Timetables & Descriptions

Instructor: John Tran
Please contact instructor for permission to register and course information. Please copy cc.medscience@utoronto.ca in your email.

Session Offered: 20249 F
Start date: September 3, 2024, Days/Times: Tuesdays 10:00 am - 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm, Thursdays 9:00 am - 12:00 pm, Location: In Person (TBD).

Description: Gross anatomy of the human body taught from a regional viewpoint. The course is dissection based and includes interactive tutorials and dissection laboratories (96 hours). Anatomical structure and function is emphasized.  

Enrollment Restrictions: Course enrollment is limited to 24 students.

Instructor: Nancy Olivieri

Session Offered: TBD

Dates: TBD, Time: TBD, Location: In person

Description: A critical examination of drug development, including the role of health professionals and the pharmaceutical industry in researching, testing, marketing, licensing, and evaluating pharmaceutical drugs. Topics include the differing needs for drug development, evaluation and dispensing in lower income countries, and potential conflicts of interest in drug development.

Instructors: Joshua D. Rosenblat and Rodrigo B. Mansur

Session: 20251

Start Date: TBD (Tuesdays), Time: 9-11 am, Location: In person (GB 220)

Description: This course will review the current treatment options for mood and anxiety disorders. We will discuss the etiology and pathophysiology of mood and anxiety disorders both from a clinical study and population health perspective. Pharmacological, neuroimaging and psychotherapy treatment options will be discussed. Further, we will discuss the social determinants of health and novel treatment approaches.

Instructor: George Ibrahim and Jurgen Germann 

Session Offered: 20249

Dates: September 4, 2024 - December 11, 2024 (Wednesdays), Time: 4-6 pm, Location: In person (SickKids PGCRL Building)

Description: This course will focus on detailed review of the fundamental organization of the nervous system, at both the gross and cellular levels. The major components of the nervous system will be discussed in a lecture format. The lectures will be supplemented with interactive anatomy sessions, either in the laboratory or using multimedia platforms. Student-led presentations will maximize the students’ contact with techniques employed to study neuroanatomy. This course is suitable for students who have some background in the neurosciences who are now embarking in a neuroscience project as part of their graduate degree. Course assessment will be based on quizzes, presentations as well as a final examination. Textbook: Neuroanatomy, text and atlas, by John H. Martin, 4th edition.

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of mammalian neuroanatomy. Maximum enrollment of 25 students. 

Course Director: Dr. Ted Brown

Please contact the Course Director to obtain the required permission prior to completing an ADD/DROP form.

Session Offered: TBD
Start Date: TBD, Lectures: TBD (In Person), Tutorials: TBD (In Person)

Prerequisites: Interested graduate students must have taken a previous undergraduate course in cell biology. 

Exclusion: ANA301H1

Description: Human embryology from fertilization to the end of the fetal period. Topics include: current concepts in mammalian morphogenesis applied to the development of various organ systems; the principles of teratology; mechanisms of malformation and the etiology and pathogenesis of some of the more common human congenital abnormalities. Prerequisites: Interested graduate students must have taken a previous undergraduate course in cell biology.  

Enrollment Restrictions: Limited to 5 IMS graduate students, with an additional 5 spots reserved for the Clinical Embryology LMP program.

Course Director: Marianne Koritzinsky

Session: 20249- 20251 Y
Start Date: September 13, 2024 (Fridays), Time: 9:00 am – 11:00 am, Location: MS 3153

For more information on the MSC1010H and MSC1011H course click here.

IMS students are automatically enrolled in either MSC1010H or MSC1011H. IMS students do not need to request this course on ACORN. 

Instructor: Tony Panzarella

Session Offered: 20251 S
Dates: January 7, 2025 - March 25, 2025 (Tuesdays), Time: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm, Location: Online

Description: The goals of this course are to provide students with the ability to understand and interpret statistics to enable them to conduct their own research and to critically appraise research evidence from the scientific and medical literature.

To enable these goals, a “problem-driven” approach referred to by the acronym PPDAC* (Problem, Plan, Data, Analysis and Conclusion) will be used :

1. outlining a problem and defining a research question to help solve this problem
2. carefully planning a research study to answer the question reliably
3. collecting the necessary data, and managing it appropriately to ensure it is of high quality
4. analyzing the study results using statistical methods consistent with the type of data collected
5. providing conclusions that reflect the results from the analysis

Syllabus

Instructor: Andrea McCart

Session Offered: TBD

Description: This is a half-year lecture course designed for M.Sc. and Ph.D. students in the IMS who wish to gain an in-depth understanding of the basic mechanisms of disease, how these processes lead to the clinical syndromes and how medical research in these areas leads to effective therapy.

