In a historical first, UHN's two Foundations, the UHN Foundation and the The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation are coming together to support commercialization efforts through a dedicated philanthropic fund. The Accelerator Fund is a critical resource for advancing patient care in Canada and around the world, fueling leading-edge research and clinical discoveries across UHN and our ecosystem to change the lives of patients everywhere.

The Accelerator Fund (AF) helps researchers and clinicians close funding gaps between research funding received from grant and government sources, and the significant private-sector investments needed to de-risk discoveries in order to bring new therapies and technologies to the people who need them. The AF supports projects from proof-of-concept right through to first-in-human testing.

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Dr. Frances Chung, a clinician investigator at UHN's Krembil Brain Institute, is the winner of the 20^th annual UHN Inventor of the Year Award for her work re-imagining the standards of care for patients living with sleep apnea through the development of the STOP-Bang clinical questionnaire.

A screening tool originally created to identify patients with undiagnosed sleep apnea for the prevention of critical incidents during surgery, STOP-Bang has broadened its adoption as a global standard diagnostic tool within 40 geographic regions and 500 institutions across a wide range of industries, informing preventative care and treatment for sleep apnea.

"It was curiosity and perseverance that led to the development of the STOP-Bang tool, and today, it is saving and improving lives around the globe," says Dr. Chung.