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The Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, a special Canadian partnership that unites clinical innovation with genetics, stem cells and engineering, has named Professor Mansoor Husain its first executive director.

Husain, an internationally recognized cardiovascular researcher and professor in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology, will guide the Centre’s vision and its leading-edge work in heart failure.

“I’m honoured to lead this extraordinary collaboration between The Hospital for Sick Children, University Health Network and the University of Toronto to form a research centre that will improve the lives of Canadians with heart failure,” said Husain.

“Our researchers and physicians will work together with the broader cardiovascular community to transform the management of this disease across the lifespan.”

Husain is a leading researcher in the molecular mechanisms of diabetes, vascular biology and heart failure. He is director of the Toronto General Research Institute, a Heart & Stroke Foundation Career Investigator, former head of the Heart & Stroke/Richard Lewar Centre of Excellence, and past-president of Hypertension Canada.

One million Canadians live with heart failure. It carries an average survival rate of just two years, and costs the nation’s health-care system up to three billion dollars a year. The Centre seeks to provide new diagnoses, treatments and tools to better prevent and manage the disease in adults and children. It is led by a team of clinicians and investigators at its three world-renowned partners, who operate inter-related programs designed to make major advances in science and reduce re-hospitalizations for heart failure by 50 per cent in the next decade.

“Mansoor holds a special vision for how we can truly improve cardiovascular health and brings decades of clinical and investigative insight to the role,” said Vivek Goel, chair of the President’s Steering Committee for the Centre and vice-president of research and innovation at the University of Toronto.

“Out of a global search, he emerged from an outstanding field of candidates as uniquely positioned to lead the Centre in bringing together the wide range of experts along University Avenue to uncover new therapies and make a real difference in patient lives.”

The Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research is holding its first scientific symposium in Toronto May 12-13.