Curating Critical Futurities in Transplant Medicine is a pop-up art installation that showcases visual, sonic, and multimedia artistic works created to explore the complexities, unknowns, and lived experiences of solid organ transplantation. The pieces presented have been developed as part of the Frictions of Futurity and Cure in Transplant Medicine Project, a multi-year, research-creation study that unabashedly sits at the convergence of crip technoscience, feminist science and technology studies, and arts-based research engaged with disability arts and artists. The impetus for the project comes, in part, from an understanding that artistic practices can generate “speculative frames through which to defamiliarize and reorganize the local” (Loveless 2019). By transporting art out of the gallery and into a national transplant conference, we invite a reconsideration of art: as intervention, as a way to generate, reveal, name, alter and engage with the multiplicity of experiences within transplantation. The pop-up installation persuades us to know differently, so as to materialize liveability and thriving in a transplantation lifeworld as political, creative acts.

Frictions of Futurity Project Arts-Mobilization Team

• Dr. Suze Berkhout
• Dr. Kelly Fritsch
• Ms. Eva-Marie Stern
• Chloe Wong-Mersereau
• Alexandra Frankel

Guest Curator

• Ms. Élise Desaulniers

A group of researchers, healthcare providers, and patients are co-developing a new mobile health technology called the Health Education and Learning Platform (HELP). This mobile application (app) is designed to support people along their transplant journey with tailored education and tools for managing their health and wellbeing. The app is currently in the prototype phase. Potential users are invited to visit the HELP Prototype kiosk between sessions to view the prototype and complete a research questionnaire. Our goal is to learn about whether patients and care partners plan to use the app and to explore how participants might use the app in managing their health and wellness. The feedback gathered will help researchers and developers ensure that HELP meets the needs and expectations of future users.

Great Actions Leave a Mark Photobooth

Come snap a photo, share your story and be part of a National movement to raise awareness, provide education about living organ donation and provide hope to the many waiting for a lifesaving organ.

Living Transplant Podcast

Join our host Candice Coghlan, a kidney transplant recipient and Education & Outreach Coordinator at the Centre for Living Organ Donation. Each episode she is joined by a guest host with lived transplant experience to interview an expert in the field of transplant. Candice and her guest hosts will tell the incredible stories of transplant recipients, donors and caregivers, and together, they will explore transplantation through the perspective of frontline staff, researchers, innovators and transplant pioneers. Want to be a part of it? We are going Behind the Scenes at the CDTRP’s 10^th Annual Scientific Meeting and would love to showcase your work. We are looking for presenters who would be interested in sharing their work for 5-10 minutes on a behind the scenes bonus episode. Please reach out to Candice Coghlan at [email protected] to schedule a time to record over Zoom. Thank you!

This interactive workshop builds on CDTRP’s 2023 ASM Session, Developing a Framework for Evaluating PFD Impact within CDTRP. Led by Dr. Audrey L'Espérance, Sandra Holdsworth, Ke Fan Bei, and Manuel Escoto, this team has utilized indicators from the Learning Together: An Evaluation Framework for Patients and Public Engagement in Research to develop a CDTRP Evaluation Framework relevant to PFD partners, researchers, and trainee. These indicators will support data collection and build an evaluation dashboard for activities involving CDTRP PFD Partners. This workshop will introduce the priority indicator, engaging participants in a discussion to build consensus so evaluation metrics are relevant to CDTRP’s research community. 

This session is sponsored by Canadian Blood Services.

This session is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).



This session will focus on the need for diverse donors across donation products, underrepresentation of racialized and LGBTQ+ donors across donor pools, unique barriers to donation impacting these groups, structural racism and discrimination in donation policy (past and present) which needs to be overcome, and solutions to advance a more inclusive blood and transplant system for donors from underserved/ historically excluded populations (focusing on how partnership with patient/family/donor/community advocates is critical to address disparities). Afterwards, there will be a series of facilitated discussion groups where participants will breakout into small groups to discuss issues highlighted in the presentation. Groups will be given a series of questions to spark discussion. Experts in DEI in donation and transplantation will be invited as facilitators. Finally, the presenters (Dr. Warren Fingrut and Sylvia Okonofua) and the expert facilitators will form a panel, and will invite representatives of each breakout group to share a summary of their learnings for discussion with the panel.

This session is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).



