Great Research at the University of Toronto

1827
A university of the province of Upper Canada is founded by Royal Charter under the name of King's College.
1850
By an act of the legislature, King's College is secularized and its name changed to the University of Toronto.
1889
	H.E.T. Haultain graduates in engineering. His later inventions -- the superpanner, the electric mine hoist, and the infrasizer in ore-dressing -- would be used around the world.
Haultain
1908
Charles Wright graduates. During WWI he would invent the "trench wireless" and in WWII help develop radar. He would be a member of the Scott Expedition to Antarctica and discover his leader's body.
1909
Canadian farmers receive the first shipment of Marquis wheat. Developed by a University of Toronto graduate, this variety matures early, thus avoiding frost damage.
1914
	John Gerald Fitzgerald of the Faculty of Medicine establishes the anti-toxin laboratories, which subsequently become the Connaught Laboratories.
Connaught Labs
1921
	Working in a University laboratory, Frederick Banting, Charles Best, J.J.R. Macleod, and J.B. Collip are the first to obtain insulin in a form consistently effective for treating diabetes mellitus. In 1923, Banting and Macleod would receive the Nobel Prize.
Banting and Best
1922
The first helium liquefaction plant in North America is set up by John McLennan, who had received the first doctorate in physics from the university in 1900.
1927
Edward S. (Ted) Rogers, a University of Toronto graduate, brings the world's first batteryless broadcasting station into operation. It would later become CFRB.
1929
The Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, one of the world's major centres for the study of Medieval Europe, is founded.
1929
Davidson Black, a medical graduate, discovers the skull of "Peking Man," an important clue to the nature of humanity's ancestors.
1930
Frederick Tisdall, Theodore Drake and Alan Brown of the Faculty of Medicine announce the creation of the infant cereal, "Pablum."
1933
Under the direction of Charles Best, a university-based research team begins work on heparin, an anti-coagulent, which would open the fields of vascular surgery and renal dialysis.
1935
University physicist John Cunningham McLennan is knighted for outstanding accomplishments in research, including the discovery of cosmic rays.
1935
G.M.A. Grube of the Classics department publishes Plato's Thought, a highly influential work which continues to hold a place of honour in Plato studies.
1936
Medical graduate Norman Bethune, later a hero of the People's Republic of China, organizes the world's first mobile blood transfusion unit in Spain.
1938
A team of researchers led by Eli Franklin Burton, Department of Physics, builds the first electron microscope in North America.
1939
Paul B. Dilworth and Winnett Boyd, who would later develop Canada's first jet engine, graduate from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.
1940
Charles N. Cochrane of the Faculty of Ancient History publishes his major work, Christianity and Classical Culture.
1942
Wilbur Franks, a medical graduate, develops the "anti-black-out" suit. Credited with saving thousands of Allied fighter pilots during WWII, his invention would be worn by every air force pilot in the world and eventually be developed into the space suit worn by astronauts.
1945
Raymond Parker of the university's Connaught Medical Research Laboratories discovers a defined chemical nutrient medium in which cells can grow and replicate. His discovery helps Jonas Salk to develop the polio vaccine.
1948
W.G. Bigelow of the Faculty of Medicine begins studies of hypothermia as a means of performing open-heart surgery. Later, he would be part of the team that designs the first electrical cardiac pacemaker.
1951
Harold Adams Innis, of the department of political economy, publishes The Bias of Communication. A major influence on colleague Marshall McLuhan, Innis inspired others to delve into media theory with his work on the "role of the means of communication in shaping society."
1957
	English professor Northrop Frye publishes Anatomy of Criticism, establishing him as one of the world's leading literary critics.
Northrop Frye
1959
The University of Toronto opens the first electronic music studio in Canada, the second in North America.
1959
	Work begins on The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, which chronicles the lives of influential Canadians. Considered the most ambitious venture in Canadian publishing history, its editor Frances Halpenny would receive the Molson Award in 1983.
Frances G. Halpenny
1961
James E. Till and Ernest A. McCulloch of the Faculty of Medicine discover the hemopoietic stem cell. This is the basis for bone marrow transplantation, which is a highly successful clinical story today.
1963
W.T. Mustard of the Faculty of Medicine perfects his surgical method for correcting "blue baby" syndrome.
1964
	Marshall McLuhan publishes Understanding Media and becomes internationally known for his studies of the effects of mass media on thought and behaviour.
