Gairdner Science Week 2026
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October 21:2026 Laureate Lectures

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The Laureate Lectures offer a rare opportunity to hear directly from the 2026 Canada Gairdner Award recipients as they share the stories and science behind their discoveries

 

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Unable to attend in person? Join us via livestream: https://bit.ly/GSW-2026-Livestream

Schedule

9:00 AM 

Introductory Remarks 

Dr. Morag Park, President & Scientific Director, Gairdner Foundation 

9:06 AM 

Neural gateways treating cardiovascular paralysis 

Dr. Aaron Phillips, 2026 Peter Gilgan Canada Gairdner Momentum Award Laureate 
Associate Professor, Departments of Clinical Neurosciences, Cardiac Sciences, Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Calgary; Associate Dean, Innovation and Commercialization, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada

9:38 AM 

Discovering the Immune Systems of Bacteria 

Dr. Karen Maxwell, 2026 Peter Gilgan Canada Gairdner Momentum Award Laureate 
Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada

10:10 AM 

Oral cholera vaccine: From concept to public health reality 

Dr. Jan Holmgren, 2026 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award Laureate
Senior Professor, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Dr. John Clemens, 2026 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award Laureate
Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director General, International Vaccine Institute, Seoul, South Korea; Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, United States

10:50 AM 

Health Break 

11:08 AM 

Cryo-electron tomography: The power of seeing the whole picture 

Dr. Wolfgang Baumeister, 2026 Canada Gairdner International Award Laureate 
Director Emeritus and Scientific Member, Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany; Distinguished Professor, ShanghaiTech University, China

11:40 PM 

Adventures in Protein Chemistry using Mass Spectrometers

Dr. John Yates, 2026 Canada Gairdner International Award Laureate 
John Lytton Young Endowed Chair and Professor, Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, Scripps Research, La Jolla, United States

12:12 PM 

The proteome as complex adaptive system 

Dr. Ruedi Aebersold, 2026 Canada Gairdner International Award Laureate 
Professor Emeritus, Molecular Systems Biology, Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, Department of Biology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

12:44 PM 

From molecular machines to medicine: three decades of mass spectrometry-based proteomics 

Dr. Matthias Mann, 2026 Canada Gairdner International Award Laureate 
Director of Department of Proteomics and Signal Transduction, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany

1:16 PM 

Scientific Origins of the First Drug for Treating a Human Amyloid Disease? 

Dr. Jeffery W. Kelly, 2026 Canada Gairdner International Award Laureate 
H. Lutcher Brown Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, United States

1:46 PM 

Closing Remarks 

Dr. Morag Park, President & Scientific Director, Gairdner Foundation 

Location

MaRS Auditorium, 101 College St, Toronto, ON M5G 0A3

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