TRANSFORM HF Spring Network Event

Dr. Andrew Boozary is a primary care physician, policy practitioner, researcher, and founding executive director of the Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine at the University Health Network. He completed his medical training at the University of Toronto and health policy training at Princeton University and Harvard University. His work at the intersection of health policy, social justice and equitable health care delivery aims to improve health outcomes for marginalized populations.

During the pandemic, Dr. Boozary served as co-lead of the Ontario Health Toronto Region COVID-19 Homelessness Response and holds the Dalla Lana Professorship in Policy Innovation at the University of Toronto. He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Public Health Review and served in senior advisory roles for policymakers at various levels of government both nationally and abroad on public policy issues ranging from primary care reform to the implementation of pharmacare.

Dr. Boozary has published in high-impact academic journals, and his writing and analysis appear in print and broadcast media. He has been the recipient of a number of national and international awards, and is the youngest physician recipient of the Louise Lemieux-Charles Health System Leadership Award.

Dr. Arij Al Chawaf is the Executive Director, Strategic Initiative Development at the Institutional Strategic Initiatives (ISI) Office at U of T. She provides strategic and administrative leadership to high-priority interdisciplinary research and training initiatives, develops partnerships, and establishes and directs the portfolio’s administrative and organizational structures.

Before joining the ISI portfolio, she served as Director of Strategic Alliances and Communications at the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), an international drug discovery public-private partnership, and worked with start-ups and biotech companies in marketing and business development roles.

Arij earned her PhD from U of T in neuroendocrinology and is currently completing a part-time master’s degree in Health Systems Artificial Intelligence at Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Surath Gomis is Co-Founder and Director of R&D at Arma Biosciences, a startup out of UofT which is developing devices for biomarker-informed digital healthcare. Their first product, being co-developed with Analog Devices, Inc., is a handheld reader which uses test strips for rapid detection of blood biomarkers associated with heart failure. The aim of this product is to allow patients with heart failure to monitor blood biomarkers more frequently in the home setting. Surath developed this technology during his Electrical Engineering PhD at UofT (2021) where it was published in Nature Chemistry and generated patents.

He is a graduate of the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) startup program and is a member of the Health Innovation Hub (H2i) and UofT Entrepreneurship.

Surath has been building Arma Biosciences over the last two years, completing a seed financing round and growing a team with 10 individuals.