Marshall McLuhan
1969
The Collected Works of Erasmus project begins. Focused on one of the greatest figures of the Renaissance, it is scheduled to be finished in 2011.
1971
The university erects a 61 cm telescope at one of the most highly prized observing sites in the southern hemisphere, Las Campanas, Chile.
1971
Chemist James Guillet invents photodegradable plastics, which begin to decompose when exposed to direct sunlight.
1975
Researchers in the Faculty of Forestry develop a way to treat trees suffering from Dutch Elm disease and other fungus diseases.
1977
As part of the university's sesquicentennial, the York Cycle of Mystery Plays is performed for an international audience. The plays are made possible by a university research team working to unearth records of Early English drama, a project which is still ongoing.
1978
The University of Toronto Press publishes the first volume of The Correspondence of Emile Zola. Upon completion in 1995, over 4,000 letters about this French novelist, critic, playwright and champion of social justice will have been published in 11 volumes.
1979
Archaeologist John S. Hollady, Jr. begins a multidisciplinary study of the transit corridor linking Ancient Egypt and Asia. One important result is a stratigraphically dated body of Egyptian pottery for the period c. 609 B.C. - c. 135 A.D.
1981
Drs. Griffith Pearson and Joel Cooper perform the world's first single lung transplant.
1982
Historian Ronald Pruessen is nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his book, John Foster Dulles: The Road to Power.
1984
	The International Astronomical Union names a small planet after university astronomer Helen Sawyer Hogg.
Helen Sawyer Hogg
1984
	Geneticist Tak Mak helps identify the T-cell receptor gene, a major advance in our understanding of the body's immune system.
Tak Mak
1984
Archaeologist Donald B. Redford publishes Akhenaten: The Heretic King, based on his research at the Akhenaten Temple Project in Egypt.
1985
The first volume of The Correspondence of Madame de Griffigny is completed and published by a group of humanities scholars including several from the University of Toronto. A contemporary of Voltaire and Rousseau, Madame de Griffigny wrote during the Age of Enlightenment and provided significant insights about this period.
1986
	John C. Polanyi, Professor of Chemistry since 1962, is awarded a Nobel Prize for his work on infrared chemiluminescence.
John C. Polanyi
1987
Astronomer Ian Shelton discovers the largest supernova to be observed in nearly 400 years, from the University's southern observatory on Las Campanas mountain in Chile. It is named Supernova Shelton.
1988
Surgeons Alan Hudson and Susan MacKinnon perform the world's first nerve transplant on a nine-year-old boy.
1989
George Alexander Patterson performs the first double lung transplant.
1989
A team of researchers that include John Filhaber and Ian Shelton record data revealing the existence of a neutron star, or pulsar, at the centre of Supernova Shelton. Spinning at about 2,000 revolutions per second, the pulsar is the fastest object of its kind yet found.
1989
	Lap-Chee Tsui and Manuel Buchwald of the Department of Medical Genetics and Jack Riordan of the Department of Biochemistry & Clinical Biochemistry isolate the gene that causes cystic fibrosis.
Lap-Chee Tsui
1991
A team led by Tony Pawson of medical genetics and microbiology and Mount Sinai Hospital's Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute identifies how cell receptors transmit signals instructing the cell to change. This discovery will have many benefits, including the development of new cancer drugs.
1993
	The final volume of the Historical Atlas of Canada, a massive Canada-wide collaborative effort headquartered at the University of Toronto, is published. This award-winning edition, available in English and French, makes Canadian history and geography accessible to the lay reader.
Historical Atlas of Canada
1994
The Times Literary Supplement features Classics professor J.M. Rist's Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptised on its front cover.
1995
	A research team led by Peter St. George-Hyslop, Director of the Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases, discovers two genes responsible for early-onset Alzheimer's.
St.George-Hyslop
1996
Brenda Gallie and co-workers develop a new therapy for retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye that leads to blindness. It represents the first major change in the management of this disease in 35 years.
1996
Chair of Physics Derek York, with Robert Walker of the Institute of Human Origins at Berkeley, uses his new laser-dating technique to date the oldest ancestral fossils -- an upper jaw and some stone tools -- at 2.33 million years old.
1997
A team led by Brett Gladman, member of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA), discovers two new moons of Uranus.