Curating Critical Futurities in Transplant Medicine is a pop-up art installation that showcases visual, sonic, and multimedia artistic works created to explore the complexities, unknowns, and lived experiences of solid organ transplantation. The pieces presented have been developed as part of the Frictions of Futurity and Cure in Transplant Medicine Project, a multi-year, research-creation study that unabashedly sits at the convergence of crip technoscience, feminist science and technology studies, and arts-based research engaged with disability arts and artists. The impetus for the project comes, in part, from an understanding that artistic practices can generate “speculative frames through which to defamiliarize and reorganize the local” (Loveless 2019). By transporting art out of the gallery and into a national transplant conference, we invite a reconsideration of art: as intervention, as a way to generate, reveal, name, alter and engage with the multiplicity of experiences within transplantation. The pop-up installation persuades us to know differently, so as to materialize liveability and thriving in a transplantation lifeworld as political, creative acts.

Frictions of Futurity Project Arts-Mobilization Team

• Dr. Suze Berkhout
• Dr. Kelly Fritsch
• Ms. Eva-Marie Stern
• Chloe Wong-Mersereau
• Alexandra Frankel

Guest Curator

• Ms. Élise Desaulniers

A group of researchers, healthcare providers, and patients are co-developing a new mobile health technology called the Health Education and Learning Platform (HELP). This mobile application (app) is designed to support people along their transplant journey with tailored education and tools for managing their health and wellbeing. The app is currently in the prototype phase. Potential users are invited to visit the HELP Prototype kiosk between sessions to view the prototype and complete a research questionnaire. Our goal is to learn about whether patients and care partners plan to use the app and to explore how participants might use the app in managing their health and wellness. The feedback gathered will help researchers and developers ensure that HELP meets the needs and expectations of future users.

Great Actions Leave a Mark Photobooth

Come snap a photo, share your story and be part of a National movement to raise awareness, provide education about living organ donation and provide hope to the many waiting for a lifesaving organ.

Living Transplant Podcast

Join our host Candice Coghlan, a kidney transplant recipient and Education & Outreach Coordinator at the Centre for Living Organ Donation. Each episode she is joined by a guest host with lived transplant experience to interview an expert in the field of transplant. Candice and her guest hosts will tell the incredible stories of transplant recipients, donors and caregivers, and together, they will explore transplantation through the perspective of frontline staff, researchers, innovators and transplant pioneers. Want to be a part of it? We are going Behind the Scenes at the CDTRP’s 10th Annual Scientific Meeting and would love to showcase your work. We are looking for presenters who would be interested in sharing their work for 5-10 minutes on a behind the scenes bonus episode. Please reach out to Candice Coghlan at [email protected] to schedule a time to record over Zoom. Thank you!

Transplant recipients remain at higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes. For transplant recipients surviving COVID-19 and/or experiencing the extreme stress associated with the pandemic, little is known about effective strategies to support recovery of quality of life. Studying these questions in Canada is challenging, given the pace of variant evolution and drug development, as well as regional variations in therapeutic practices and public health policies. How quickly the pandemic changes has made it difficult to deliver research results in time to still be relevant for clinical and policy decision making.

To address this challenge, CDTRP has established a national, multi-disciplinary team and an agile, collaborative framework to address emerging research questions. With 12 participating Canadian transplant programs, we are creating a prospective registry of over 2500 transplant patients and their caregivers. A national data platform will capture outcomes from medical chart reviews, Patient-Reported Outcome Measures, and economic questionnaires to enable our research team to answer emerging questions on (1) therapeutic effectiveness and safety; (2) mental health, long-term well-being, and family impact; and (3) therapeutic cost-effectiveness and economic burden on the health care system and on families.

This workshop is open to everyone in the national transplant community, including patients and family, health professionals, partner organizations, industry, and researchers from all disciplines. We will continue to work together as the project progresses by sharing results as they are produced and adjusting priorities based on what we find, changes in our health landscape and emerging transplant patient and family needs. As a result we will continue to fill the most pressing knowledge gaps related to therapeutics, mental health and well-being, and the economics of COVID-19.

Session Objectives:

• Share progress we’ve made over the past year on the TREAT-COVID research project
• Identify ways our community partners would like to:
• Receive research results to stay engaged as the project moves forward; and
• Provide feedback so we can adjust research priorities on an ongoing basis
• Gain every participant’s perspective, including adult and pediatric transplant recipients, their families, caregivers, researchers & clinicians
• Continue to align the research priorities with the priorities of the transplant community and the changing healthcare landscape

This session is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).



