Category : News & Events

At University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), the Multi-Organ Transplant Insight, Outreach and Networking Society (MOTIONS) partnered with several other organizations to present an event on December 1, 2017, discussing Islamic perspectives on organ donation and transplant. Research in Canada and beyond has shown that for various reasons, Muslims are less likely to be organ donors or to receive organ transplants compared with other groups. UTSC is a campus where many students and staff are Muslims of South Asian descent, and […]

The Islamic Foundation of Toronto (IFT), based in the suburb of Scarborough, has a thriving seniors’ program. As part of its programming, on October 29, 2017, several members of our team were privileged to attend the IFT’s 4th Annual Seniors Conference, which featured a discussion of organ donation and transplantation. The event was very well attended, with at least 200 seniors and their family members present, as well as MPP (Scarborough-Rouge River) Raymond Cho.   Imam Shaykh Yusuf Badat spoke […]

The Enable Access to Kidney Transplantation and Living Donation (ENAKT-LD) initiative had its official launch event on October 23-24, 2017, at the Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel in Toronto. ENAKT-LD is co-led by the Ontario Renal Network (ORN) and the Trillium Gift of Life Network (TGLN), the main hosts of the launch. This province-wide initiative aims to improve opportunities for, and access to, living donation and kidney transplantation for all individuals living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Ontario, Canada. The […]

On October 5, 2017 at Toronto General Hospital, our research team hosted the first in a series of focus groups involving participants in our Psychosocial and Ethnocultural Barriers to Living Donor Kidney Transplantation (LDKT) project. The purpose of these small discussion groups is to better understand the barriers and challenges experienced by people living with end stage kidney disease (ESKD) as they make decisions about what renal replacement therapies to pursue—that is, some form of dialysis versus deceased donor or […]

Our team was deeply saddened to receive word of the sudden passing of Hiba Yusuf, a member of our professional advisory panel who was contributing to the creation of a culturally sensitive transplant education guide for Muslim Canadians with kidney disease. Hiba Yusuf had tremendous firsthand experience of the challenges, barriers and benefits associated with kidney transplantation. Her own kidneys failed due to IgA nephropathy and she received two kidney transplants: first, a living donor kidney transplant from her younger […]

On September 26-29, 2017, seven of our researchers had the privilege of presenting abstracts at the 2017 Joint Scientific Meeting of the Canadian Society of Transplantation (CST) and the Cell Transplant and Regenerative Medicine Society (CTRMS) held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We had three posters recognized as Posters of Distinction among the following abstracts accepted for the conference:

On September 14, 2017, our intrepid research coordinator, Dorothy Wong, arranged for us to drop in at the College Street clinic of Canadian Blood Services for a few pints — of donated blood, that is! Some of us rolled up our sleeves and few more came along for company and moral support.

On a Saturday, September 16, 2017, we gathered in this beautiful ravine park in Toronto’s Don River system to go for a hike, kick a soccer ball around, share some pizza and snacks, and catch up with each other on all the latest news. We fed some mosquitoes and even did a little bushwhacking.  

On September 15, 2017, Dr. Istvan Mucsi was honoured to be a guest speaker at the 7th Annual Health Equity Summit hosted by theCouncil of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA). CASSA is an umbrella group of organizations working to empower the members of South Asian communities to participate fully in defining Canada’s political, economic, social and cultural future. This full-day event at Ryerson University focused on men’s health in the South Asian context, with emphasis on topics in mental, sexual and […]