“Our researchers have demonstrated excellence by securing federal support for a diverse range of innovative health studies,” said UM Vice-President (Research and International) Dr. Mario Pinto.

“Many of our UM experts will be collaborating with community members to help our research have impact and provide solutions for society.”

Dr. Peter Nickerson, dean of the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, also noted the involvement of community partners in many of the funded projects. “This is important because community members have valuable expertise to contribute,” he said.

Dr. Jonathan McGavock, professor of pediatrics and child health at the Max Rady College of Medicine in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, was a double recipient, landing two of the 10 grants to UM in the Spring 2023 round of funding.

McGavock, who is also a researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba (CHRIM), has a key research interest in youth diabetes, with a particular focus on encouraging physical activity. The professor, who holds a PhD in exercise science, published a study last year demonstrating the cardiovascular health benefits associated with living near a multi-use activity trail.

He and his team have now received a grant of $1,453,500 to lead a five-year study of how Canadian cities can best implement urban trails that are fair for all citizens and generate the greatest possible cardiovascular health benefits. Seven cities, including Winnipeg, Brandon and Selkirk, are partners in the study.

“Our team will be working closely with city planners, and with organizations in all seven cities that support the use of trails, to create an optimal ‘recipe’ for trail creation that can inform the next wave of urban trails in Canadian cities,” McGavock said.  

The second grant to McGavock’s team is for $734,400 over four years. It will fund a randomized trial of a program for adolescents living with obesity. The program will support teens’ social, emotional and psychological needs as well as lifestyle changes, such as better sleep, daily activity and healthier eating.

“Very few treatments aimed at supporting a healthy lifestyle for adolescents with obesity incorporate skills to help regulate emotions and support positive mental health and quality of life,” McGavock said. 

“We want to determine if it’s feasible to deliver a treatment for teens living with obesity that includes emotional skills training.”

Here’s a look at the other CIHR-funded UM projects. More information on the studies and research teams is available here.

Dr. Jeremy Chopek, assistant professor, physiology and pathophysiology, Max Rady College of Medicine

Grant: $975,376 (five years)

Chopek’s study seeks to better understand how electrical spinal stimulation can not only improve motor function in people with spinal cord injury, but also improve the body’s autonomic functions, such as regulating heart rate and blood pressure. The long-term goal is to increase exercise capacity, reduce obesity and improve overall health in people living with spinal cord injury.

Dr. Sanjiv Dhingra, professor, physiology and pathophysiology, Max Rady College of Medicine; principal investigator, Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre

Grant: $1,027,780 (five years)

Dhingra will focus on mesenchymal stem cells (a type of multipotent cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types) derived from bone marrow. Aiming to understand why, in treating heart disease, transplanted stem cells are rejected by the recipient, Dhingra’s team will experiment with modifying the cells to improve their survival in the heart.

Dr. Keith Fowke, professor, medical microbiology and infectious diseases, Max Rady College of Medicine

Grant: $100,000 (one year)

Partnering with community members in Nairobi, Kenya, Fowke’s team will study immune cells from Kenyan women who naturally clear the human papilloma virus (HPV) in the presence or absence of HIV co-infection. Because HPV causes cervical cancer, understanding how the immune system clears it naturally is an important step toward developing a vaccine to clear HPV infection.

Dr. Lauren Kelly, associate professor, pharmacology and therapeutics, Max Rady College of Medicine; researcher, CHRIM

Grant: $749,700 (three years)

Kelly will lead a randomized clinical trial of cannabidiol (CBD) alone versus CBD in combination with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as a treatment to reduce seizures in children and adults with drug-resistant epilepsy. Patient-centred organizations have partnered with researchers in guiding the trial, which will involve 90 participants across eight sites.

Dr. Lorrie Kirshenbaum, professor, physiology and pathophysiology, Max Rady College of Medicine; Canada Research Chair in molecular cardiology; director, Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, St. Boniface Hospital Albrechtsen Research Centre

Grant: $757,350 (five years)

Doxorubicin is an effective chemotherapy drug with the side effect of inducing heart failure in some cancer survivors. Kirshenbaum’s study will examine the apparent link between cancer patients’ disrupted body clocks, autophagy (the body’s process of “recycling” damaged cell parts to maintain cell quality), and the harmful effects of doxorubicin on the heart.

