ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
By Elizabeth Karvasarski
A
s an undergraduate and graduate student in Exercise Science at the University of Toronto (UofT), Dr. Stephen Wright transitioned into the Institute of Medical Science (IMS) program to pursue his PhD, which he received in 2018. Dr. Wright sat down virtually with IMS Magazine to discuss the academic journey that led him to his current role as a post-doctoral fellow in the Center for Heart, Lung & Vascular Health at the University of British Columbia (UBC). While discussing his different research projects, Dr. Wright also shared insightful advice for future students who are interested in pursuing careers in academia. After spending approximately seven years in the Faculty of Kinesiology at UofT, Dr. Wright wanted to gain new perspectives on research, while staying at a worldclass research university. Therefore, he decided to transition from exercise science and working in the Athletic Center, to conducting research in a hospital setting through the IMS, which he believed would be a great way to get fresh perspectives. As a Master of Science (MSc) student in Exercise Science under the supervision of Dr. Jack Goodman, Dr. Wright started off investigating the relevance of heart function to exercise capacity for highperformance athletes. While pursuing his MSc, Dr. Wright reckoned that the MSc
degree does an excellent job of sparking your interest for further research, as you become cognizant of how little you know. Taking a step back from athletes, Dr. Wright became particularly interested in understanding heart function. This influenced his transition from studying athletes during his MSc to investigating heart function in healthy adults during his PhD. He realized “To really understand the heart, you need to examine how it functions in a variety of scenarios.” Dr. Wright completed his PhD at the Mount Sinai Hospital Catheterization Research Laboratory, supervised by Dr. Susanna Mak. His project explored heart function of healthy individuals. In the literature, there was a limited understanding of normal heart function in the human heart due to the lack of data available from “truly healthy people”. Usually, individuals who receive tests of cardiac function, such as a right heart catheterization, are referred by their
doctors due to a variety of factors. They may have limited exercise tolerance, be sick, or have heart problems. In some of these individuals, the data from a right heart catheterization will show that the heart is not the cause of their problems. Therefore, Dr. Wright explained that often these people are the ones assigned as ‘controls’ in studies, and are used to understand normal heart function. The problem here is that these individuals may not actually be heathy or reflect ‘normal’ physiology. His project addressed this issue by recruiting 36 people who had no evidence of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, or other acute or chronic illnesses. In the catheterization research laboratory, they studied how these participants’ hearts function at rest and during exercise via right heart catheterization. “The project contributed a substantial amount of truly healthy control data to our society’s shared knowledge,” Dr. Wright explained.
“To really understand the heart, you need to examine how it functions in a variety of scenarios.”
34 | IMS MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2020/21 ANSWERING THE CALL
Graphic design by Colleen Paris
