by Mahbod Ebrahimi

Graphic design Jayne Leggatt

On June 9, 2023, UofT Talks held its annual TED Talk-style scientific symposium, and it was a huge success! UofT Talks is a student-led initiative at the Institute of Medical Science (IMS) with the goal of presenting multi-disciplinary perspectives on pertinent and relevant topics in healthcare. UofT Talks has been holding events since 2016. This year, the event returned to an in-person format and was held at the Innis Town Hall Theater. “After dealing with COVID and virtual events for three long years, we really wanted to shake things up and get people to come out of their shells and join us in person. And what a better way to entice them [the target audience] than with a food-related topic?” says Shaghayegh, one of the co-leads of UofT talks. 

Every year, a core theme is selected by the UofT Talks team. Food science was the main theme for this year’s event, and four speakers with relevant expertise were invited to present a 10-minute TED Talk on their field of interest. The evening kicked off with Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy talking about the role of genetics in our nutrition. One exciting segment of Dr. El-Sohemy’s talk explained how some people might have a particular genetic variant and how this could result in having varying caffeine tolerance or cause us to taste food products (e.g., cilantro) differently. This excellent talk was followed by Dr. Karen Davison, who told the audience about the relationship between nutrition, mental health, and physical health. The third speaker, Dr. Ravi Selvaganapathy, introduced the audience to the novel topic of cultured meat, which is meat that is composed in the laboratory, with the hope of having more sustainable meat production in the future. The fourth and final speaker, Dr. Sarah Elton, finished the first half of the event with a great talk on food sustainability.

After all the talks were completed, the audience had a short break to enjoy some food and treats prepared by the event’s sponsors. There were healthy dinner options prepared by “imPerfect Fresh Eats,” and for dessert, popsicles were provided by “Happy Pops.”  

After the break, everyone reconvened for the second and final half of the event, which was a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Denis Collier. The audience had a chance to ask their thought-provoking questions, resulting in a great opportunity for discussion. The speakers wrapped up the discussion segment by succinctly summarizing the main takeaways, with Dr. El-Sohemy driving home the point that “eat according to your genes.” As a closing remark, the IMS director, Dr. Mingyao Liu, gave a short speech on the IMS mission and the importance of knowledge translation to a broader audience. 

With a sold-out venue of over 200 people attending in person and even more people joining the online live stream, this year’s event was a great success, and it achieved great attention from both UofT students and the public. The event would not have been possible without the effort of many UofT Talks team members led by Muzaffar Bhatti and Shaghayegh Foroozan. One of the highlights of the event was having an informative discussion on recent scientific trends, and as Muzaffar puts it, “the bridging of academia and the layperson was a significant achievement that we are proud of.” Hopefully, UofT Talks will be back next year with an even more entertaining event!