The associate professor of human anatomy and cell science in the Max Rady College of Medicine is a leading expert in brain imaging and non-invasive brain stimulation in the areas of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and psychiatric disorders. 

“I’m humbled and I really appreciate that I was selected as a Canada Research Chair,” said Ko, who has been a faculty member at UM for the past decade. “Now there’s a lot of work to do.”  

The cutting-edge work he has planned includes the development of artificial intelligence (AI) programs to help in the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of several brain disorders. The aim of the AI programs are to revolutionize how non-invasive brain stimulation techniques are used in clinical practice, Ko said.  

“Neuroimaging is facing a new era,” he said. “It typically refers to PET and MRI scans. That’s the more traditional approach. Now with AI, and a subset called machine learning, these technologies are advancing the field of neuroimaging farther so it’s more quantifiable, more accurate and more objective.”  

One study Ko has planned includes using neuroimaging techniques to look at brain metabolism. He said that some patients don’t show signs of dementia, but if they are tested, they display some abnormalities.  

Ko said that now with the help of neuroimaging and machine learning, the technology can show how the brain network is different in people who will progress with dementia versus those who don’t. 

“My hypothesis is that the patient who does not progress to dementia has some natural mechanism that makes them slow in the disease progression,” Ko said.   

“With neuroimaging and machine learning we can identify which of the brain regions have low metabolism or the brain network is not active. Then we can stimulate it with electricity to boost that brain region’s function. We do that, for example, every day for four weeks and see if that will slow down the disease progression.” 

As a Canada Research Chair, Ko will be building on a study he’s currently conducting with Dr. Tony Szturm, professor of physical therapy at the College of Rehabilitation Sciences. As part of the study, patients with Parkinson’s disease walk on a treadmill while playing a computer game. 

“It’s a challenging task even for healthy individuals, but with practice they get better,” Ko said. “The study shows that this type of training with distractors present can improve walking for Parkinson’s patients. It can even prevent falls.” 

For the next step in the study, Ko will use neuroimaging to find the hotspot in the brain where this reorganization is taking place, so they can boost the effects with non-invasive brain stimulation.  

Ko was born and raised in South Korea. While he was an electrical and computer engineering student at Hanyang University in Seoul, he saw the film The Matrix and became interested in studying the brain. He took a course in neurobiology in his fourth year and found it fascinating. 

“All the circuitry I learned in electrical engineering is already in the brain,” Ko said. “I thought, ‘wow, that’s amazing and the way the neurons communicate is almost digital.’”  

That triggered his interest in learning more about neuroscience and biomedical engineering, so he enrolled in a PhD program in neuroscience at McGill University, graduating in 2009. 

Ko went on to complete postdoctoral fellowships in neuroimaging at the University of Toronto and the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York.  

 View the full list of UM Canada Research Chairs.  

In January, the milestone was celebrated at an international research conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

The partnership between the two institutions has been recognized as a best-practice example of North-South research collaboration. It is regarded as a model global health initiative and has received millions of dollars in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The partners’ landmark discoveries include that HIV can be transmitted from mother to child through breastfeeding; that STIs such as gonorrhea and chlamydia increase susceptibility to HIV infection; and that some individuals have natural immunity to HIV.

“The collaboration has made a huge impact,” said Keith Fowke [B.Sc.(Hons.)/88, PhD/95], head of medical microbiology and infectious diseases in the Max Rady College of Medicine.

“U of M has been a global leader in making cutting-edge contributions to understanding HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, thanks to this partnership.”

At the conference, Dr. Ruth Nduati, professor of pediatrics at the University of Nairobi, spoke of the opportunities that the partnership has given to Kenyan scientists.

“This collaboration has been a gift to the young people of Kenya,” she said. “It has given them the possibility to dream that their work can be part of transforming the world.”

The collaboration began in 1980, after two doctors from opposite sides of the world met at a conference. Dr. Herbert Nzanze, head of medical microbiology at the University of Nairobi, convinced Allan Ronald [MD/61, B.Sc.(Med)/61, DSc./11], a UM research pioneer in infectious diseases, to come to Kenya to help combat sexually transmitted chancroid infections in men.

A small lab was opened in Nairobi, and Manitobans started travelling back and forth to operate it. Ronald brought in one of his star students, Frank Plummer [MD/76], and engineered links with infectious disease specialists at other institutions, including the University of Ghent in Belgium and the University of Washington in Seattle.

