The Tanz Centre: 20 years of discovery (Part Two)

The need to better understand, treat and even prevent diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s grows increasingly urgent as Canada’s population ages. In this conclusion of her two-part series on the University of Toronto’s world renowned Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases, writer Niamh McGarry looks at how U of T scientists are leading the way.

Two decades ago, the decision to create a standalone, disease-based Centre focused exclusively on Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases was both visionary and way ahead of its time, says Tanz Centre researcher and Jeno Diener Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease, Prof. Paul Fraser.

The current team of highly skilled primary investigators includes researchers with different disease emphasis and expertise—from genetics (Peter St George-Hyslop, Ekaterina Rogaeva); biophysics (Paul Fraser); protein interactions (Gerold Schmitt-Ulms); RNA (Janice Robertson); to the generation of cell models and stem cells (Anurag Tandon); model organisms, such as worms (Hiroshi Suzuki) or rodents (Howard Mount [B.Sc. ’82, M.Sc. ’86]); to neuroimaging (Carmela Tartaglia); the study of behaviour (Howard Mount); and neuropathology (Lili-Naz Hazrati).

This breadth of knowledge enables a discovery in one domain to rapidly be passed to researchers with complementary skills and tools for the next stage in the discovery pipeline. This is exactly what happened with the groundbreaking presenilin discoveries.

“We had the expertise in-house to immediately undertake studies of the protein and its function, and to make cellular and transgenic models,” explains St George-Hyslop.

A global trend toward “big science” has increasingly translated into partnerships between the Centre and international research programs, including the Alzheimer’s disease Genetics Consortium, which conducts pioneering, genome-wide association studies on more than 20,000 samples to identify genes that confer an increased risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

A couple of years ago, the Centre received an $8.8 million grant from the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to work with laboratories in Germany and the UK on fundamental questions related to Alzheimer’s disease. St George-Hyslop leads the international consortium.

“It’s a highly productive collaboration and there will be some impressive results coming out of it in the next year or two,” he predicts.

In addition, the Tanz Centre is part of a more recent British government push to rapidly move research from the bench to the clinic. Early discussions are underway with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, to replicate the initiative in Toronto.

The Tanz Centre has also forged links with China, securing two of the three new team grants funded jointly by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Science Foundation of China.

These collaborative initiatives have helped turn the Tanz Centre into a powerhouse for neurodegenerative research, and provided a unique and highly productive training environment for the next generation of scientists. The institute’s H-index rating (a measure of the productivity and impact of the most highly cited work published by a scientist or institute) is 47, according to a publication analysis conducted last year at U of T.

This places it second worldwide in the number and impact of its scientific publications in the neurodegenerative research field after the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology.

The Tanz Centre excels in all measures of success—awards, prizes, patents, peer-reviewed funding grants and name recognition—to such an extent that several other universities have been inspired to launch their own institutes with similar names and foci across North America. In the new millennium alone, Tanz Centre scientists have been awarded more than 50 major international and national scientific awards and prizes, and received roughly $50 million in peer reviewed funding.

Still, neurodegenerative disease research in Canada remains chronically underfunded compared to countries such as Germany and France. In fact, both the existence of the Tanz Centre and its continued success would be unthinkable if it were not for four sources of funding: philanthropy from private individuals including Mark Tanz (BA ’52, Honourary Doctor of Laws ’90), Lionel Schipper (BA ’53, LLB ’56, Honourary Doctor of Laws ’00) and others; the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, which has contributed $11 million over twenty years; the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; and the Ontario Research Fund from the provincial government.

“All played a critical role, and their continued support is vital to keep us going,” says St George-Hyslop.

Mark Tanz and Lionel Schipper are spearheading new fundraising efforts for a state-of-the-art location for the Centre in the Krembil Discovery Tower, currently rising from the ground beside the Toronto Western Hospital. The move, scheduled for 2013, is highly anticipated. The Tanz Centre has been housed from the beginning on the edge of the U of T campus at College and University, in a historic building from the 1930s that was not designed for molecular science.

The move to the new building, to be equipped with $8 million in leading-edge facilities, is expected to provide much-anticipated access to advanced imaging technology, modern equipment for the characterization of proteins and a major biobank with 80 freezers for storing tissue cultures. With a planned expansion to 14 laboratories, a lecture theatre, and the use of centralized seminar rooms, the Tanz Centre will be in the position to recruit new investigators in areas such as systems biology and stem cell research.

The new premises, and the increased access to technological and biological innovations it will facilitate, will ensure that the Tanz Centre remains at the forefront of international efforts to untangle the secrets of the brain.

“Right now neurodegenerative diseases are lethal disorders. In probably 10 to 15 years, we will view it like we currently view some cancers: there will be good specific medicines for certain types of these disorders,” predicts Prof. St George-Hyslop.

Eventually, he sees the Centre moving toward brain repair.

“Once we have ways to stop the disease, we still need to correct the damage already done. This will require a new phase of research: how to repair the brain damaged by neurodegenerative diseases.”

Building on the discoveries of the past two decades, Tanz Centre researchers and their supporters look forward to forging this next exciting phase of discovery.

Missed the first part of the series on the Tanz Centre? You can read it here.