Researchers

Among today’s faculty we are privileged to have 32 active and prolific investigators, who have collectively accumulated hundreds of person years, and published more than 600 articles in peer-reviewed chiropractic and scholarly journals. Their research areas include: Clinical Studies, Education, Biomechanics, Non-clinical Basic Sciences, Health System & Policy, Endocrine/Immune, Anatomy, Public Health & Epidemiology.

Faculty conduct innovative research projects, many of which are collaborations with researchers from other disciplines and institutions of higher learning. CMCC staff and faculty receive grants from a number of sources, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Institutes of Health in the United States.

Students benefit from direct contact with researchers, and from the quick integration of new findings into course content. The Canadian health care system and chiropractic patients also benefit as more funding sources and dollars are secured.

Select a name to see the profile 

Dean, Graduate Education and Research 

Division Faculty

Mark Erwin, BA, DC, PhD
Associate Professor

Dr. Erwin holds a DC degree from CMCC, class of 1984 and a PhD obtained from the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto 2004.  He holds the academic rank of Assistant Professor within the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Toronto and the Toronto Western Hospital.  He is also cross-appointed to The Spine Programme and is a scientist within the Arthritis and Autoimmunity Research Centre (AARC) at the University Health Network.

Dr. Erwin currently holds the position of Scientist in Disc Biology at the University of Toronto-a position jointly funded by the Canadian Chiropractic Research Foundation, the Musculoskeltal Health and Arthritis and Neuroscience programmes at the Toronto Western Hospital.  He is a newly appointed Associate Professor at CMCC within the research division. 

Dr. Erwin’s principal area of interest is in development and regenerative medicine applications concerning the intervertebral disc.  

Julita Teodorczyk-Injeyan, MSc, PhD 
Associate Professor, Research
Email: jinjeyan@cmcc.ca

Dr. T-Injeyan has an MSc in Forensic (Medical) Anthropology and a PhD in Immunopharmacology. She became a Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Medical Research Council of Canada in 1976.

Dr. Injeyan has been a research associate and assistant professor of surgery and immunology, University of Toronto, a staff research scientist at the Toronto Hospital and the Sunnybrook Trauma Research Group, Department of National Defence Research Scientist and a senior research scientist at Wellesley Hospital Institute.

Her research interests include investigations of immune consequences of neoplasia, severe trauma (e.g. thermal, mechanical trauma), shock and clinical sepsis. At CMCC since 1999, Dr. T-Injeyan is currently involved in studies of cellular and molecular mechanisms of systemic (visceral) effects of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) with emphasis on the effect of SMT on the integrated neuro-immune cytokine network regulating the inflammatory response associated with musculoskeletal disorders.

Dr. Injeyan has contributed numerous articles in Journal of Chiropractic Education, Journal of Manipulative Therapeutics Journal, Journal of Clinical Immunology, and in several other leading journals. She is also a current recipient of a large research fund by the Neuro Research Group. In the past 5 years, she has taught, General Pathology (PA1201) and Immunology (PA 2204) at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College.

Deborah Kopansky-Giles, BPHE, DC, FCCS(C), FCCRS(C), FICC (Hon)
Coordinator, Integrated Care and Care Research 
Associate Professor, CMCC Clinician, St. Michael’s Hospital
Email: dkgiles@cmcc.ca

Dr. Kopansky-Giles graduated with her degree in Physical and Health Education from the University of Western Ontario and graduated from CMCC in 1982. She attained her Fellowship in Chiropractic Sciences in 1993 and is currently pursuing her MSc.

Dr. Kopansky-Giles is a clinician-scientist, on staff at St. Michael’s Hospital in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and is an associate professor in the Department of Graduate Education and Research at CMCC. She is coordinator of Integrative Care and Care Research.

She is the principal investigator for a project funded by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC), evaluating the integration of chiropractors on staff within a teaching hospital (St. Michael’s Hospital is affiliated with the University of Toronto). She also lectures in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, teaching in the 3rd and 4th year medical program and in the International Medical Residents program.

