For the third straight year, our Translational Bikeology team suits up for the Ride for Heart in Toronto. For us, it’s a special cause very close to our hearts – because we are a team of cardiovascular researchers and Heart & Stroke funds some of our work!

We are part of the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, Canada’s leading institution to focus on heart failure. One of the world’s great health challenges, it affects over 1 million Canadians, from newborns to retirees. The fastest-growing type of heart disease, heart failure is devastating for families, and takes a $3 billion annual toll on the health-care system.

But it does not have to be this way. Emboldened with the largest gift in Canadian health-care history from the Rogers family, researchers and clinicians from SickKids, University Health Network and the University of Toronto now collaborate to tackle this disease.

Our array of experts – from cardiology to pediatrics, bioengineering to genetics, basic science to machine learning – will find new approaches to heart failure through such efforts as whole genome sequencing, remote patient monitoring, and stem cell therapy.

Heart & Stroke has invested $1.52B in life-saving research since 1952, including supporting many different projects at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research.

Our Translational Bikeology team’s home is the Centre’s Translational Biology and Engineering Program (TBEP). Our labs and investigators possess diverse expertise in biology, engineering, physiology, imaging, microvascular medicine, and proteomics.

TBEP’s key goal is to generate new ways to repair and regenerate damaged heart muscle by introducing stem cells, molecules and biomaterials in ways that will work, and which the heart will accept. Our teams are also identifying unique biomarkers to detect and manage heart disease early, and engineering heart tissue models to quickly and safely test new precision therapies made at the Ted Rogers Centre.

With the right funding, the early detection, prevention and treatment of heart failure – and the repair of damaged hearts – are within our grasp this decade and next.

Please help me with my fundraising goal and make a donation today.

Thank you!