fundamental question in cancer biology: why transformation occurs in only a small subset of mutated cells. Findings from the study could help identify new biological mechanisms that protect tissues from cancer development and inform future preventive approaches.
Implement a patient blood management pathway in the post-discharge setting for patients who are hospitalized for traumatic injury
Team members: Dr. Sumedha Arya (Unity Health Toronto), Dr. Heather VanderMeulen (Sunnybrook Health Science Centre), Dr. Yulia Lin (Sunnybrook Health Science Centre), Dr. Barbara Haas (Department of Surgery), Dr. Andrew Beckett (Department of Surgery), Verity Tulloch (Unity Health), Dr. Jeannie Callum (Queen's University), Dr. Rita Selby (Sunnybrook Health Science Centre) and Dr. Katerina Pavenski (Unity Health Toronto)
This project will investigate anemia and iron deficiency among survivors of traumatic injury following hospital discharge, with the goal of improving long-term recovery through the development of a patient blood management pathway.
Trauma patients account for a significant proportion of blood transfusions in Canadian hospitals, yet little is known about how patients recover after injury-related hemorrhage and transfusion once they leave hospital. While inpatient transfusion practices are well studied, there is currently no systematic follow-up for many patients after discharge. Researchers believe untreated anemia and iron deficiency may contribute to fatigue, reduced quality of life, loss of function and difficulty returning to work in trauma survivors.
The project aims to determine the prevalence of anemia and non-anemic iron deficiency (NAID) in patients recovering from traumatic injury, identify factors associated with these conditions and assess the feasibility of implementing a post-discharge patient blood management pathway. The study will also examine rates of alloimmunization among trauma survivors.
To achieve this, the team will conduct a prospective observational study involving adult trauma patients discharged from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, St. Michael’s Hospital and Kingston Health Sciences Centre. Participants will complete a short questionnaire related to sociodemographic factors and access to primary care before undergoing laboratory testing between 30 and 90 days following discharge. Bloodwork will assess hemoglobin levels, iron status and related markers of inflammation.
By bringing together expertise in transfusion medicine, hematology, trauma care, clinical epidemiology and quality improvement, the project aims to generate new knowledge about post-discharge recovery in trauma patients and support the development of evidence-based follow-up care pathways.
Find out what happened at the event in AI, Leadership and Cross-Disciplinary Connection Take Centre Stage at LMP’s 2025 Faculty Development Day
This event and initiative showcases all pillars of the LMP Strategic Plan 2023-2028.