Seeking to track down the source of the chancroid infections, the group opened a clinic in the shantytown of Majengo to assess female sex workers. They soon brought chancroid under control. But in 1985, they were shocked to discover that a high percentage of the sex workers had HIV/AIDS. They changed their focus to the growing epidemic.

More students came to join them, not just from Manitoba but from Belgium and Seattle. Kenyan medical students started going to Winnipeg and Seattle to further their training.

In the late 1980s, Plummer led a team – including Fowke, then a graduate student – in discovering that some Kenyan women sex workers who had been exposed to HIV infection were naturally immune to it. This breakthrough provided vital new information for HIV vaccine and drug development.

In 2007, a team led by UM professor Dr. Stephen Moses demonstrated that circumcision reduces men’s risk of HIV infection by as much as 60 per cent. This insight led to expanded circumcision programs throughout eastern and southern Africa.

The Manitoba-Nairobi partnership also developed HIV prevention and control strategies that included opening free clinics‚ educating sex workers and distributing condoms. Many of the strategies have successfully been implemented by other countries.

Today, the University of Nairobi STD/HIV/SRH Collaborative Research Group includes several other universities in addition to Manitoba, Ghent and Washington, including the University of Toronto, McMaster University and the University of California.

To mark the 40th anniversary, attendees at the conference included then UM President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. David Barnard and University of Nairobi Vice-Chancellor Dr. Stephen Kiama.

Reflecting on 40 years, co-founder Ronald, now distinguished professor emeritus in medical microbiology and infectious diseases, emphasized the links between science, public policy and clinical practice, and the priority of getting research results implemented so they can save lives.

“Global health needs to be further defined as a shared responsibility between scientific and academic leaders, governments and implementation processes that are demonstrated to the public, and to funders, as able to reduce disease burden,” he said.

Kenyan professionals have been vital to the collaboration’s research and clinical success. A number of Kenyan students who went abroad to study at universities affiliated with the collaboration eventually assumed health-system and research leadership roles in their home country.

Omu Anzala [PhD/97], currently director of the Kenyan AIDS Vaccine Initiative, earned his PhD at UM. Dr. Joshua Kimani, who became chief clinician for the collaboration, recalled a visit to Winnipeg that influenced his career path.

Back in 1987, Kimani was a third-year medical student when a Canadian – Dr. Frank Plummer – came to lecture his class on sexually transmitted diseases. “HIV had just come,” Kimani remembered. “People didn’t really understand it.”

Kimani and another student were so intrigued by Plummer’s talk that they volunteered at the Majengo clinic. That experience influenced them to specialize in infectious diseases. In 1989, they received funding from UM to spend three months in Winnipeg.

They did rounds at local hospitals and were awestruck to meet senior figures like Ronald, Dr. Robert Brunham and Dr. Joanne Embree, who were well-known members of the collaboration with their names on numerous research papers.

“By the time we came back home,” Kimani said, “we had seen a different world and been opened up to the opportunities in public health.”

Fowke, who has made more than 40 trips to Kenya in his career, said it was moving and inspiring to mark the 40th anniversary in Nairobi with an international network of colleagues and friends.

“With five generations of UM and UN researchers represented at the meeting, I felt tremendous pride in the vision of the founders, immense hope for the future – seeing the excellence of our students – and honoured to be part of this collaboration,” he said.

“UM researchers and students have improved the health of Kenyans and people around the world, and we should all take a moment to celebrate that accomplishment.” 

LARRY KROTZ and RADYUM STAFF

Remembering Dr. Frank Plummer

The celebration of the 40-year University of Manitoba-University of Nairobi partnership gave way to sorrow on Feb. 4, 2020 with the sudden passing in Nairobi of esteemed scientist Frank Plummer [MD/76], a leading figure in the collaboration.

The day before his passing in Nairobi, Dr. Frank Plummer was reunited with Hawa, a research participant who was found to have natural immunity to HIV nearly 30 years ago.

The world-renowned infectious disease expert was 67 years old. Just days before suffering a fatal heart attack, he had spoken at the 40th-anniversary conference and enjoyed reuniting with many of the Kenyan women whose natural immunity to HIV his team had discovered in the late 1980s.

“Frank Plummer’s contributions to public health on a global scale were immense. Today we lost a giant,” said Brian Postl [MD/76], dean of the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences and a medical school classmate of Plummer. “Frank distinguished himself as a true leader and visionary.”

The Winnipeg-born Plummer, who joined the UM faculty in 1984, spent 17 years in Nairobi leading the collaboration. His work not only produced vital knowledge about the HIV epidemic in Africa, but led to prevention and control strategies that influenced worldwide health policy on sexually transmitted infections, saving tens of thousands of lives.