Dr. Deepak Louis, assistant professor, pediatrics and child health, Max Rady College of Medicine; researcher, CHRIM

Grant: $481,951 (four years, three months)

Louis will lead a three-province study of how the birth of a preterm baby affects siblings in the family. Parents of a preterm infant often experience stress, isolation, financial difficulties and mental health effects. Louis’s team will be the first to examine siblings’ risk for developing behavioural, socio-emotional, mental and physical health problems in childhood and adolescence.

Dr. Kristin Reynolds, associate professor, psychology, Faculty of Arts

Grant: $351,901 (four years)

Reynolds’ team will partner with community organizations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and British Columbia to implement and evaluate the CONNECT Program, a group telehealth mental health program for older adults. Working with the organizations, the researchers will assess the program’s effects on participants’ loneliness, social connection and mental health.

Dr. Roberta Woodgate, distinguished professor, College of Nursing; Canada Research Chair in child and family engagement in health research and healthcare; researcher, CHRIM

Grant: $100,000 (one year)

Woodgate’s mixed-methods study will focus on vaccine uptake within families. Her team aims to understand Manitoba childrearing families’ perspectives and decisions about vaccinating their family members against COVID-19 and influenza, with the goal of providing recommendations to promote vaccine uptake.

Dr. Lauren Kelly, assistant professor of pharmacology and therapeutics, and community health sciences, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, has received $4.9 million over three years from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s (CIHR) Clinical Trials Fund to create educational and mentoring opportunities for doctoral, postdoctoral and early career researchers and clinicians.

Dr. Lauren Kelly

The training platform, called Increasing Capacity for Maternal and Paediatric Clinical Trials (IMPaCT), will bring together more than 50 mentors and 20 clinical trial teams from across Canada and will launch at www.IMPaCTrials.ca in a few weeks.

“We need more people with the skills, expertise and passion to do clinical trials in the areas of pediatric and pregnancy, and this platform will help address that,” said Kelly, who is also the clinical trials director at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, and a clinical trialist at the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation. “My goal is that by the end of the three years, we will have a strong network for pediatric and pregnancy trials across Canada. The best way to build that is together.”

IMPaCT will have three major components. The first is an online component with open-access training available to anyone interested in learning about clinical trials. The second component is a fellowship program, which will include up to 60 fellowship opportunities. The third component is a summit, which will include a four-day professional development program and will focus on areas like grant writing, career mentorship and designing protocols.

Dr. Peter Nickerson, vice-provost (health sciences), dean, Max Rady College of Medicine, and dean, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, said he is eager to see the launch of IMPaCT.

“IMPaCT will provide enthusiastic trainees with the knowledge and skills needed to run their own clinical trials in the future,” Nickerson said. “Expanding the number of individuals with clinical trial training in the areas of pregnancy and pediatrics is critical to advance patient care in these areas.”

IMPaCT will also develop a government advocacy program for five fellows and three mentors to learn how to work alongside the government to advocate for more investments in child health and pregnancy research.

“Clinical trials are complicated. There’s lots of paperwork, daunting words, government regulation and liability, so it can be a scary place,” Kelly said. “Our vision is to demystify this process and connect people so they’re supported to enter careers in clinical trials. That’s something I never had when I started, and I now have the opportunity to design the training program I wish I had when I was a trainee.”

Kelly plans to work alongside the newly CIHR-funded Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) Consortium to further build the capacity for clinical trials with pregnant people and children from across Canada. The ACT-Consortium was awarded more than $38 million to strengthen coordination between domestic and international clinical trial networks. Kelly and Dr. Ryan Zarychanski, associate professor of internal medicine, Max Rady College of Medicine and senior scientist at CancerCare Manitoba, are principal applicants and the Manitoba representatives for ACT-Consortium.

The initiative, led by the federally funded Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), connects patients and researchers who work together to improve service delivery and practice.

The five-year investment, announced at the University of Manitoba on June 27, will expand the capacity of the Manitoba SPOR Support for People and Patient-Oriented Research and Trials (SUPPORT) Unit. The unit is housed within the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation (CHI), which operates as a partnership between UM and Shared Health.

Terry Duguid, Member of Parliament for Winnipeg South, made the announcement on behalf of the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health.

“Through patient-oriented research, we are transforming the role of the patient from a passive receiver of health services to a proactive partner who helps shape research and, as a result, health care,” Duguid said.

Additional contributions to the SPOR SUPPORT Unit from Manitoba bring the total investment to $30 million. This includes $17.4 million from the Government of Manitoba and the provincial health authority, Shared Health, and $6.1 million from UM.