The aim of the course is to integrate basic molecular, cellular, or physiological processes with subsequent disease processes and their treatments. The course will provide an opportunity to gain insights into medical and surgical diseases from birth to adulthood. The latest research including clinical trials if applicable will be discussed. Topics that may be discussed include cancer, transplantation, diabetes, sepsis, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease and others. Papers of relevance to the discussion will be provided.

The course will consist of 12 2-hour sessions. Each session will feature a 1 hour lecture by faculty members of the University of Toronto who are authorities on the topic under discussion. This will be followed by the presentation of a related and relevant paper by 1-4 students (depending on enrolment) who will also lead the subsequent class discussion. Students will sign up for their presentations prior to the first class. Students will work with the respective faculty member to elect the paper for presentation.

Instructor: George Foussias, Mahavir Agarwal

Session Offered: 20251 S
Start Date: January 15, 2025, Day/Time: Wednesday 10:00 am-11:30 am, Location: 1025 Queen St W 

Description: This course, consisting of a series of readings, seminars, and a term paper, is intended to provide an in-depth and multidimensional understanding of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Readings and seminars will include both foundational perspectives and recent advances in knowledge, bringing together the complexity of specialized knowledge that is required to carry out good research in the area of schizophrenia.

Topics included are:
• Introduction to course. What is Schizophrenia
• Signs and symptoms
• Prodrome and First episode Schizophrenia. Early detection
• Sociocultural aspects and vulnerable populations
• Neuropsychology
• Genetics
• Neuroimaging
• Neurophysiology
• Pharmacotherapeutics
• Animal models
• Research Ethics
• Overview and feedback

Enrollment Restrictions: Class size restricted to 12 students. Preference will be given to IMS students. If you wish to register for this course, please send a brief statement about the research you are conducting to the course instructors and copy cc.medscience@utoronto.ca. 

Prerequisites: The course has been designed for Masters and Ph.D. students in neuroscience, psychology and the social sciences. Knowledge of how the brain works is required.

Instructor: Stefan Kloiber and Victor Tang

Session Offered: 20251
Dates: January 14, 2025 - April 22, 2025 (Tuesdays), Time: 3-5 pm, Location: In person (TBD)

Description: This popular course investigates the neuroscience knowledge and research strategies underlying major psychiatric disorders and related psychopharmacological treatment. Lectures will discuss insights gained from areas of research such as genomics, neuroimaging, pharmacology, animal models and bioethics. Particular attention will be paid to how these studies have refined our understanding of clinical phenomena.

Selected faculty members with particular expertise will deliver a lecture describing their research work, including an introduction to their field, major methodological issues and key discoveries. Ample time will be dedicated to interaction and discussion. The assignments consist of: 1) selecting a topic for a review article and providing an abstract, 2) presenting a brief oral presentation, and 3) submitting a review article (2,500 – 5,000 words) at the end of the course.  Each assignment will be reviewed by two faculty members who will generate a consensus grade.

Prerequisites: None, but a background in neuroscience, molecular biology, genetics, statistics and neuroanatomy are recommended.

Instructors:  Sofia Chavez, Andrea Kassner

Session Offered: TBD
Start Date: tbd, Time tbd , Location: tbd.

Description: Over the last two decades, the study of human brain structure and function has come to rely on the latest developments in medical imaging technology, especially magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This course will provide an understanding of the principles of magnetic resonance imaging and cover concepts of advanced MRI neuroimaging methods used for quantitative imaging. The course is primarily intended for students who will use quantitative MRI neuroimaging techniques in their own thesis projects, and need to have a solid understanding of the physical and mathematical principles behind these methods in order to acquire good data and analyze them appropriately

Instructor: N/A

Session Offered: Not offered 

Description: Positron emission tomography (PET) has become an important tool for the early detection of disease, the understanding of basic molecular aspects of brain function and the evaluation of medical treatment. This course will build on a multidisciplinary team involving chemists, physicists, image scientists, computer scientists and clinician scientists currently investigating brain diseases such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, addictions, geriatrics and movement disorders.

The principal objectives of this course are to review the fundamental concepts of PET imaging and to convey an understanding of the opportunities that PET technology offers in brain research and drug development. Specific issues will be addressed in a perspective to answer basic research questions:

1) The chemistry of labelling compounds with short-lived positron-emitting radionuclides; 2) The design of PET radiopharmaceuticals – impact on interpretation of scanning data (e.g. position of labelling, metabolism, drugs vs. ligands); 3) PET instrumentation – how does a PET scanner or a cyclotron work (physics)?; 4) How PET data is analysed (kinetic modelling, image analysis); How PET can be used as a tool in brain research and drug development.