This session will review the pediatric urinary CXCL10 monitoring implementation pilot RCT, with a view to obtaining input on how best to engage with patient participants and partners with the trial. We start by introducing the trial design and goals, which will be followed by review of patient engagement to date and a panel/audience discussion to solicit feedback. Topics for engagement include effective information for potential trial participants, ongoing updates during the trial and how to incorporate the patient voice in analysis of trial outcome and subsequent knowledge translation.

This session is sponsored by the Accelerating Clinical Trial Consortium.

This session is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

The main objective of this session is to engage a dialogue to help understand patients' experience and to better appreciate their needs in order to optimize health status and wellness in the context of liver transplantation. We propose a panel discussion involving speakers adressing nutrition (Chantal Bémeur, RD, PhD), exercise/physical activity and mental health (Isabelle Dorée, PhD) with the essential and rich contribution of a patient partner (Sandra Holdsworth) as a whole. Examples of topics discussed, in the context of the holistic view, include available and required tools to provide information on aspects of health status that are relevant to quality of life, physical and mental health. The ultimate goal is to dress a meaningful portrait of the situation and guide future research focusing on patients' needs.

This session is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).



This session will highlight the most innovative studies our trainees are working on across the themes. Chelsea Lanos, representing themes 1 and 2, will present her project "Organ donation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Canada: a missed opportunity for uDCD?". For theme 3, we have Shiyuan Bian presenting "Investigating the Effect of Mechanical Ventilation on Mouse Lung Scaffolds using a Negative Pressure Wet Ventilation System" and Aisha Adil presenting "Ex Vivo Perfusion De- and Recellularization of Rat Hindlimbs for Vascular Composite Allotransplantation." Javairia Rahim will cover theme 4 with her project "Novel cell surface engineering of the endothelial glycocalyx with sialic acid-containing polymers for the prevention of transplant rejection." Finally, Nicholas Bourgeois will present "Virtual pre-habilitation program in lung transplant candidates" for theme 5. Each of these students will be awarded a prize highlighting their excellent work.

Moderators: Francis Migneault & Jorge Castillo-Prado

This session is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Join us for Theme meetings where CDTRP members can discuss ongoing projects, opportunities to collaborate, and funding opportunities.

AGENDA:

• Overview of Theme activities in the past year and future directions (Theme and Hub co-leads) - 20 min  
• Café Scientifique Grants: Recap of 2023 presentations - 5 minutes
• Café Scientifique Grants: What to submit for Spring 2024  – 20 min  
• Other collaboration and grant opportunities – 15 min  

LOCATIONS:

• Theme 1: Improve a Culture of Donation and Theme 2: Inform Universal Practices for Donation: Beethoven room
• Theme 3: Engineer and Allocate Better Grafts and Theme 4: Tailor an Optimal Immune System: Opus 2 room
• Theme 5: Restore Long-Term Health: Tchaikovsky room

Curating Critical Futurities in Transplant Medicine is a pop-up art installation that showcases visual, sonic, and multimedia artistic works created to explore the complexities, unknowns, and lived experiences of solid organ transplantation. The pieces presented have been developed as part of the Frictions of Futurity and Cure in Transplant Medicine Project, a multi-year, research-creation study that unabashedly sits at the convergence of crip technoscience, feminist science and technology studies, and arts-based research engaged with disability arts and artists. The impetus for the project comes, in part, from an understanding that artistic practices can generate “speculative frames through which to defamiliarize and reorganize the local” (Loveless 2019). By transporting art out of the gallery and into a national transplant conference, we invite a reconsideration of art: as intervention, as a way to generate, reveal, name, alter and engage with the multiplicity of experiences within transplantation. The pop-up installation persuades us to know differently, so as to materialize liveability and thriving in a transplantation lifeworld as political, creative acts.

Frictions of Futurity Project Arts-Mobilization Team

• Dr. Suze Berkhout
• Dr. Kelly Fritsch
• Ms. Eva-Marie Stern
• Chloe Wong-Mersereau
• Alexandra Frankel

Guest Curator

• Ms. Élise Desaulniers

A group of researchers, healthcare providers, and patients are co-developing a new mobile health technology called the Health Education and Learning Platform (HELP). This mobile application (app) is designed to support people along their transplant journey with tailored education and tools for managing their health and wellbeing. The app is currently in the prototype phase. Potential users are invited to visit the HELP Prototype kiosk between sessions to view the prototype and complete a research questionnaire. Our goal is to learn about whether patients and care partners plan to use the app and to explore how participants might use the app in managing their health and wellness. The feedback gathered will help researchers and developers ensure that HELP meets the needs and expectations of future users.