“Investing in this research allows us to offer … better experiences and health outcomes for patients,” said Monika Warren, chief operating officer for provincial health services and chief nursing officer at Shared Health.

Patient-oriented research, Warren said, empowers patients and provides the health-care system with insight to improve care.

“Listening to the priorities and concerns of patients and their families is not only respectful and inclusive, it’s good science,” said Dr. Brian Postl, dean of the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

“People who live with a disease or health condition become experts on that condition. By consulting with them … we focus our research and make it more useful to those who need it most.”

The SPOR Support Unit’s current partnership with Ongomiizwin, the Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing in UM’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, will be expanded to further incorporate Indigenous health perspectives and respond to Indigenous health needs.

This includes potentially expanding the role of the Indigenous Advisory Council as a forum for Indigenous patient engagement and implementing a new Indigenous Health Care Quality Framework in both research and health systems.

Dr. Marcia Anderson, vice-dean, Indigenous health, social justice and anti-racism in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, said all the SPOR SUPPORT Unit funding partners share “a common goal to close Indigenous health-care gaps in outcomes and quality.”

Dr. Terry Klassen, scientific director of CHI, UM professor of pediatrics and child health, and Canada Research Chair in clinical trials, said: “With the renewed funding from CIHR and our partners, we will continue to nurture a responsive health-care system that is continuously improving to meet Manitobans’ needs.

“We believe that begins with a commitment to advancing a culture of inclusive patient-oriented research, with an emphasis on equity, diversity and inclusion.”

Klassen cited recent examples of engaging patients in CHI-supported research:

• Lauren Kelly, UM assistant professor of pharmacology and therapeutics, is working with teens to study the use of a cannabis extract to manage hard-to-treat chronic headaches. Through engaging with patients, Kelly’s team ensures that its clinical trial answers important questions using practical designs.
• Eric Bohm, UM professor of surgery, involved people who needed bilateral knee-replacement surgery in designing a national clinical trial that compares having both knees replaced simultaneously with having them replaced one at a time. This partnership will lead to a Patient Decision Aid.

Thomas Beaudry, who has participated in CHI research as a caregiver partner, spoke to reporters about the value that patients and their caregivers bring to health research.

“We want patients to be part of the process and to have a voice,” Beaudry told the Winnipeg Free Press. “The funding will allow for more research potential and more participants.”

Uma Yakandawala

Last fall, Yakandawala joined the College of Pharmacy master’s program to begin her research studying medications in breast milk and has recently received the 2020 Canada Graduate Scholarships – Masters (CGS M) award which will support her in her studies. The value of the award is $17,500 for 12 months.

“Through communicating with people at community engagement events, I’ve found that there’s a limited amount of knowledge that they have on making a decision whether or not to take a medication and how much medication to take,” says Yakandawala.

She will be working at the Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre (MILC), led by Dr. Meghan Azad, Dr. Nathan Nickel, and Dr. Lauren Kelly. All three are assistant professors in the departments of pediatrics and child health and community health sciences and research scientists at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba. Nickel is an associate director at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy.

She will be supervised by Kelly and Dr. Christine Leong, assistant professor, College of Pharmacy.

MILC is a research centre building a novel biorepository to study breast milk linked to administrative data.

“Manitoba has a unique opportunity to lead medication in breast milk research in Canada with the development of MILC,” says Yakandawala.

There are two components to Yakandawala’s project. The first part will be a systematic review to understand the collection methods and analytical techniques used to study medications in breast milk. This will help to inform the development of analytical techniques in order to quantify levels of medications excreted in breast milk.

The second part is a scoping review and a questionnaire. This will help researchers to understand the preference factors of mothers that contribute to their decisions to take medications during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Yakandawala started down this research path last summer while doing an undergraduate research award project with Leong. She decided to continue studying the topic.

“I’m especially interested in the knowledge translation piece, how we’re able to translate the research we do in the lab to the community,” she says.

The community engagement aspect is something Yakandawala enjoys most about the project, which allows her to go out and speak with people about the subject face-to-face.

“We hold a lot of community engagement events to understand what people know about medication in breast milk and how they want to be involved in the research. There’s a holistic approach to our research which I really love,” she says.

Yakandawala hopes her study will one day help people who are pregnant and breastfeeding make more informed decisions about medications.

“There’s isn’t a lot of existing research in the literature,” she says. “It’s important to ensure that future research will study patient outcomes and what’s important to mothers and pregnant people when it comes to medications and breast milk. This study will hopefully lead to the development of a decision aid that may be used in clinical practice.”

