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OCTOBER - DECEMBER  2018

  • Happy Holidays and Happy New Year 2019.

  • Farwell to Amanda Goodwin, we will miss Amanda’s helpful and positive nature - and scientific brilliance.

  • Welcome to Ronen Schuster joining us from Ben Gurion University of the Nagev, Israel. Wishing Ronen a productive Post Doc in our lab!
    The impact of candy-wrapper: Our review “The ECM and TGF-β1: Tale of a strained relationship” (2015) is the top 3 downloaded and top 5 cited articles of ‘Matrix Biology’.

  • The relevance of fibrosis research: “The myofibroblast matrix: implications for tissue repair and fibrosis” (2012) is among the top 20 cited articles in the ‘Journal of Pathology’ and 2nd youngest article in that list. Among the top 10 cited articles, 4 are about fibrosis.

  • Congratulations to Pardis Pakshir on successfully defending her PhD thesis and for delivering her talk at the dentistry seminars. 

  • And welcome Pardis Pakshir, new Post-Doc in the lab!

  • Congratulations Alumni Sandra Gribi! Published paper: Gribi S, du Bois de Dunilac S, Ghezzi D, Lacour SP. 2018. A micro-fabricated nerve-on-a-chip platform for rapid assessment of neural conduction in explanted peripheral nerve fibers. Nature Communications .

  • Congratulations Alumni John Blaikley! Paper published: Cunningham PS, Maidstone R, Durrington HJ, et al., and Blaikley JF. 2018. Incidence of primary graft dysfunction after lung transplantation is altered by timing of allograft implantation. Thorax.

  • Just an impression of a session that Boris shared with Peter Friedl and Robert Schleip at the International Conference on Fascia Research in November in Berlin:

JULY - SEPTEMBER 2018

  • New Publication: Walsh, S., Worrell, J., Fabre, A., Hinz, B., Kane, R., and Keane, M. (2018): Novel Differences in Gene Expression and Functional Capabilities of Myofibroblast Populations in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. AJP Lung.

  • New Publication: Warren, J., Im, M.*, Ballesteros, A., Ha, C., Moore, T., Lambert, F., Lucas, S., Hinz, B., Dveksler, G. (2018) Activation of latent transforming growth factor-?1, a conserved function for pregnancy-specific glycoproteins. Molecular Human Reproduction.

  • Lab-trip: Thank-you everyone for another memorable Hinz Lab camping expedition; this time the Elora Gorge Conservation Area. We will never forget that it is 24 km from Kaufman’s Flats to Freeport Bridge, Kitchener when kayaking the Grand river.

  • Farewell to Melanie Kiebalo and Paul Wu who will return to their undergraduate student life after 4 months of joy and potential fame in the Hinz lab. Thanks a lot for your contributions to our research enterprise.

  • Welcome to Kristina Bei who will support Donna. Kristina took over from Nareg Kara-Yacoubian in September – Fare well Nareg!

  • A very warm farewell to Henna Karvonen after more than 2 years in the Hinz lab. Henna joined in April 2015 to study macrophages and myofibroblasts. Henna will return to Finland by the end of August. She will and continue the project on her fellowship for the Acadmy of Finland – while starting new endeavors. All the best!

  • Congratulations to Michele and Mariëlle Walraven and welcome to baby Luc! A temporary farewell to Mariëlle; looking forward to having you back early next year, relaxed after all that extra sleep.

APRIL - JUNE 2018

  • New publication: Asmani, M., Velumani, S., Li, Y., Wawrzyniak, N., Hsia, I., Chen, Z., Hinz, B., and Zhao, R. (2018): Fibrotic microtissue array to predict anti-fibrosis drug efficacy. Nature Communications.

  • LTRR on the move: We said goodbye to good old Fitzgerald Building and moved to 124 Edward street into brand new research and office space. Thanks to the lab members for all your help and efforts before, during, and after the move. No major catastrophes happened, all our equipment seems to be functional and the lab is up and running again.

  • Cheers: Too bad that we could not move our paper celebration champagne bottles - not compatible with level 2 biosafety.

  • Congratulations to Marielle Walraven who was selected to present her work with a talk at the Meeting of the Skin Research Group, June 22-24, Montreal, QC, Canada.

  • Congratulations to Henna Karvonen and Monika Lodyga for winning the first Prize in the poster competition of the Canadian Connective Tissue Conference, Toronto, May 23-25, 2018 for their collaborative work.

  • Conference contributions: Members of LTRR contributed a total of 6 posters and 7 selected oral presentations to the following meetings:

    • Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering Annual Research Conference, May 29, Toronto, ON, Canada

    • Canadian Connective Tissue Conference, May 23-25, Toronto, ON

    • Joint Meeting of the Wound Healing Society (WHS), European Tissue Repair Society (ETRS) and the Society for Advanced Wound Care (SAWC), April 25-29, Charlotte, NC, USA

    • Landscape of Translational Medicine Course, C-COMEND, EU training, Bayer, April 16-20, 2018, Berlin, Germany

  • Boris was ETRS program chair of the joint meeting of the Wound Healing Society (WHS), the European Tissue Repair Society (ETRS) and the Societies of Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) in Charlotte, NC, April 25-25, 2018. 

