Leading Innovation: Vanessa Gonçalves

In the most recent U.S. News & World Report – Best Global Universities Rankings, the University of Toronto ranked 16^th in the world, tied with Cornell, Princeton and the University of California San Francisco.

U of T is also ranked 1^st among Canadian universities in 29 subject areas including pharmacology and toxicology.  

Vanessa Gonçalves is an assistant professor in the departments of Pharmacology & Toxicology and Psychiatry, and an associate member of the Institute for Medical Science (IMS) at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Goncalves is also an independent scientist in the molecular brain sciences department at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). 

She leads the MitoNeuroLab at CAMH’s Tanenbaum Centre for Pharmacogenetics.  The lab’s team investigates how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes ageing in mental illnesses and the onset and progression a variety of mental health conditions.

Gonçalves studies how inherited changes in mitochondrial DNA may be linked to mental illnesses. She looks at autosomal DNA (the non-sex chromosomes) and mitochondria DNA (which helps cells produce energy) and how they interact. She also explores biological signs that could help predict when and how psychiatric conditions develop in people at different ages.

Recently, Gonçalves shared her thoughts on the role of mentorship in Temerty Medicine’s culture of excellence.

What makes Temerty Medicine a great place for you do this work?

Temerty Medicine offers a rich environment to collaborate across disciplines departments and with colleagues at the unvierstiy’s affiliated hospitals, and to recruit and retain outstanding graduate students.  The opportunities to find qualified trainees, career support and opportunities to grow in our career are tremendous. This is a great place for trainees to get started in research and to find direction and support at all stages of the academic journey. It is an honour to be part of this community.

How has mentorship helped you get to where you are?

The mentorship program is an amazing opportunity to approach researchers that you admire and learn with them about facet of a researchers’ life that goes from write a competitive grant to manage people in the lab to create diverse scientific networks.

How are you mentoring or supporting the next generation?

I’m a mentor through a few different initiatives at U of T and CAMH and am committed to equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility.

I’m part of the Latin America Genomics Consortium, which works to better understand the genetic diversity of Latin American populations that have been historically underrepresented in research into psychiatric disorders, as well as the Society of Biological Psychiatry’s Early/Mid-Career Committee for the Advancement of Women in Leadership.

I also supervise IMS graduate students. I am always open to answer any question they might have regarding their journey, and I share my trajectory and the barriers and difficulties that I encountered and how I overcome them.

What’s the most fulfilling part of your role at U of T?

It’s a pleasure to teach the next generation, to be a project supervisor and to see students to grow academically and find their place in the research or industry community. Receiving feedback from students about how I can better support them during their time at Termerty Medicine is very rewarding.

It is also fulfilling to interact with the very talented scientific community here at U of T.