In Canada, Plummer’s leadership roles included serving as scientific director general of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg and director general of the Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control in Ottawa.

He led the Canadian laboratory response to the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009. At the time of his passing, he was distinguished professor emeritus of medical microbiology and infectious diseases at UM and was working to develop an HIV vaccine.

“The work of Dr. Frank Plummer has had a tremendous impact on global public health, and he was a prime example of dedication and passion in one’s profession,” said Dr. David Barnard.

Plummer’s many prestigious honours included the Order of Canada, the McLaughlin Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, the Prix Galien Research Award, the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award and the Flavelle Medal of the Royal Society of Canada.

“He was an outstanding, world-class researcher who was a dear colleague, mentor and friend to many of us lucky enough to work with him, and beside him,” said Keith Fowke [B.Sc.(Hons.)/88, PhD/95], head of medical microbiology and infectious diseases. “He will be dearly missed by all of us in the academic and scientific community.”

“I think these two projects illustrate the diversity of the kinds of projects The Winnipeg Foundation supports, which expand the spectrum of research with high-risk, high-reward initiatives,” says Dr. Peter Nickerson, Vice-Dean (Research) and Distinguished Professor, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

Role of endothelial NMDA receptors in glutamate-induced glioma growth

Dr. Chris Anderson, pharmacology and therapeutics professor, Max Rady College of Medicine, and director, Neuroscience Research Program, Kleysen Institute for Advanced Medicine, leads a team that will further research into glioblastomas, a deadly form of brain cancer with few treatment options and a median survival time of less than 15 months.

Along with co-leads Dr. Tanveer Sharif, department of pathology, and Dr. Ji Hyun Ko, department of human anatomy and cell science, Anderson will study whether a specific cell protein in the lining of brain blood vessels called an NMDA receptor, represents a viable new target for comprehensive therapeutic investigation.

“Dr. Sharif’s collaboration with McMaster University gives us access to patient glioblastoma samples, which we can study in Manitoba,” Anderson says. “We will culture the glioblastoma cells with brain endothelial cells to study the nature of molecular interactions between them, in detail, including the role of NMDA receptors. It’s kind of a simple approach, but it will be effective in allowing us to determine the role NMDA receptors play in glioblastoma cell movement and tumour expansion.”

The second part of the project will involve studying the development of tumours after transplanting patient-derived glioblastoma samples into live mice. 

“Using MRI and PET imaging, as well as other state-of-the-art approaches, we will look at patterns of glioblastoma cell infiltration, as well as tumour size, blood flow and metabolism. Performing these experiments in mice genetically engineered to eliminate NMDA receptors in endothelial cells will allow us to directly test the role of this intriguing host target,” says Anderson.

Big data in mother-infant health research

Dr. Sherif Eltonsy, assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy, was also awarded $100,000 grant, for a multi-site project that will create a national database on the effects of medications on mothers and their offspring.

“The idea is to use real-world data to inform mothers, policymakers and physicians on the effects of medications; which are the safest to use and which pose a risk to mother or infant health,” Eltonsy said. “Pregnant women are excluded from randomized trials, so often this becomes the only way to assess the safety of most medications in the market on mothers and infants.”

Eltonsy, a pharmacoepidemiologist with an academic focus on drug safety, leads the project with two researchers from the Max Rady College of Medicine, Dr. Marcus Ng and Dr. Chelsea Ruth, who specialize in neurology and neonatology respectively. The team is collaborating with researchers in Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

“The project aligns perfectly with The Winnipeg Foundation Innovation Fund as an interdisciplinary innovative project with short-term tangible outcomes – answers to questions mothers have about how best to keep themselves and their newborns safe – as well as a sustainable long-term platform that can be used regularly for big data analyses in mother-infant health,” Eltonsy said.

During the next year, Eltonsy’s team will focus on creating the infrastructure of the project and developing a pilot demonstration using epilepsy medications data. “We plan to create a national epilepsy and mother-infant health group covering over 1.5 million pregnancies and 20 years of follow-up,” he said.

The two grants are part of The Winnipeg Foundation’s $1-million commitment, over five years, to support cutting-edge medical research projects through the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.

Bernstein’s lecture: “Made in Manitoba Research: Advancing our understanding of inflammatory bowel disease,” will take place at 7 p.m. in the Robert B. Schultz Lecture Theatre, St. John’s College, 92 Dysart Road.

All are welcome and admission is free. A reception celebrating all 2016 Rh award winners will follow the lecture.

