Amy Kirkham

Dr. Amy Kirkham is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Cardiovascular Health in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education at the University of Toronto. Her research uses advanced imaging and lifestyle interventions to understand, treat, and improve the health of women with cancer and cardiovascular disease.

The overarching goal of Dr. Kirkham's research program is to use a multi-disciplinary approach that leverages cutting-edge, non-invasive, imaging techniques to study precisely prescribed, mechanistically targeted, lifestyle interventions to prevent and ameliorate cardiovascular dysfunction and disease, with an emphasis on women. A primary focus is on cardiovascular disease in breast cancer survivors, the top causes of death of women in Canada.

While exercise is a key diagnostic and therapeutic tool, Dr. Kirkham takes a multi-disciplinary approach in her lab to characterize and treat individuals with cardiac and/or oncologic disease. Established and novel magnetic resonance and echocardiographic imaging techniques, cardiopulmonary exercise testing and venipuncture are used to investigate cardiac, vascular and skeletal muscle mechanisms of exercise intolerance and to quantify the therapeutic benefits of targeted clinical exercise and dietary interventions on these systems. Intervention approaches of interest include acute and chronic exercise, calorie restricted, intermittent fasting, and ketogenic nutrition approaches, and multi-dimensional cardiac rehabilitation.