  • On the Origin of Fibroblast Species: LTRR organized the first  Toronto Symposium on Fibroblast Progenitors in Health and Disease, May 25-26, 2018 at the Fitzgerald Building, University of Toronto.

  • The Symposium registered 120 attendees and featured a panel of world-leading experts, studying the mechanisms of fibrosis and tissue repair in different organs: Jeremy Duffield (lung and kidney), Neil Henderson (liver), Christina Philippeos (skin), Yuval Rinkevich (development), Fabio Rossi (Heart and skeletal muscle), and Robert Schwabe (liver and cancer stroma). Our keynote speaker, Giulio Gabbiani, founded this field of health research in the 1970’s by discovering activated fibroblasts –myofibroblasts– in skin wound tissue. Thanks to our session chairs Julie Fradette, Andras Kapus, and Michael Czubryt!

  • The symposium was organized with sponsor support from the University of Toronto and Toronto Health Initiatives: The Global Fibrosis Network, Medicine by Design, Bluerock Therapeutics, the Faculty of Dentistry, the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, and the Canadian Connective Tissue Society, that held its annual meeting back-to-back. Thanks to all the supporters!!

  • Welcome to Deboki Naskar, who joined the lab as a post-doc, starting July 15, 2018. Deboki comes with a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India in Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering, and Biomedical engineering. .

  • Welcome back Michelle Im! With a few more courses under her belt and a glowing GPA, Michelle will continue her project on cancer cell education. 

  • Welcome Amanda Goodwin! Amanda comes from Gisli Jenkins’ Lab at the University of Nottingham to work on a lung fibrosis project from End-May to November. Smart move picking the Summer to visit.

  • Welcome and congratulations to Po-Han (Paul) Wu for receiving CIHR IMHA funding to perform a Summer Undergraduate Research Project in our lab (May-August). 

  • Welcome to our summer volunteer Melanie Kiebalo who joins us from May-July. Melanie is a 2nd year undergrad student majoring in Human Biology and Psychology.

  • New publication: Pakshir, P. and Hinz, B., (2018): The big five in fibrosis: macrophages, myofibroblasts, matrix, mechanics, and miscommunication. Matrix Biology.

  • New publication: Walraven, M. and Hinz, B., (2018): New therapeutic approaches to control tissue repair and fibrosis: extracellular matrix as a game changer. Matrix Biology.

  • New publication: Klingberg F, Chau G, Walraven M, Boo S, Koehler A, Chow ML, Olsen AL, Im M, Lodyga M, Wells RG, White ES, Hinz B. (2018) The ED-A domain enhances the capacity of fibronectin to store latent TGF-beta binding protein-1 in the fibroblast matrix. Journal of Cell Science.

  • New publication: Sun, M., Ishii, R., Okumura, K., Krauszman, A., Breitling, S., Gomez, O., Hinek, A., Boo, S., Hinz, B., Connelly, K., Kuebler, W.M., Friedberg. M.K. (2018): Experimental right ventricular hypertension induces regional ?1 integrin mediated transduction of hypertrophic and pro-fibrotic right and left ventricular signaling. J American Heart Association (JAHA).

  • Highlights: Our publication: “The ED-A domain enhances the capacity of FN to store LTBP-1 in the fibroblast matrix” has been selected for the ‘Research Highlights’ section of the Journal of Cell Science.

  • Cover Page: And one more: “The ED-A domain enhances the capacity of FN to store LTBP-1 in the fibroblast matrix” is featured with a cover page of the Journal of Cell Science, Volume 131

  • Fibrosis Research Rocks Dentistry: The Faculty of Dentistry was awarded ~$10 million in research funds from the CFI Innovation Fund and Ontario Research Fund. The award – largest in the Faculty’s history – will create Canada’s first comprehensive state-of-the-art research hub: “The Fibrosis Network” Please check out the Newsflash on the Faculty's web page here.

  • Pardis Pakshir (selected for talk), Marielle Walraven (selected for Poster Pitch), Henna Karvonen (Poster), and Boris (invited talk) presented work of the lab at the 8th Joint Meeting of the European Tissue Repair Society (ETRS) and the Wound Healing Society (WHS), April 25-29, 2018, Charlotte, NC, USA.

  • Trong Shen presented at the The Regenerative Medicine Symposium (April 25-26, 2018) in the Astellas Conference Room located in the Toronto General Hospital (585 University Avenue)

  • Congrats to Gyu-Tae (Kyu) Kim for winning the first prize for the best graduate student presentation at this year´s Faculty of Dentistry’s Research Day, February 13, 2018.

  • Hello and goodbye to Sindhu Kr (PhD student from the lab of Olivier Chassande, INSERM U 1026, BIOTIS, Université de Bordeaux). Sindhu stayed with us for the month of February to investigate fibrotic cell reactions on novel hydrogels. We hope you enjoyed Winter time in Toronto!

JANUARY : MARCH 2018
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