Dr. Todd Mainprize is a neurosurgeon at Sunnybrook.

Dr. Mainprize is happily married to Susan, a Pharmacist originally from Vietnam. They have two boys, Graham 6 and Thomas 3, and one daughter Victoria 1.

Dr. Todd Mainprize graduated from the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine in 1996 as the recipient of the Lindsay Gold Medal Award.

He entered the Neurosurgery Training Program at the University of Toronto the same year.

After completing the residency with several years of basic science training, he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 2008. Todd joined the Neurosurgical Staff at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre in 2008 where his clinical interests focus on Neuro-oncology.

Dr. Todd Mainprize has a strong interest in medical student, resident, and fellow education and serves as the Division's Fellowship Director at the city-wide level and Lead Fellowship Coordinator for the Division of Neurosurgery at Sunnybrook Hospital.

He is also the lead investigator in a groundbreaking clinical trial: for the first time in the world, this Sunnybrook team penetrated the blood-brain barrier non-invasively in a human – in Bonny.

The blood-brain barrier is described as a plastic wrap-like coating around the small blood vessels in the brain that normally restricts the passage of substances from the Bloodstream into the brain, protecting it from toxic chemicals.

Unlike other areas of the body, this plastic wrap doesn’t allow most medications to get through, which has implications for many conditions, including brain cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. ^[1][2][3]

According to Dr. Mainprize “Some of the most exciting and novel therapeutics for the treatment of malignant brain tumors are not able to reach the tumor cells because of the blood-brain barrier,” and Our technique is to essentially tear holes in the plastic wrap and allow the various chemicals we want to be delivered to the brain, to get into the brain.”