The 2016 Terry G. Falconer Memorial Rh Institute Foundation Emerging Researcher Awards were originally established in 1973 by the Winnipeg Rh Institute, now the Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation, from funds set aside from the sale and production of medical formulae. The awards were renamed in 2016 in memory of Terry Falconer, former chair of the Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation. These honours are given to academic staff members who are in the early stages of their careers and who display exceptional innovation, leadership and promise in their respective fields. The winners each receive $12,000 toward their research program. Typically, one award is given in each of the following areas: applied sciences, creative works, health sciences, humanities, interdisciplinary studies, natural sciences and social sciences.

APPLIED SCIENCES 

Puyan Mojabi.

Puyan Mojabi (electrical and computer engineering) advances the development of electromagnetic inversion, a process in which internal properties of a domain of interest are found from external electromagnetic field observations. Mojabi’s current research focus is on innovations in microwave imaging, Arctic microwave remote sensing, and antenna characterization and design. This research has broad applications in many fields such as: medicine (breast tissue imaging); geophysics (oil exploration); Arctic remote sensing (snow and sea ice thickness); antenna design, measurement and diagnostics; agriculture (grain bin imaging); environmental engineering (soil moisture); and industrial non-destructive evaluation.

HEALTH SCIENCES

Ji Hyun Ko.

Ji Hyun Ko (human anatomy and cell science) uses engineering and mathematical approaches to design new ways of looking at how the brain works. He seeks to find a better understanding of brain abnormalities in neurological and psychiatric disorders, using the development of functional brain imaging methods such as MRI and PET. He is developing imaging-based biomarkers and imaging-guided brain stimulation therapies for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorders and traumatic brain injuries. His research allows for better diagnosis and prognosis, and to monitor disease progression and treatment responses more accurately. 

Kathryn Sibley.

Kathryn Sibley (community health sciences) studies the process of knowledge translation in rehabilitation sciences, a specialized area of health care dedicated to optimizing physical function and quality of life. Using an integrated knowledge translation research approach, where the end-users of rehabilitation research are involved in the research process from start to finish, her studies identify critical rehabilitation research-to-practice gaps and test methods to close them; promote more consistent research practices to ensure rehabilitation treatments can be accurately compared across studies; and develop new research communication strategies. She was recently awarded a Canada Research Chair in Integrated Knowledge Translation in Rehabilitation Science. 

HUMANITIES

Etienne-Marie Lassi.

Etienne-Marie Lassi (French, Spanish and Italian) conducts research that focuses on the way ordinary people experience life, relate to their social and geographical environment as well as to other peoples and cultures by studying imagined realities such as legends, novels, plays, and films through which social imaginaries are expressed. His research and teaching interests include Francophone African literature and cinema, film adaptation and novelization, postcolonial theories, and environment in literature and film. The notion of identity, of how people view themselves, is central to his research. 

INTERDISCIPLINARY

Neil Bruce.

Neil Bruce (computer science) investigates vision from a computational perspective. Understanding how people view, sample, and process information is critical to many application domains including interface design, marketing, medical diagnosis and in everyday life. His research involves the use of artificial intelligence for computer vision systems, and the application of computational methods and serves as a hub, connecting a variety of disciplines including computer science, neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, imaging and statistics. Bruce provides solutions to important problems in computer vision such as object recognition, scene understanding, and foremost, mechanisms to focus attention or processing on certain parts of an image to deal with the complexity of vision problems.

NATURAL SCIENCES

Juliette Mammei.

Juliette Mammei (physics and astronomy) studies the most fundamental properties of matter. She uses high energy polarized electron beams to measure various nuclear and nucleon properties, and even to search for new forces that have never been discovered. The most exciting aspect of her research is to use this method of scattering electrons to measure the weak nuclear charges of protons and electrons so precisely that deviations from the theoretical predictions will indicate the existence of new fundamental forces that have never been seen before. This new forces may be responsible for unexplained phenomena such as why we live in a matter universe instead of an antimatter one, and what dark energy and dark matter are.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Chad Lawley.

Chad Lawley (agribusiness and agricultural economics) studies the economics of environmental and agricultural policy issues, including pre-emptive invasive species trade measures, land use and habitat conservation in agricultural landscapes, and supply management of the Canadian dairy and poultry industries. His most recent research has explored issues of farmland ownership, including the implications of farmland tenure for adoption of conservation practices and the impact of farmland ownership restrictions on farmland prices. Chad has recently completed two projects examining the effects of BC’s carbon tax on fuel use by BC households.