Great Actions Leave a Mark Photobooth

Come snap a photo, share your story and be part of a National movement to raise awareness, provide education about living organ donation and provide hope to the many waiting for a lifesaving organ.

Living Transplant Podcast

Join our host Candice Coghlan, a kidney transplant recipient and Education & Outreach Coordinator at the Centre for Living Organ Donation. Each episode she is joined by a guest host with lived transplant experience to interview an expert in the field of transplant. Candice and her guest hosts will tell the incredible stories of transplant recipients, donors and caregivers, and together, they will explore transplantation through the perspective of frontline staff, researchers, innovators and transplant pioneers. Want to be a part of it? We are going Behind the Scenes at the CDTRP’s 10th Annual Scientific Meeting and would love to showcase your work. We are looking for presenters who would be interested in sharing their work for 5-10 minutes on a behind the scenes bonus episode. Please reach out to Candice Coghlan at [email protected] to schedule a time to record over Zoom. Thank you!

Does just the thought of contacting a journalist with your story idea make you sweat? And what about actually doing the interview? What will you say about your research? About your transplant journey? And how will you prepare for questions?

Rest assured that journalists actually welcome great stories. But they are being pitched ideas from all sides. How do you make your story stand out from the rest? With careful planning, you can grab a journalist’s attention, and give an interview that furthers public understanding about organ donation and transplantation.

Learn:

• Where media relations fits in your knowledge translation plan
• What makes a story idea newsworthy
• Why are key messages important and how to prepare key messages about your research or transplant story
• Top tips for doing interviews, including pre-negotiating and responding to questions
• Examples and more examples

The future application of designer cells and bioengineered tissues in clinical settings holds immense promise for revolutionizing regenerative medicine and transplantation, yet it also confronts significant feasibility challenges. The ability to precisely tailor cells and tissues for therapeutic purposes can have significant impact in transplantation opening avenues for personalized medicine and access to ‘off-the-shelf’ tissues and organs. However, the translation of these cutting-edge technologies from the laboratory to clinical practice requires overcoming formidable hurdles, including safety concerns, ethical considerations, community acceptance and the need for robust regulatory frameworks. Technical challenges such as the scalability and cost-effectiveness of producing designer cells and tissues also present major logistical challenges. As research continues to push the boundaries of synthetic biology and tissue engineering, the ultimate success and integration of designer cells and bioengineered tissues in the medical landscape will require close collaboration from scientists, clinicians, and policymakers; and importantly communication with patient communities, some of whom, will be future recipients of these new therapeutic modalities.

This session is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Session Chairs: 

• Dr. Golnaz Karoubi (Senior Chair) – University Health Network, University of Toronto
• Ms. Aisha Adil (Junior Chair) – University Health Network, University of Toronto

Panelists:

• Dr. Siba Haykal - University Health Network/University of Toronto
• Dr. Ian Rogers – Sinai Health Systems/University of Toronto
• Dr. Braulio Marfil-Garza – University of Alberta
• Mr. Sean Delaney – University of Alberta

The day will conclude with an exciting discussion about the future of CDTRP. We are thrilled to share a major organizational update with our community and an update on our sustainability model, whose implementation is underway. With a wide-angle lens on CDTRP's next 10 years, this session will focus on new opportunities for the donation and transplantation research community, and how they will enable CDTRP to advance our mission and purpose long into the future.

Join us to celebrate a decade of success and achievements in donation and transplantation research at CDTRP's 10th Anniversary Celebration Banquet on Thursday, December 7. Our gourmet dinner will be accompanied by inspirational presentations from two incredible individuals - Simon Keith (CM), the first athlete in the world to play professional sports after undergoing a heart transplant, and Mai Duong, a leukemia survivor and co-founder of Swab the World. Come and celebrate the life-saving contributions of CDTRP and be inspired by the stories of those who have lived to tell their stories thanks to transplantation. You don't want to miss this night of celebration!

This is optional and requires prepayment.