Yakandawala says she was excited to find out the news that she received the Canada Graduate Scholarships-Master’s (CGS M) award, which aims to help develop research skills and assist in the training of highly qualified personnel by supporting students who demonstrate a high standard of achievement in early graduate studies.

“I was honoured and appreciative to be one of the students at UM that got chosen to receive this scholarship,” she says.

The CGS M program provides financial support for to up to 3,000 graduate students annually in all disciplines. It is administered jointly by Canada’s three federal agencies: Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. More info: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/students-etudiants/pg-cs/cgsm-bescm_eng.asp

The funding is made possible by the gift of $30 million made in 2016 by philanthropists Ernest and Evelyn Rady in support of health sciences at the university. The fund will allocate a total of $1 million over three years to support collaborative research by faculty members.

The one-year grants are designed to seed short-term projects that combine the expertise of researchers from various departments and colleges of the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

“All four of these interdisciplinary teams have proposed cutting-edge science,” said Dr. Peter Nickerson, vice-dean research of the Rady Faculty. “These are exciting projects that cover the spectrum from basic to clinical research, each with the potential for high impact in the short term.”

Here are the projects chosen for funding in 2019:

Analyzing medications in human milk

Dr. Lauren Kelly

Dr. Lauren Kelly, assistant professor of pediatrics/child health in the Max Rady College of Medicine and scientist with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba (CHRIM), will lead a study of breast milk. Mothers who take medications, and their health-care providers, are often concerned about infants’ exposure to drugs in breast milk. This can deter breastfeeding or deny moms safe use of medicines.

Kelly’s team includes researchers from the College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy, Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and CHRIM. After reviewing what medicines breastfeeding women in Manitoba use, they will conduct a pilot project to collect and analyze breast milk. The evidence obtained will advance the understanding of medication safety during breastfeeding.

A further goal is to develop methods for storing anonymized medication data with milk samples, allowing for follow-up research.

Applying artificial intelligence to health research

Dr. William Leslie

A team led by Dr. William Leslie, professor of internal medicine and radiology in the Max Rady College of Medicine, has already had success at harnessing artificial intelligence. The team has “taught” a machine to find vertebral fractures on bone-density scans. This helps to identify patients at high risk for another fracture.  

The new study will continue this machine-learning research, enhance the infrastructure for it, and promote machine-learning collaborations within and beyond the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

Leslie’s team, which includes researchers from the department of radiology and the College of Pharmacy, will share lessons they have derived from “teaching” machines, in terms of requirements such as image processing and computer programming. A key goal is to help other researchers enter this fast-paced field.

Understanding a non-invasive thyroid tumour

Dr. Sabine Mai

Dr. Sabine Mai, professor of physiology, biochemistry/medical genetics and human anatomy/cell science in the Max Rady College of Medicine, Canada Research Chair in genomic instability and nuclear architecture in cancer, and senior investigator at the Research Institute in Oncology and Hematology, leads a team that will investigate a type of thyroid tumour called a “non-invasive follicular thyroid neoplasm with papillary-like nuclear features” (NIFTP).

Because this tumour is non-invasive, it may be over-treated if it is diagnosed as aggressive cancer. This study will compare NIFTP to other sub-types of thyroid cancer in order to predict its behaviour and tailor its clinical management.

With team members from pathology/immunology and surgery, the study will examine NIFTP at the genetic level. It will look, for example, at the 3D organization of telomeres (the ends of chromosomes). The project aims to refine the diagnostic criteria for NIFTP.

Investigating the genetics of HIV risk

Dr. Lyle McKinnon

A study led by Dr. Lyle McKinnon, assistant professor of medical microbiology and community health sciences in the Max Rady College of Medicine, will build on the previous finding that vaginal inflammation in women increases HIV susceptibility. The underlying reasons why some women have this inflammation are unclear.

The team recently analyzed the genetic profiles of more than 200 young women in South Africa. They found several gene variants that are associated with genital inflammation and/or HIV acquisition.

With team members from medical microbiology/infectious diseases, immunology and community health sciences, this study seeks to validate this finding in a larger sample of South African and Kenyan women, and to investigate more precisely how genes influence inflammation and HIV susceptibility. The ultimate goal is to develop new HIV prevention strategies.

VIEW FULL PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS.

The 2018 Rady Innovation Fund recipients, Dr. Thomas Klonisch, Dr. James Nagy and Dr. Kathryn Sibley, will present their findings on December 17, click for event info.