Yodit at the 2018 endMS Summer School

This year, I had the opportunity to attend the annual endMS Summer School, run by the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. The theme of the weeklong retreat was “Environmental and Lifestyle Factors associated with MS”. Hosted in downtown Toronto at the Hospital for Sick Children’s Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, I joined a diverse group of researchers ranging from physicists, engineers, physical therapists, psychologists, MD-PhD’s and, lastly, immunologists like me!

(Photo Credit from endMS website) The incoming and outgoing SPRINTers, 2018! Yodit second from bottom left.

The topics covered included: Trials on progressive MS; Modeling MS in Mice Models; the Microbiome; Diet; Vitamin D; Neuropsychiatry; Effects of Smoking; Physical Activity Interventions in MS; as well as ways to halt Pediatric MS and trigger the initiation of new oligodendrocytes for the treatment of MS. Furthermore, we were given amazing networking advice and interview prep skills for all our future endeavors.

Group 2 (we're not flashing the peace sign) visits the Art Gallery of Ontario during a short break in the action.

I’ll also be participating in the endMS SPRINT program over the next year, through which I have the fortunate opportunity to work with a team of SPRINTers under the guidance of Dr. Lindsay Berrigan from St. Francis Xavier University. We’ll return to next year’s endMS Summer School to present the results from our SPRINT Team Project looking at cognitive dysfunction in MS.