1998
	Butterfly researchers, Frederick Albert Urquhart, C.M. and Norah Roden Urquhart, C.M., are inducted to the Order of Canada. They mobilized thousands of volunteers and after 40 years, located the overwintering sites of the monarch butterfly in Mexico. Thanks to their advocacy, ecological preserves have been established throughout North America.
Fred & Norah Urquhart
1998
	Yoshio Masui wins the Albert Lasker prize for his innovative contributions in understanding cell division. Among them are the discovery of maturation promoting factor, a protein that controls cell division in fertilized eggs, and the discovery of cytostatic factor, another critical substance in cell division. Dr. Masui's groundbreaking work has important implications for cancer research.
Yoshio Masui
1999
Professor Emeritus Martin Hubbes of the Faculty of Forestry discovers an environmentally friendly way of protecting trees against the devastation of the Dutch Elm disease. This new "tree vaccine" may replace the effective yet highly toxic fungicides discovered in 1975.
1999
	James Arthur, Department of Mathematics, wins the NSERC Canada Gold Medal, for helping to rewrite the intellectual foundation of modern mathematics. A leading mathematical theorist, Arthur has focused on unifying the mathematical fields of algebra and analysis, and his work is recognized worldwide. Dr. Arthur is the first U of T researcher -- and the first mathematician -- to win this award.
Professor James Arthur
1999
A team led by Eduardo Blumwald, Department of Botany, isolates a gene that allows plants to grow in saline soil, a discovery that could lead to improved farming productivity in many areas of the world where crops are compromised by salt irrigation water.
1999
Physicist Jim Drummond's team designs MOPITT (Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere), a $43M instrument that will provide the world with its first space-based measurements of atmospheric pollution. It is part of NASA's earth observation system AM-1 satellite, launched by rocket in the summer of 1999.
1999
Lewis Kay, Departments of Medical Genetics and Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Chemistry, wins the Steacie Prize, Canada's most prestigious science award, for his work in the area of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy -- a methodology for creating a nuclear "signature" to reveal how molecules interact with each other. There are more than 200 labs across the world using the NMR methodology developed in his lab. Dr. Kay is the third U of T recipient of the prize in the last five years.
2000
The CD-ROM version of The Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, a collaboration of U of T and Université Laval, is distributed free of charge to 12,000 libraries across Canada to great acclaim. The DCB is recognized worldwide as the finest work of its kind.
2000
	Working with colleagues in Spain, physics researchers Sajeev John and Henry Van Driel and chemistry researcher Geoffrey Ozin produce a silicon-based material that can "cage light." This innovation, which may lead to the first optical microchip, could have widespread implications for the telecommunications and computing industries.
New silicon-based material
2000
Dr. Peter St. George-Hyslop, director of the Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases in U of T's Faculty of Medicine and a neurologist at the University Health Network, announces that a new vaccine that may help prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease is ready to be tested on human subjects.
2001
The Intelligent Transportation Systems Centre and Testbed - the first such research facility in Canada - begins monitoring traffic patterns in the Greater Toronto Area. The Centre will develop better road and traffic management systems to help alleviate gridlock and traffic jams, thereby enhancing mobility and helping motorists save time, money and lives.
2001
	Following the September 11th terrorist attacks on the U.S., U of T scholars - including Wesley Wark of history, Janice Gross Stein of political science, Cheryl Regehr of social work, Eric Kirzner of the Rotman School of Management, and Thomas Homer-Dixon of political science - are among the most sought-after commentators called upon by media to translate the many aspects of the tragic events.
Janice Gross Stein
2001
	U of T geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica leads a group of scientists who have provided the sea level "fingerprints" of polar ice sheet melting to prove that global climate change is having a direct impact on the Earth's sea level.
Global sea level changes
2002
Dr. Stanley Zlotkin of paediatrics and nutritional sciences wins a CIDA Nutritional Information Project award worth $1.9 million for his groundbreaking work on Supplefer Sprinkles. A tasteless, inexpensive powder that can be added to any food, the iron supplement helps eliminate childhood anemia in developing countries.
2002
	Martin Friedland, University Professor Emeritus, authors the official history of U of T. "The University of Toronto: A History" is published to commemorate the university's 175th anniversary. For more information on the University's 175th-anniversary celebrations, visit www.uoft175.utoronto.ca.
Friedland's History
2002
Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre becomes the ninth teaching hospital affiliated with U of T. Other affiliated hospitals are Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Hospital for Sick Children, Mount Sinai Hospital, St. Michael's Hospital, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, and the University Health Network.
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