Research Mentorship Program

| 11 April 2025

We are very excited that our program at the Katarokwi Learning Centre has grown this year to ~24 mentees, ranging from grades 5-9.

This current year is one of the most successful for our program, since its debut in 2016!

We have a total of 7 mentors and one Head-In-person mentor, all of whom are graduate students in DPMM, DBMS, CNS or Biology.

The Research Mentorship Program consists of:

Bruce Elliott - Program Coordinator Lead* (Emeritus Professor, DPMM)

Cynthia Pruss - Program Coordinator (Assistant Professor, DPMM)

Qingling Duan, Program Coordinator (DBMS)

Jamie Would - Head In-person Mentor

Monica Garvie - Indigenous Liaison Person

Yasmine Saini, Doriana Taccardi, Marie Boddington - Assistant Coordinators

This year Monica Garvie (PhD student in Biology) is serving as our Indigenous Liaison person, who is helping us in culture sensitivity and planning for our mentorships. We also have input from Sarah Funnell, Vice-Dean of Indigenous Health, who has helped us in recruitment of mentors, and provided advice regarding our project activities.

Weekly sessions began on February 26th with three whole class activities (roller Coaster Physics, Blood types (forensics), and Microscopes: Hidden worlds! Mentees are now divided into 5 groups, according to their interests.

4th David M. Robertson Visiting Lecturer 2025

Spotlight

| 2 April 2025

Teresa Purzner, MD, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Queen’s University & Neurosurgeon, Kingston Health Sciences Centre

Dr. Teresa Purzner received her MD in 2009, then completed the first 4 years of her neurosurgical residency in Toronto before leaving the clinical realm to study developmental neurobiology at Stanford University. During her time at Stanford, Teresa combined novel techniques in mass spectrometry with developmental neurobiology to discover new drug targets for pediatric brain tumors. This led to her discovering a new drug target in medulloblastoma, the most common pediatric brain tumor. In collaboration with Stanford SPARK and the pediatric brain tumor consortium (PBTC), she bridged this discovery from bench to bedside in the form of a first-in-child CK2 inhibitor clinical trial for the treatment of medulloblastoma. Dr. Purzner’s work has earned her widespread recognition both in the media and through national and international awards including the Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate and BioX fellowship, Annual Award of the American Academy of Neurological Surgery, the Weston Havens Foundation award, K.G. McKenzie prize for Basic Science Research, AANS Louise Eisenhardt Award and the Neurosurgery Research and Education Fellowship. She is also the founder and CSO of Cerebelly, a babyfood company designed to support early brain development which can be found in over 15,000 stores across Canada and the USA, including Loblaws, Sobey’s, Farm Boy, Whole Foods Market, Target, Kroger and Wegmans.

Retirement Tea - Joyce deVette-McPhail

News

| 17 December 2024

You are invited to a Retirement Tea honouring Joyce deVette-McPhail, Director - Clinical Laboratories on

Wednesday 2024 December 18th from 12:30-14:00

in the KGH Atrium.

Please stop in to celebrate Joyce (refreshments and sweets will be served)

Dr. Prameet Sheth Inaugural KHSC Genomics Chair

News

| 6 December 2024

Jay and Kendal Patry are investing $1 million to establish Kingston Health Sciences Centre's (KHSC) first "Clinical Chair" role, in an area many refer to as the future of medicine - genomics.

The Jay and Kendal Patry Clinical Chair in Genomics position will be held by Dr. Prameet Sheth. His expertise in genomic sequencing and microbiology has been pivotal in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when provincial leaders and other hospitals came to rely on KHSC specialists. During the early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, KHSC teams developed their own tests that were more accurate in detecting the COVID-19 virus.

Later in the pandemic, KHSC was selected as one of only four hospitals in Ontario to become a provincial site for "whole genomic sequencing," which allowed experts like Dr. Sheth to track the virus's evolution through its various mutations.

Articles

Research Mentorship Program

4th David M. Robertson Visiting Lecturer 2025

Retirement Tea - Joyce deVette-McPhail

Dr. Prameet Sheth Inaugural KHSC Genomics Chair

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