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Dr. Mamatha Bhat has received the John Charles Polanyi Prize in Physiology/Medicine for her research to ensure long-term health for patients who undergo liver transplants.

Bhat is an assistant professor in the department of medicine’s division of gastroenterology and a staff hepatologist and clinician-scientist at the University Health Network’s Multi-Organ Transplant Program. Her lab focuses on the key complications that compromise the long-term survival of liver transplant recipients: recurrent liver cancer, fatty liver and metabolic disease. She is establishing the first translational research program worldwide dedicated to improving these post-transplant outcomes.

“It’s a wonderful sign of support for the importance of this translational research that will provide improved long-term outcomes for our patients,” Bhat said. “That’s what means the most.” 

The award is named after John Polanyi, of chemistry and joint winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. At a reception to honour the winners, Polanyi described the potential impact of Bhat’s research.

“Papers pour out of her lab (about sixty, so far) regarding the new world of human spare-parts,” Polanyi said. “Dr. Bhat looks ahead to the time when these spare parts are themselves in need of repair by which time she will know how to repair them.”

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