She has served on various chiropractic professional associations - as a director for the Ontario Chiropractic Association, as a governor on the Canadian Chiropractic Association and as a council member on the World Federation of Chiropractic. She also represents North America on the WFC Public Health Committee and represents the profession internationally on the United Nations Bone and Joint Decade.

Dr. Kopansky-Giles has been appointed to numerous provincial and national advisory groups and was a member of the National Advisory Group on Complementary Therapies and AIDS and the Research Agenda Roundtable on AIDS. She participated on the Medical Committee for the XVI International AIDS Conference held in Toronto in 2006. She has been on several conference organizing committees, most recently the WFC Biennial Congress, 2009 in Montreal.

She is an award-winning researcher with several publications, including two book chapters, and has presented at numerous interdisciplinary conferences. Dr. Kopansky-Giles was awarded the Chiropractor of the Year Award from the OCA and the Distinguished Service Award at CMCC. She was honoured as a Fellow of the International College of Chiropractors and received the OCA Presidential Citation in 2006. Her work in interprofessional education has recently garnered two awards: the Education Scholarship award from St. Michael’s Hospital (2008) and the Interprofessional Health Teaching Award from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto (2008).

Current research interests are in the field of integrated health service delivery models in hospital and other multidisciplinary settings and inter-professional health education.

Marion McGregor DC, PhD, FCCS(C)
Coordinator, Research Education Associate Professor
Email: mmcgregor@cmcc.ca 

Dr. McGregor graduated from CMCC in 1980 and completed a Fellowship in the College of Clinical Sciences. She went on to earn her MSc in Medical Epidemiology from McMaster University in 1987 and a PhD in Public Policy and Political Economy at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2006.  In clinical practice for 10 years, Dr. McGregor has taught both at CMCC and at the National College of Chiropractic (now the National University of Health Sciences) in Illinois.

After moving to Texas in 1993, Dr. McGregor acted as a consultant in Research design and Biostatistics. She has published in a variety of journals and has acted as a reviewer for the Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics, the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association and the Journal of Chiropractic Education. In 2002 she was appointed to the Geriatrics and Rehabilitation Medicine Study Section for the National Institutes of Health and subsequently, the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Sciences Study Section through 2005.

Dr. McGregor has been a recipient of research funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health, the National Institute of Chiropractic Research, the National Chiropractic Mutual Insurance Company, and most recently from the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and CIHR.

Silvano Mior, DC
Special Assistant to the President Professor
Email: smior@cmcc.ca

Dr. Mior graduated from CMCC with a Doctor of Chiropractics in 1980 and received his Fellowship in the College of Chiropractic Sciences in 1984. He is currently enrolled in a PhD program in the Department of Health Policy Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. Dr. Mior is currently the Special Assistant to the President at CMCC, a Professor in the Division of Research at CMCC and has a private practice in Markham. He was the former Dean of Graduate Studies and Research and later was the Acting Vice President of Finance and Administration at CMCC.

His research interests are in the areas of clinical outcomes and program evaluation, health services, and interprofessional collaborative practice. He has served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractor Association, the Journal of Neuromusculoskeletal System, The Journal of Sports Chiropractic and Rehabilitation and other chiropractic journals. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters in areas related to clinical chiropractic practice and outcomes.

He has participated in international and national committees establishing guidelines for quality assurance and standards of chiropractic practice as well as setting research agendas.

He is a recipient of many awards and honours. In 1994, he was awarded with the Chiropractor of the Year Award by the Ontario Chiropractic Association, and in 1995 he was given the Chiropractic Centennial Award of Excellence by the Canadian Chiropractic Association. Recently in 2003 he was awarded with the Professional Service Award for Research and in 2006 the President’s Distinguished Service Award.

He is currently seconded to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) as a senior clinical consultant. H has been working on a research project funded by the MOHLTC and the Primary Health Care Transition Fund to develop and implement a model of collaboration between chiropractors and physicians in the community primary care setting.