Instructor: Tony George

Session Offered: 20251
Dates: TBD (Thursdays), Time: 1-3 pm, Location: In person (SU 255)

Description: Prof. George and colleagues will review the biopsychosocial basis of mental health and addictive disorders from the perspectives of etiology, pathophysiology, clinical phenomenology and diagnostics, genetics, neuroimaging, and treatment which have all contributed to our increasing understanding of psychiatric and substance use disorders from a biomedical (“disease”) concept. The role of stigma and recovery would also be discussed from a biobehavioural and social determinants of health perspective, to produce an integrated perspective on mental health and addictive disorders. The contemporary approach to treatment of these disorders would also be discussed which emphasizes biological, psychological and social policy and prevention perspectives.

Enrolment: Limited to 25 students. Pre-approval for this course is required. Please contact Tony George and copy cc.medscience@utoronto.ca.

Course Director: Erik Spence

Session Offered: 20249 F
Start Date: September 10, 2024, Days/Times: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:00 am – 11:30 am
Location: In person (VC 323)

Description: The goal of this class is to prepare graduate students to perform scientific data analysis. Successful students will learn how to use statistical inference tools to gain insight into their data, as well as be exposed to techniques and best practices to store, manage and analyze data.

Topics to be covered:

• Introduction to programming with R,
• Programming best practices,
• Data structures,
• Review of basic statistics,
• Introduction to Machine Learning algorithms,
• Visualization of data

Prerequisites: No programming experience is necessary.  A laptop will be required to do the assignments.

Structure: Twelve weeks, with two 1.5-hour lectures per week. Final grades will be based on weekly assignments. Passing mark: 70% of the final grade.

Grading Scheme: Most weeks students will be given a programming assignment, with a due date one week after. These assignments are designed to help absorb the course material.  There will be between 10 and 12 assignments. The average of the assignments will make up the grade. There is no in-person mid-term. To ensure a timely reporting of student grades, we will adhere to the following policy:

Homework may be submitted up to one week after the due date, at a penalty of 0.5 point per day, out of the 10 points for each homework. Deviations of this rule will only be considered, on a case-by-case basis, in exceptional circumstances.

Instructor: Lucy Osborne
Pre-approval for this course is required. Please contact the instructor and copy cc.medscience@utoronto.ca.

Session Offered: 20249 - 20251 Y

Start Date: September 11, 2024, Days: Wednesdays, Time: 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm, Location: In person (SU 440)

Description: This course should encourage students to develop an approach to the genetic analysis, investigation and treatment of human disease.

In the body of the course, a series of 16 lectures will cover background relevant to the study of human genetic disease as well as specific examples of human genetic disease research.

Introduction to molecular approaches: Students will be introduced to useful tools and concepts that enable the study of a wide spectrum of human diseases. These include such topics as: population identification and sample collection; genome scanning with subsequent linkage analysis; copy number variation analysis and the use of animal models.

Specific examples of human genetic disease research: Lecturers will be encouraged to discuss the basic clinical presentation and pathophysiology of the genetic disease that they study; the approach they take in their research; the molecular changes that occur and key findings. Each lecture will provide an example of the application of molecular tools to the investigation of a specific human disease. Lecturers will be encouraged to provide weekly reading assignments in advance of the lecture and will usually provide their slides to the class for review.

Each student will be required to sit a short answer exam (December), prepare a Letter of Intent for a grant proposal that addresses a research topic in human genetic disease (February) and give a 10-15 minute in-class slide presentation of a research paper assigned by the Course Director (March), and write a short News & Views type article about a paper or papers in the field of human genetic disease that have been published during the past calendar year.

Syllabus

Instructor: Arranged by student through petition (see below)

Session Offered: 20245

Description: An independent study course on topics of interest to the student that is not already offered at IMS. Student usually meet weekly to read, criticize and discuss current literature in the field and write essay assignments. This course can also be used to conduct field projects. Independent study course topics can be relevant to the area of research the student is conducting but should NOT be on the exact same topic as the student’s thesis, and the student’s supervisor may NOT serve as instructor of the independent study course. It is the responsibility of the student and instructor to prepare a course outline, grading scheme, etc.

The student needs to fill out this form and obtain approval to enroll in this course.

Prerequisites: Suitable background for area of study.

Enrollment Restrictions: Preference will be given to IMS students. Students are required to petition in order to take this course. Please download a Request for Reading/Research Course at the SGS Web Site. Complete the form and bring it to the IMS Office. We recommend that you provide as much information as possible on the proposed course content, grading, and reasons for requesting a reading course.

