The recipients of the 2023 Gairdner Awards—Canada’s most prestigious medical awards—have been announced. Among the awardees is University Health Network (UHN)’s Dr. Gelareh Zadeh, who received one of two inaugural Canada Gairdner Momentum Awards.
The Momentum Awards were established to recognize mid-career researchers who have, over the last six years, made significant discoveries that have the potential to improve human health.
Dr. Zadeh is being recognized for her seminal contributions to improving our understanding of brain tumours. Her work has led to a new molecular classification of one of the most common types of brain tumours—an advancement that has the potential to lead to more effective treatments, models for predicting patient outcomes and biomarkers of treatment response.
Her research program integrates molecular, genomic and epigenomic techniques, together with experimental models of brain tumours, to accelerate translational research in neuro-oncology. Her work has transformed our understanding of the biology and, consequently, the management of a number of different brain tumour types—especially meningiomas, which are the most common form of brain tumour. This work has led to a paradigm shift in the classification, predictive modelling and clinical management of these tumours.
Dr. Zadeh has also spearheaded international efforts to define the genomic landscape of neuronal tumours that have not been the focus of significant biological research, including schwannomas, peripheral nerve tumours and malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours. These efforts have revealed novel fusion proteins and resulted in the molecular sub-classification of schwannomas. Additionally, her team has identified two biological pathways that drive the progression of benign peripheral nerve tumours toward malignant sarcomas. These molecular pathways not only provide a better biological understanding of tumour transformation, but also provide targets that could be used to develop therapeutic strategies, including the repurposing of existing pharmaceuticals.
She has also, in collaboration with researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, advanced the development of blood-based biomarkers that can be used to diagnose and discriminate different brain tumour types, and potentially to track response to therapy and early recurrence of disease.
Dr. Zadeh balances her clinical duties as the Head of Neurosurgery at Toronto Western Hospital with her leadership responsibilities as Chair of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto (UofT) and Co-Director of the Krembil Brain Institute. She also leads a highly accomplished, peer-review funded, 30-member research team at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, where she is a Senior Scientist.
Dr. Zadeh’s accomplishments have been recognized through being named the Dan Family Chair in the Division of Neurosurgery at UofT—one of the world’s largest neurosurgical programs—making her the first woman in Canada to be named neurosurgery chair. Her other prestigious honours include the William E. Rawls Prize from the Canadian Cancer Society, the Top 25 Women of Influence Award, and the Ab Guha Award jointly awarded by the Society of Neuro-Oncology and American Association of Neurological Surgeons. She is the immediate past-President of the Society of Neuro-Oncology, which is a leading international society for brain tumour research and education. She is the current Editor-in-Chief of the open-access journal Neuro-Oncology Advances.
The Gairdner Momentum Award comes with a $50,000 prize and will be presented to Dr. Zadeh during Gairdner Science Week in October 2023.
“It is such an honour to receive this award from the Gairdner Foundation,” says Dr. Zadeh. “I attribute my success in large part to the highly skilled and integrated research and clinical teams that I work with at UHN. My team’s achievements in translational brain research simply would not be possible without the exceptional researchers, trainees, neuro-oncologists, surgical teams and patients that we work with every day. I hope the recognition of the work that I have done extends in impact beyond me.”
Join us in congratulating Dr. Zadeh on this momentous achievement!
To learn more about this year’s recipients, read the press release here.