Translational Medicine

The Translational Medicine program brings together top researchers from the Research Institute’s (RI) seven research programs to collaborate on research related to diseases affecting children. 

Blending the expertise from multidisciplinary teams from SickKids distinct research areas allows us to contribute new clinical and biological ideas towards child health. Collaboration drives our program’s mission of advancing our understanding of disease mechanisms, so we can develop and assess diagnostic tests and treatments in cellular systems, disease models, and patient clinical trials. 

Asthma, childhood cancer, COVID-19, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, heart defects, and obesity are some of the targets we currently have our sights set on.

Many directions, with one common goal.

Our areas of research focus on today’s most critical problems in childhood health. Through the Research Institute’s core facilities and labs, we utilize advanced cellular and molecular technologies and tools to accelerate research discovery, applying our knowledge gained in the clinic to improve patients’ outcomes. 

Learn more about the five areas of child health we're currently focusing on:

• Pulmonary Medicine
• Cardiology
• Metabolism and Nutrition
• Cancer and Blood Disorders
• Imaging

Studies range from basic laboratory research to clinical trials as we pursue new medical therapies. By including a wide range of disciplines, our researchers take a comprehensive approach to examine the underlying mechanisms of childhood diseases, and translate this knowledge through innovative clinical trials into clinical care.

Our researchers are leading the charge against respiratory illness on multiple fronts – including lung development, fetal to neonatal transition and lung growth, lung injuries and infections, mechanical ventilation, asthma, cystic fibrosis, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, and sleep disorders.

Pulmonary Medicine laboratories examine lung diseases on a cellular and molecular level to gain a better understanding of how the lungs protect themselves, and then translate newfound knowledge to develop innovative therapies to apply in clinical trials.

Current themes

• Neonatal lung disease and lung development 
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 
• Asthma 
• Cystic fibrosis (CF) 
• Epidemiology & treatment of multi-drug resistant bacterial pathogens causing infections with CF 
• Ventilation-induced injury 
• Pulmonary bacterial and viral infection 
• Allergy & immunology-Food allergy 
• Innate & adaptive immunity 
• Gene therapy for genetic airway diseases 
• Development of new functional airway testing 

Congenital cardiovascular (CV) malformations represent one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in children and adults – but it remains unclear how congenital CV malformations occur.  

Our research laboratories investigate the physiology and biomechanics of developing CV systems in mouse embryos to better understand the structural and functional maturation of the normal heart and blood vessels, and the causes for congenital heart disease.  

In order to better understand the interactions between mother and fetus (in mammals) that may contribute to altered CV morphogenesis, maternal and embryonic/fetal CV function is also investigated using high resolution ultrasound, as well as invasive techniques. 

Current themes

• Biomarker development for inherited arrhythmias/cardiomyopathies 
• Congenital heart block 
• Prenatal programming of cardiovascular disease 
• Arrhythmia 
• Intrauterine growth restriction-prenatal hemodynamic mechanisms 
• Cardiovascular imaging and Fetal cardiovascular using new MRI imaging technique  
• New echocardiography techniques in children 
• Pediatric cardiac interventions-mechanical circulatory support for neonates & infants with single ventricle physiology 
• Drug discovery to treat fibrosis, dysfunction and arrhythmias 
• Regenerative medicine 
• Placenta-fetal circulatory physiology 
• Epigenetic control of cardiovascular development 

We're also active in clinical care and research in diseases of blood other than cancer. Platelets play important roles in the formation of hemostatic plugs, which stops bleeding from injured blood vessels, and arterial thrombi, which are responsible for the clinical complications of atherosclerosis. Biochemical mechanisms involved in platelet function and dysfunction are currently being studied.

Current themes

• Novel therapies and clinical trials for high-risk neuroblastoma 
• Use of immune checkpoint inhibitors and immunotherapy for hypermutant childhood cancers 
• Targeted and precision medicines for life-threatening diseases 
• Coagulopathy in neonates and children with congenital heart disease 
• Platelets, thrombosis & hemostasis 
• Transfusion medicine

Current themes

• Neonatal & fetal imaging technologies 
• Adaptation & malformations in the vascular system 
• Adaptation of the brain with disease 
• Cerebral vascular reactivity (CVR) 
• 3D perfusion maps of cerebral blood flow 
• Phenotyping genetic variants characterizing mouse disease models 
• Musculoskeletal imaging (focus: cancer and arthritis): innovative experimental MRI and ultrasound research methods into clinical practice