John J. Triano, DC, PhD, FCCS(C) (Hons) 
Dean, Graduate Education and Research Programs
Professor
Email: jtriano@cmcc.ca

John J. Triano, DC, PhD, is a graduate of Logan College (DC), Webster College (MA), and the University of Michigan (PhD). He is a Fellow of the College of Chiropractic Scientists (Canada) and serves as an editorial advisor to the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (since 1986), to Spine (since 1994), The Spine Journal(since 2000) and The BackLetter. Dr. Triano was Research Professor in the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Arlington, Joint Biomedical Engineering Program. To date he has written 45 scientific and clinical articles and 14 book chapters. From 1992 to 2005 he was the Co-Director of Conservative Medicine and Director for the Chiropractic Division at the Texas Back Institute, a multidisciplinary spine facility caring for 15,000 new patients per year. Currently, he is a Professor and the Associate Dean of Research at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and is cross-appointed as Associate Professor within the Rehabilitation Sciences department at McMaster University.

Dr. Triano is the recipient of a number of awards and honors including the ICA Researcher of the Year (1987), FCER Researcher of the Year (1989), AHCPR Service Award (1993), the US Department of Health and Human Services (1993), ACA Council on Rehabilitation Doctor of the Year Award (1998), DC Person of the Year (2002) and the 2005 Earl Homewood Professorship. During 2005 to 2007, Dr. Triano has served as the only chiropractor on the US National Committee for Quality Assurance that recently released its first Spine Physician Recognition Program in the US, a program that acknowledges quality spine care by chiropractors on par with medical physicians. He is recipient of the first NCCAM-NIH/CIHR research award supporting studies in the mechanisms of spinal manipulation. 

Howard Vernon, BA, DC, FCCS (Hons), PhD 
Director, Centre of the Study of Cervical Spine 
Professor
Email: hvernon@cmcc.ca

Dr. Vernon graduated from CMCC in 1977, completed his Fellowship in Clinical Science in 1980 and received his PhD from the University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK, in 2003. His thesis covered the manual therapy of headaches of spinal origin.

In private practice since graduation, Dr. Vernon has also been on faculty at CMCC since 1979 in various capacities, including director, Research Board from 1984 to 1986 and director, research from 1987 to 1990 and 1997 to 2000. He founded the CMCC Midtown Chiropractic Clinic, the CMCC Midtown Rehabilitation Clinic and the CMCC Disability Designated Assessment Centre and has been director, Centre of the Study of Cervical Spine since 2000.

Dr. Vernon published the first outcome measure for assessing disability due to neck pain – the Neck Disability Index (NDI), in 1991. Currently there are 380 articles internationally that have cited the NDI. Numerous clinical guideline organizations, especially for whiplash management, have endorsed the NDI as the questionnaire of choice for neck pain patients.

He is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed articles, 15 book chapters and numerous abstract presentations. He has edited two text books on the upper cervical spine. Dr. Vernon received the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research Researcher of the Year Award in 1993 and the Canadian Chiropractic Association Researcher of the Year Award in 1995. He was chair, Consortium of Canadian Chiropractic Research Centres from 1997 to 2004.

His primary area of research is the relationship between the upper cervical spine and headache. He has pursued this interest with clinical and basic science studies, including a clinical trial studying chiropractic and medical management of tension-type headache (1999-2004) and a 20-year long collaboration with Dr. Barry Sessle, a renowned orofacial pain researcher.  

Stephen Zylich, BSc, DC 
Clinician, Muki Baum Children Centre, Muki Baum Adult Centre and Campus Clinic
Assistant Professor
Email: szylich@cmcc.ca

Dr. Zylich graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1976 with a BSc in zoology/physiology and from CMCC in 1981.That same year, he received a collegial service award and the A.V. Hoskin Award for outstanding clinical work. 

Dr.Zylich currently teaches neurodiagnosis and child care. He leads clinical practice at the Muki Baum Children Centre and Muki Baum Adult Centre, which specialize in treatment for people with developmental and emotional disabilities. He has been a clinician at CMCC Campus Clinic since 1988.

His research interests include acupuncture, analgesia, clinical chiropractic, teaching and assessment, and questionnaire/survey development.