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the general population, so fairly common,” adds Dr. Gavin Oudit.
The fact that the condition preys on young people in their mid-20s to mid- 30s makes it even more sinister. The good news, however, is that thanks to support from the University Hospital Foundation, the Maz has assumed a leadership role in developing ways
of identifying the cause of cardiac myopathies, and how to eliminate the condition before they take shape.
“We have created one of the
world’s largest biobanks of explanted heart tissues from patients with cardiomyopathies,” says Dr. Oudit. “This has led to international collaborations with colleagues from Boston, London, Cambridge and Berlin that have led
to very high impact publications in important medical journals.
“We are now starting to unravel the molecular basis of cardiomyopathies in our patients. And by doing that, we can now go back and start correcting these with things like genome editing. We’ve done it in cells and animal models. The plan is to move this into clinical trials for patients.
“This is precision medicine at its finest. We can detect exactly what’s wrong with the patient and then edit that genetic abnormality and correct the defect. In effect, we are working towards one day eliminating the disease.”
Karl Sacca at the Timms Centre for the Arts, where he performed on stage while a student at the University of Alberta
The health-care sector is poised to become one of the most significant areas of technological advancement. The window of opportunity to engage with and capitalize on the forthcoming developments is rapidly closing. Delaying our involvement for
five, or even two years, is not a feasible option. It is imperative
that we commit to investing in this technology now, positioning Alberta as a leader and active participant in this transformative era, rather than remaining passive observers who will ultimately bear the cost of inaction.”
Dr. Mitchell researches the use of artificial intelligence in health- care delivery.
Dr. Ross Mitchell
Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta,
Senior Program Director of Artificial Intelligence Adoption,
Alberta Health Services
“What I hope is that we will have true learning health-
care systems. That would involve taking all the new data generated each day, putting them in a data warehouse, having AI agents analyze that data, and using them to prevent people from going into acute care. If we have AI agents monitoring our health for us in the background, securely and under our control, our privacy is maintained but we have something that’s monitoring our health all the time and
can ward off major health challenges. That, combined with gene-editing technologies, might allow us to prevent a lot of morbidity and mortality.
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Photo: Amanda Gallant