CRCs are world leaders in their field funded by the Government of Canada in the areas of natural sciences and engineering, health sciences, and social sciences and humanities. “These symposia were a wonderful opportunity for researchers to get to know each other’s specialties, and to spark new collaborations with students and the wider community,” says Mario Pinto, Vice-President (Research and International). “I thank all the CRCs for their groundbreaking contributions to address the issues faced by society today.”

This thought-provoking look at current UM research is available to view online, each featuring a brief presentation from the gathered CRCs followed by a question-and-answer period with the audience.

CRC Symposium 1, February 2, 2023 – Fort Garry Campus

Featuring presentations from: Heather Armstrong, Chair in Integrative Bioscience; Guozhen Zhu, Chair in Mechanical and Functional Design of Nanostructured Materials; Trust Beta, Chair in Grain-Based Functional Foods; Eric Collins, Chair in Arctic Marine Microbial Ecosystem Services; Britt Drögemöller, Chair in Pharmacogenomics & Precision Medicine; Ned Budisa, Chair in Chemical Synthetic Biology and Xenobiology; Lori Wilkinson, Chair in Migration Futures; Jason Kindrachuk, Chair in Epidemiology and Global Public Health; Sabine Mai, Chair in Genomic Instability and Nuclear Architecture in Cancer; Jörg Stetefeld, Chair in Structural Biology and Biophysics; Carl Ho, Chair in Efficient Utilization of Electric Power; and Nandika Bandara, Chair in Food Proteins.

CRC Symposium 2, February 27, 2023 – Bannatyne Campus

Featuring presentations from: Tracie Afifi, Chair in Childhood Adversity and Resilience; Robert Lorway, Chair in Global Intervention Politics and Social Transformation; Janilyn Arsenio, Chair in Systems Biology of Chronic Inflammation; Puyan Mojabi, Chair in Electromagnetic Inversion for Characterization and Design; Annette Desmarais, Chair in Human Rights, Social Justice and Food Sovereignty; Zulma Rueda, Chair in Program Sciences & Global Public Health; and Kathryn Sibley, Chair in Integrated Knowledge Translation in Rehabilitation Sciences.

CRC Symposium 3, March 28, 2023 – Fort Garry Campus

Featuring presentations from: Ties Boerma, Chair in Population and Global Health; Kiera Ladner, Chair in Miyo we’citowin, Indigenous Governance & Digital Sovereignties; Rotimi Aluko, Chair in Bioactive Peptides; Zahra Moussavi, Chair in Biomedical Engineering; Terry Klassen, Chair in Clinical Trials; and Galen Wright, Chair in Neurogenomics.

CRC Symposium 4, April 24, 2023 – Bannatyne Campus

Featuring presentations from: Lisa Lix, Chair in Methods for Electronic Health Data Quality; John Ataguba, Chair in Health Economics; Nicole Wilson, Chair in Arctic Environmental Change and Governance; Lorrie Kirshenbaum, Chair in Molecular Cardiology; Meghan Azad, Chair in Developmental Origins of Chronic Disease; and Kristine Cowley, Chair in Function and Health after Spinal Cord Injury.

CRC Symposium 5, May 16, 2023 – Fort Garry Campus

Featuring presentations from: Kristina Brown, Chair in Arctic Marine Biogeochemistry; Nicole Rosen, Chair in Language Interactions; Robert Mizzi, Chair in Queer, Community & Diversity Education; Samar Safi-Harb, Chair in Extreme Astrophysics; and Susan Logue, Chair in Cell Stress and Inflammation.

CRC Symposium 6, June 19, 2023 – Bannatyne Campus

Featuring presentations from: Andrew Halayko, Chair in Chronic Lung Disease Pathobiology and Treatment; Colin Gilmore, Chair in Applied Electromagnetic Inversion; James Blanchard, Chair in Epidemiology and Global Public Health; Marcelo Urquia, Chair in Applied Population Health; and Souradet Shaw, Chair in Program Science & Global Public Health.

And the University of Manitoba is there.

Dr. Marissa Becker [MD/99] is an associate professor in the department of community health sciences and the department of medical microbiology and infectious diseases within the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences. She is also director of technical collaboration for the Institute for Global Public Health (IGPH).

In Delhi, her role with IGPH supports UM projects in India.

Dr. Marissa Becker

UM has been working in India since the early 2000s, beginning with work on HIV prevention and care led by Drs. James Blanchard and Stephen Moses. Since then, the work has expanded to maternal and child health, nutrition, family planning, and health systems strengthening, as well as work on infectious disease surveillance and tuberculosis.

Becker notes: “We currently work in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. Our biggest program is in Uttar Pradesh in partnership with India Health Action Trust, where we work with the local government to run a Technical Support Unit (TSU) on maternal and child health. We support the government in achieving its health goals in the areas of maternal, newborn and child health, nutrition, family planning and health system strengthening.”

The UM TSU team, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is large, with about 1,200 people, mostly local residents, providing technical support for programs at the state level and local community level. They work with frontline workers, health care providers, health systems, data, and they design and implement surveys.

Becker explains: “The TSU team is headed by Dr. Vasanth Kumar who has an appointment with UM community health sciences, as do many of our senior core team members from India.

