Overview:

The topic will discuss application of personalized genomics to the care of the transplanted patient. This will include pharmacogenetic influences on pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic responses to immunosuppressive drugs and other commonly used drugs in transplant patients, with special emphasis on pediatric populations. A brief discussion of genetic factors that predispose to post-transplant outcomes will also be discussed. Discussion will include the utility of transplant biobanks to study the transplanted patient population.

Biography:

Dr. Mital completed Pediatrics at Wayne State University, Michigan, in 1996, and Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship at Columbia University, New York in 1999. She was Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in Columbia University, Morgan-Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York, until 2007 when she joined SickKids Hospital as a Staff Cardiologist. Her clinical expertise is in pediatric heart failure and transplantation and research interests focus on the application of genomics, pharmacogenomics and stem cell biology to the study of childhood heart disease, heart failure and transplantation, and discovery of new therapies. She established the SickKids Heart Centre Biobank Registry, an Ontario-wide biobank of children and adults with congenital and other heart diseases, and a national Pediatric Transplant Research Network. She is a PI of the NIH funded Pediatric Heart Network for conducting clinical trials in children with heart disease, and co-PI of the CIHR funded Canadian National Transplant Research Program.