About Us

The i-Forget research study is an initiative funded by The Durable Mind Collective, a nonprofit organization with a single goal:

Make new scientific discoveries to preserve brain health for those at the highest risk.

We are taking a bold and different approach to scientific discovery. We are collaborating with mission-aligned organizations that want to contribute to preserving brain health. Our foundational strength is a committed founding team, a community of independent scientists and a network of volunteers.

Our approach to discovering the gut microbiome's role in cognitive health is fueled by crowdsourcing study participants, DNA sequencing technologies and big data analytics.

Meet our founders:

Dr. Brent Zanke MD, Ph.D., FRCPC

• Brent is the visionary and innovator behind the  i-Forget discovery initiative. His work includes issued US patents and over a hundred published articles in leading medical publications. His roles include medical oncologist, geneticist and biotech entrepreneur. Brent is inspired by translating science trends into novel products and treatments—recognizing that research alone doesn’t benefit anyone. (Brent's LinkedIn)

Carli Kinnear BA Ed, MA Industrial Psychology

• Carli’s career spans 25 years as a C-suite Advisor with global business consulting organizations IBM, PwC and Accenture. Her roles included Canadian Leader of Organization Change Strategy and Partner. She has extensive experience in large-scale program execution and actively supports organizations with a social impact mission. (Carli's LinkedIn)

Scientific Advisory Board

•  Walter Swardfager, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Associate Chair Clinical Sciences, Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Toronto (Walter's LinkdedIn)

• Larissa McKetton, Ph.D. Neuroscientist and Director @ Cogniciti | Cognitive Health, Neuroscience, Brain Health (Larissa's Linkedin)

• Rafal Kustra,  Ph.D. Professor of Biostatistics and Statistical Genomics, University of Toronto and Dalla Lana School of Public Health. (Raphal's LinkedIn)

• Shiva Amiri, Ph.D. VP,  Head of AI and Data Intelligence, Pivotal Life Science.  (Shiva's LinkedIn)

• John Parkinson, Ph.D. Professor at Departments of Biochemistry, Computer Science and Molecular Genetics at University of Toronto (John's lab)

• Dennis McCormac, Ph.D. Independent Strategic Scientific Advisor (Dennis' LinkedIn)

Collaborators

Our proof of concept collaborators are willing to experiment with a new model for scientific discovery and share our vision. 

McGill Genome Center

• The McGill Genome Centre provides Canadian and international researchers with high-throughput technologies and cutting-edge approaches to enable next-generation genomic studies. This genome centre will do the genome sequence determinations for this research program.

Complete Genomics

• Complete Genomics is a life sciences company that has developed and commercialized a DNA sequencing platform for human genome sequencing and analysis. Complete Genomics is the DNA material supplier to the i-Forget initiative.