In April 2008, Mount Sinai Hospital began building the infrastructure for the Enwave Energy Corporation (Enwave) Deep Cooling program that enables Mount Sinai to use the cool water in the depths of Lake Ontario for a new environmentally-friendly air-conditioning source for its main building. Mount Sinai’s participation in Enwave will help reduce Toronto’s carbon footprint and support patient care by:

• Freeing more than 61 megawatts from the City’s electrical grid, which is equivalent to the amount needed to supply energy to 6,800 homes annually.
• Contributing to the prevention of more than 79,000 tons of carbon dioxide being released in the atmosphere each year, which is comparable to removing 15,800 cars off the road.
• Reducing Mount Sinai energy costs by $3.5 million over a 20-year period, which will be put back into patient care. 

An international study led by Lunenfeld Principal Investigator Dr. Rayjean Hung uncovered, for the first time, an important genetic region associated with lung cancer risk. As published in the April 3, 2008 issue of scientific journal Nature, results showed that chromosome 15 is associated with lung cancer, providing new clues on how smoking tobacco can cause this cancer. The largest genetic study of lung cancer ever conducted, it is hoped that this information will lead to possibilities of new prevention strategies and therapeutic targets at early stages. Lung cancer continues to be the most common cancer in Canada and survival rates remain low.

Mount Sinai Hospital began Patient Safety Leadership Walkabouts in May 2008. During each session, clinicians – nurses, physicians and allied health teams – speak with Hospital President and CEO Joseph Mapa and his senior leadership team about how they provide patient care. Senior leadership members learn from front-line staff about the challenges they see in providing the best and safest care, and brainstorm possible strategies for improvement. The clinicians then develop an action plan to address issues identified during the meeting, such as implementing check lists to ensure the smooth transfer of patients between units. “These rounds provide senior management with a real sense of the challenges facing our dedicated front-line staff,” says Maureen Shandling, Senior Vice-President, Medical. “The rounds also foster the culture of quality and safety in the Hospital.”

In a study released by the American Society of Clinical Oncology on May 16, 2008, clinician-scientist Dr. Pamela Goodwin uncovered a link between vitamin D deficiency and poor prognosis of breast cancer. Dr. Goodwin, Senior Investigator at the Lunenfeld, found that deficiency in vitamin D is common in breast cancer patients and is associated with higher grade breast cancer tumours. Patients with vitamin D deficiency also had an increased risk of recurrence and lower overall survival rates than those patients with sufficient vitamin D levels. Breast cancer is still the most common cancer among Canadian women.

Mount Sinai’s new Rehab and Wellbeing Centre, located on the Hospital’s 11th Floor, opened in June 2008. The centre offers chiropractic care, acupuncture, custom orthotics and massage therapy, as well as yoga, pilates and other fitness classes. The Centre is a business development initiative that generates revenue to support the Hospital.

Also in June, eleven Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute labs moved into two floors of new lab space within the Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Health Complex at Mount Sinai Hospital. The new labs bring together 11 leading prinicipal investigators and associate scientists, alongside 150 post-doctoral fellows, technicians and graduate students in 44,000 square feet of ‘open-plan’ labs. The new space illustrates the increasing importance of collaboration in science – shared space and resources designed to encourage collaboration and foster integrated thinking.

In July 2008, Mount Sinai became one of the first Ontario hospitals to provide the KRAS gene screening test for patients with colorectal cancer. The test, which is processed by Pathology and Lab Medicine, enables doctors to determine the best drug treatment for a patient, based on whether or not the KRAS gene has mutated. The KRAS gene is present in normal cells and is needed for normal cell growth, but it can mutate during cancer. Mount Sinai pathologists are using new sophisticated science to examine cells from tumour samples so that patients can receive the best

In July 2008, research by Endocrinologist Dr. Denice Feig found that women with gestational diabetes are at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study showed that almost 20 per cent of women with gestational diabetes went on to develop type 2 diabetes within nine years of pregnancy. The Canadian Medical Association Journal published Dr. Feig’s findings.

In August 2008, the Lunenfeld received the OMX (Optical microscopy eXperimental) -- one of the world’s highest-resolution light microscopes and the only one of its kind in Canada. The Lunenfeld’s Dr. Laurence Pelletier was chosen to test the microscope which ‘breaks the laws of physics.’ The OMX uses lasers, high-speed cameras and computers to produce impressive images and gives scientists the clearest view ever seen of live cells in real time. This will help researchers study and better understand a variety of biological systems and ultimately help unlock some answers to cancer and birth defects.

