Inside the 2026 International Symposium: After the Gairdner Award—Where Next? at Gairdner Science Week

On October 22, the MaRS Discovery District Auditorium welcomed researchers, members of the scientific community, and the public for the 2026 Gairdner Science Week International Symposium, After the Gairdner Award—Where Next?

Bringing together 2026 Canada Gairdner Award laureates and leading researchers from academia and industry, the symposium explored how breakthrough discoveries move from fundamental science to transformative therapies, and the opportunities and challenges shaping the future of medicine.

View the full album here.

The program opened with Jeffery Kelly, H. Lutcher Brown Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research, who reflected on how the discovery of tafamidis helped pave the way for 10 drugs targeting amyloid diseases, and the work that remains ahead.

Aaron Phillips, Associate Professor at the University of Calgary and Associate Dean of Innovation and Commercialization at the Cumming School of Medicine, followed with a discussion of how connections between the heart and brain could inform new approaches to treatment.

Turning to immunology, Megan Levings, Professor at the University of British Columbia and Scientist at BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, explored the regulation of human immunity and its implications for therapeutic development.

Felicia Pagliuca, Senior Vice President of Cell and Genetic Therapy Research and Site Head at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, then shared advances in stem cell-derived islets as a potential treatment for type 1 diabetes, highlighting the progress of cell-based therapies.

Closing the program, Matthias Mann, Director of the Department of Proteomics and Signal Transduction at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, examined how advances in mass spectrometry-based proteomics, from precision instrumentation to clinical applications, are helping translate molecular insights into better patient care.