The IMS Graduate Coordinator will review and approve your enrolment in MSC6000H. Questions? Please contact the IMS Office.

Instructor: Sonya MacParland

Session Offered: 20249 - 20251 Y
Start Date: September 12, 2024, Days: Thursdays, Time: 9 am – 11 am, Location: In person (UHN)

Description: MSC7000Y is a unique flagship course of wide interest to students with a health professional background (i.e. MDs, RNs, clinicians), and scientists across Canada. This course will provide students with an understanding of the science behind the field, the bio-processes, new and emerging technologies, the ethical and regulatory aspects of implementation and the academic/industry partnerships on which clinical success is likely to be based. Content is as follows:

BACKGROUND: ORGAN FAILURE
Heart, Lung, Liver, Kidney, Pancreas Failure including physiology, human impact, and cost and the implications for regenerative medicine

Current Approaches to Management of Organ Failure including transplant and non-transplant approaches

REGENERATIVE MEDICINE AND INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES (MAIN FOCUS)

• Stem Cells (ESC, iPS, MSC, Islet, Neural, Retinal, Marrow)
• Gene Therapy
• Biomarkers & Assays
• Stem Cell Aging, Manufacturing, and Engineering
• Tissue Engineering (Lab/Organ on a Chip)
• CRISPR Genome Editing

CLINICAL APPLICATIONS OF REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

• Immune Tolerance in Transplant
• Burns and Skin Regeneration
• Imaging and Nanotechnology in Regenerative Medicine
• Translation of New Therapies from Bench to Bedside
• Fundamentals of Clinical Trials Design
• Evaluation of Health-Related Quality of Life
• Cost-Effectiveness & Global Health Economics
• Adoption of New Therapies

ETHICS AND SOCIETY

• Research Ethics
• Transplant Ethics
• Quality of Life – Patient perspective
• Regenerative Medicine Ethics
• Public Opinion and the Media
• Regulation of Regenerative Medicine in Canada
• IP and Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine

JOURNAL CLUB

• Selected articles relevant to regenerative medicine will be selected for group participation during the course.
• This course forms a major part of a Training Program in Regenerative Medicine.

Enrollment Restrictions: Maximum enrollment of 20 students at the University of Toronto, 20 students affiliated through the Stem Cell Network (across Canada).

This course is available for graduate students from other universities. Non-U of T graduate students must enroll in this course through their home University using existing off-campus study agreements (CUGTA or OVGS) or a request for transfer credit. Please contact the Program Coordinator, Anna Cocco, for more details.

Enrollment: Interested students must complete the following form. 

Syllabus

Instructor:  Ben Leung, Dakota Gustafson

Session Offered:  TBD
Start date: TBD Time: TBD, Location: Online

 Please note this half-course will follow an irregular meeting schedule:

Description: This 0.5 credit course is aimed at enhanced understanding of the breadth of research in resuscitation science. It will provide students within disparate fields of research enquiry with the fundamentals of the discipline and provide a forum to discuss common areas of research interest, thereby further reinforcing a spirit of interdisciplinary research. Topics include bioethical issues particular to resuscitation research; health services research with high risk groups; outcomes research in critical illness; translational research in resuscitation and knowledge translation. From bench to bedside to curbside, students will gain a thorough understanding of the issues and concerns unique to the field of resuscitation sciences.

For more information visit the CPRS website at Collaborative Program in Resuscitation Sciences.

Instructor: Paul Dorian

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For more information visit the CPRS website at Collaborative Program in Resuscitation Sciences

Instructor: Various

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Collaborative Program in Musculoskeletal Sciences. Students must be enrolled in the CPMS to enroll.

Instructor: Steffen-Sebastian Bolz

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Cardiovascular Sciences.

Instructor: Carin Wittnich

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details,  see Cardiovascular Sciences.

Instructor: Carin Wittnich

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Cardiovascular Sciences.

Instructor: Scott Heximer

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Cardiovascular Sciences.

Instructor: Anthony Gramolini

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Cardiovascular Sciences.

Instructor: M. Piquette-Miller

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Pharmacology & Toxicology

Instructor: S. Wu and P. Lee

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Pharmacology & Toxicology

Instructor: L. Zawertailo (Offered in alternate years)

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Pharmacology & Toxicology

Instructor: James Eubanks

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Pharmacology & Toxicology

Instructor: L-Y Wang

Collaborative Specialization: This course is offered as a Collaborative Specialization and is not an IMS course. 

For details, see Pharmacology & Toxicology