On June 14th, 2007 I had the privilege of attending the opening of the Latner Thoracic Research Laboratory in Toronto. The new, start of the art facilities in the MaRS Discovery District were made possible by a grant from the Latner Family of Toronto.

Director of the laboratory, Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, world renowned for his work in lung transplantation, arranged for guided tours where some of the world's leading scientists gave us an overview of their work and experiments, which is truly groundbreaking.

Their major project is gene therapy in lung transplantation where they are working on techniques to genetically modify the donor lung so that it is better able to deal with the stress imposed upon it by the transplantation process. They are also using gene therapy to grow tissue, and hopefully someday new lungs entirely.

I came away from the experience realizing that when I'm fundraising for lung transplant research, it's not just for money to further and advance the research but what it all achieves eventually is that it saves lives, just as mine was saved by a single-lung transplant 5 years ago.

Visit my blog:Merv Sheppard's Transplant Network

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