Project Overview

The Toronto Dementia Research Alliance will establish a clinical research platform that will provide a consistent and efficient approach to managing research and clinical care in patients with neurodegenerative conditions. The platform will provide epidemiological data, track disease burden, fill gaps in medical evidence such as therapeutic effectiveness, performance measurement for the purpose of quality improvement, and enable evaluation of “real world” effectiveness of medical therapies in practice outside the highly controlled conditions of clinical trials. Complementary information obtained through future linkage beyond the 3-year term of this project with the provincial Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) will provide additional information to manage and improve the effectiveness of the health system, and identify ineffective interventions, missed opportunities and duplication of services. This will lead to better management and evaluation of public health interventions including health promotion and risk reduction, all of which can impact on decreasing costs to the healthcare system. The platform will also have the flexibility to create and enter new standardized information in the face of advancing knowledge, thus contributing to sustainability within the context of a basic framework. This platform will provide a resource to accelerate innovation for research in neurodegenerative diseases, access to data sets for detailed cohort studies and appropriate patient selection for entry into therapeutic clinical trials.

Principal Investigator

Morris Freedman , Rotman Research Institute

Team Members

Stephen Strother, Rotman Research Institute

David Tang-Wai, University Health Network

Sandra Black, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Mario Masellis, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Corinne Fischer, St. Michael’s Hospital

Alan Moody, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Paula Rochon, Women’s College Hospital

Carmela Tartaglia, University Health Network

Nathan Herrmann, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Barry Greenberg, Krembil Research Institute

Ron Keren, University Health Network

Barry Goldlist, University Health Network

Uri Wolf, Baycrest

Paul Verhoeff, Baycrest

Gary Naglie, Baycrest, University of Toronto

A. Randy MacIntosh, Rotman Research Institute

William Reichman, Baycrest

Sanjeev Kumar, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Tarek Rajji, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Benoit Mulsant, CAMH, University of Toronto

Suvendrini Lena, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Sean Symons, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Krista Lanctot, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Walter Montanera, St. Michael’s Hospital

Angie Troyer, Baycrest

Tom Schweizer, St. Michael’s Hospital

Kathryn Stokes, Baycrest

Mary-Pat McAndrews, University Health Network

Prathiba Shammi, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Linda Mah, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre

Wendy Lou, University of Toronto

Kevin Thorpe, University of Toronto

Pascal Tyrrell, University of Toronto

Bruce Pollock, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Alex Kiss, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Malcolm Binns, Baycrest Health Sciences

Tamara Arenovich, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Cheryl Grady, Baycrest

General Leung, St. Michael’s Hospital

Sapna Rawal, University Health Network

David Mikulis, University Health Network

Donald Weaver, University Health Network

Susan Bronskill, Sunnybrook Research Institute

Partners and Donors

University of Toronto

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Baycrest

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

University Health Network (UHN)