In a study published by The Lancet Journal on September 8, 2008, clinician-scientist and Lunenfeld Senior Investigator Dr. Daniel Drucker reported that a new once-weekly treatment for type 2 diabetes could replace the more common twice-daily injection. The new treatment, Exenatide once weekly is the first in a new class of long-acting medications that mimic the action of a naturally occurring hormone that is produced in the gut after eating. Dr. Drucker’s research showed that the weekly dose lowered blood sugar with fewer side-effects than the original twice-daily treatment. Over two million Canadians have diabetes.

In October, Dr. Reinhold Vieth, a Clinical Biochemist at Mount Sinai, discovered that children with low levels of vitamin D are twice as likely to develop multiple sclerosis. Dr. Vieth hopes his research will push more people to make an effort to increase their vitamin D intake.

In October, in partnership with Rexall, Canada’s largest retail pharmacy network, Mount Sinai opened a new pharmacy on the main floor. The store provides Hospital staff, patients and their families with a large selection of high-quality products at the same convenient location where they receive exceptional health care.

In November, Mount Sinai celebrated the opening of The Cyril & Dorothy, Joel & Jill Reitman Centre for Alzheimer’s Support and Training. The centre delivers unique, targeted skill-building interventions that provide family caregivers with the tools and support to manage at home the care of loved ones with dementia. The centre is housed at 60 Murray Street and can be accessed by referral from a family physician.

Dr. Steven Gallinger, Lunenfeld Senior Investigator and the Oakdale/George Knudson Research Chair in Gastrointestinal Cancer Genetics played a key role in an international team that identified four new genes for colorectal cancer. The discovery, published in Nature Genetics on November 16, 2008, examined 38,710 genetic markers in 13,315 individuals from four countries. A total of 10 genes are now linked to colorectal cancer, and together these genes could predict up to a six-fold increase in the lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer.

In December 2008, Dr. Kellie Murphy, Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist at Mount Sinai, published a study in The Lancet Journal that changed the standard of care worldwide for pregnant women at risk of preterm birth. Dr. Murphy and her team found that pregnant women who take multiple courses of antenatal corticosteroid – used to reduce the infant’s risk of respiratory distress syndrome and death – increase their probability of giving birth to an infant who weighs less, is shorter in length, and has a smaller head circumference. The research also found that one course of this medication is just as effective in protecting premature babies from the risks as multiple courses.

In a study published by Nature Genetics on January 4, 2009, an international team of geneticists and gastroenterologists led by Mount Sinai Hospital’s Dr. Mark Silverberg discovered a new genetic link to ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that affects approximately 200,000 Canadians. The research employed a genome-wide study that analyzed the DNA of more than 1,000 patients and over 2,000 control samples using simple blood tests. The team’s findings showed significant evidence of susceptibility in two new genetic regions that play roles in inflammatory responses and immune system regulation.

In a study published by Nature Biotechnology on February 1, 2009, Lunenfeld Senior Investigator and Mary Janigan Research Chair in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, Dr. Jeff Wrana unveiled a new technology tool that analyzes breast cancer tumours to determine a patient’s best treatment options. The tool can predict with more than 80 per cent accuracy a patient’s chance of recovering from breast cancer. The new technology called ‘DyNeMo’ aims to eventually provide individualized analysis to breast cancer patients and their oncologists so that they are better informed and empowered to select a treatment best suited to them. In the future, this tool may be used to analyze other types of cancer and could be used to predict an individual’s response to particular drugs.

In a study published March 1, 2009 by Nature, Lunenfeld Senior Investigator Dr. Andras Nagy discovered a new method of creating stem cells that could lead to possible cures for devastating diseases including spinal cord injury, macular degeneration, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Nagy announced a new approach to creating pluripotent stem cells (cells that can develop into most other cell types) without disrupting healthy genes. Dr. Nagy’s new method of generating stem cells does not require embryos as starting points and could be used to generate cells from many adult tissues such as a patient’s own skin cells. The study accelerates stem cell technology and provides a road map for new clinical approaches to regenerative medicine.