Who is Going to the Karolinska Institute this Summer? Helena Lan Is, That’s Who!!!!










The Karolinska Institutet is one of the world’s leading medical universities and is located in Stockholm, Sweden. Did you know that in 1895 Alfred Nobel appointed the Karolinska Institutet to annually award the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology? Now you do.

So, you may have read my previous post about “Connectory”. Well today I want to talk to you about one of my Research Opportunity Program students at the University of Toronto, Helena Lan. Not only was she a star student with me last summer (see her timeline post here) but she has continued on with our MiVIP group contributing to a systematic review on research methodology and biostatistics in medical imaging (stop rolling your eyes, it IS an interesting topic!).


Well she just found out that that she has been invited to work at the Karolinska Institute this summer as part of the Summer Research Abroad Program at the University of Toronto which is sponsored by the the Centre for International Experience. WOW!!!







Her supervisor will be Dr. Sofia Johansson, an assistant professor at Karolinska Institutet. Her research is focused on natural killer cell biology. You can find her research interests here.

Want to know about what natural killer cells do as part of our innate immune system? Watch this cool video.












Cool right? Well, I enjoyed it anyway. Maybe you need to watch Mr Brightside by The Killers to recover and…

… I’ll see you in the blogosphere.
PS: Congratulations Helena!!!

Pascal Tyrrell

The story behind Connectory…

So, you are reading our blog thinking Pascal is a nut – that much is clear – but what of all the students plugged into his group? Are they nuts too?


Well maybe, but today I am going to talk to you about the group of four (not the group of seven) who started small and grew to be Connectory. John, Maria, Natasha, and Roger met in a graduate course at the University of Toronto and decided to work together on a project about innovation. That’s when they met me, joined “the program”, and got busy! Starting any endeavour from scratch is no easy task. All four had never met before, all came from very different academic backgrounds, and though their initial project was for “credit” the rest was on their own time.


There were some rough times at first but with perseverance comes success and Connectory was born and is just finishing up its first project as a new start-up business. Wow! 


Essentially Connectory is a data management solutions software development consulting group that operates in the healthcare space. Check out their webpage here.


Ok, so what? Well this post is not only to congratulate these four on a job well done but also to encourage you to do the same. One thing is for sure: if you don’t try you will not succeed – ever. My programs are all about learning, trying new stuff, benefiting from your successes as well as your failures, and wait for it… giving back. Yup as Uncle Ben said in Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility“. 


Just wanted to share a good story from our group with you today.




Listen to Bulletproof by La Roux to get pumped and…


… I’ll see you in the blogosphere!




Pascal Tyrrell