In addition to the team in India, we have a number of UM faculty who support the work, including Drs. Stephen Moses, Maryanne Crockett, Rob Lorway, Shiva Halli, Lisa Avery, Ties Boerma, and BM Ramesh. Dr. James Blanchard is lead of the TSU team in Uttar Pradesh. A number of our postdoctoral students and other graduate students are also engaged.”

When the pandemic hit India a year ago, UM researchers were asked by the government of Uttar Pradesh to help provide support in dealing with the pandemic. They created and implemented a multi-pronged strategy using data for decision making and helped establish a very comprehensive COVID-19 surveillance system for the state. In addition, they provided training and support to front line workers in the community around prevention measures and community surveillance. Further, they supported forecasting for strategic planning of equipment and supplies and helped in conducting COVID seroprevalence studies.

With the tidal wave of COVID cases today, the UM team is working with the government to help address the very serious and very dire oxygen shortages.

Becker says: “The situation here is very difficult- and the health system in many areas across the country is overwhelmed- the impact is immense. The health care facilities are full and many have insufficient equipment and supplies. Families are really struggling. On top of their trying to cope with loved ones that are sick, many are incurring significant financial costs — catastrophic out of pocket expenses.”

She explains that the vaccination program in India started out strong but unfortunately the total proportion of the population immunized was still very low when this latest wave hit.

“I fear that the country will have a difficult time in catching up quickly enough to address this current wave,” she says. “In the meantime, other prevention measures have been put back in place with lockdowns in many states across the country. We are also now seeing many countries step up with support now, but I’m worried about the shift to more cases in the rural areas and also to neighbouring countries in the region in which we are seeing increases in cases — and these countries are also facing shortages of vaccines.”

Becker admits that the pandemic is affecting her personally to some extent.

“Many of our team members and their families have been affected,” she says sadly. “Many friends and colleagues are trying desperately to help their loved ones find a bed, find medicines, to provide care to them. You can hear people’s frustrations, grief and exhaustion when you speak with them.”

Becker believes that the UM community should be proud of the UM response in India. “Not only has our team played an active role in addressing the pandemic, but it has also tried to help the state of Uttar Pradesh ensure that many of the consequences of the pandemic, such as interrupted health care services, have been mitigated. We have worked very hard to ensure the quick and safe return of full services for ensuring maternal and child health.”

Finally, Becker appeals to all of us in taking the situation seriously.

“Sitting here in Delhi now, I want to convey that this is a global emergency and we need to treat it as such — with upmost speed in rolling out vaccination programs, and ensure access to all- within our own country, but also globally,” she explains. “We must learn from this pandemic in effort to prevent and better address future epidemics, and mitigate their very significant consequences, including the tremendous health,  social and financial impacts.”

She adds: “As academics, we need to keep making sure we are using science and appropriate data to inform our response to the pandemic. It’s so critical right now. I think our projects here demonstrate the use of data for decision making.”

Real improvement – such as reducing child mortality and the spread of deadly disease – requires research, expertise, long-term planning and collaborative partnerships in the affected countries, global health experts say.

For nearly 40 years, the University of Manitoba has been a world leader and innovator in taking this approach and achieving measurable results.

“With permanent offices in India, Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria, and currently more than 1,400 faculty, technical and project staff deployed, the U of M has projects serving catchment areas with a total population of over 700 million,” said U of M President and Vice-Chancellor David Barnard.

U of M physicians and scientists have made a transformative impact, particularly in African and Asian countries, by forming partnerships to enhance the knowledge of local health-care workers, improve the design and delivery of health programs and influence health policy.

At a presentation on April 11 for community leaders, professors from the Centre for Global Public Health (CGPH) in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences highlighted the centre’s impacts globally and shared their vision for greater collaboration with governments, health agencies and academic institutions across the world.

“The University of Manitoba can lead that partnership process,” said Dr. James Blanchard, U of M Canada Research Chair in epidemiology and global public health and director of the CGPH, which marked its 10th anniversary last year.

More projects to reach the “poorest of the poor” and to empower girls and women are especially needed, faculty members said.

The U of M’s track record of working with governments to build the capacity of health-care systems has attracted high-profile supporters. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and other funders have invested more than $125 million in U of M initiatives.

One U of M project in India focuses on improving maternal and child health in Uttar Pradesh – a state with a population of 200 million where more than 50 babies die for every 1,000 born.

Dr. Maryanne Crockett, a faculty member of the CGPH, shared a story from a nurse mentorship program that is part of the Uttar Pradesh project. An Indian nurse who had been trained through the program was visiting a rural hospital where twins had just been born.  

“They were thought to be stillborn,” Crockett said. “She went over to the babies, who had been placed in a bio-waste bag, and found they both had heartbeats. Based on the training she had received, she successfully resuscitated both babies. She was able to follow up and see that they were healthy one year later.”

Blanchard introduced Dr. Ties Boerma, U of M Canada Research Chair in population and global health, as a world-class addition to the U of M team.

Dr. Ties Boerma

Boerma, who joined the U of M two years ago, was formerly the head of health statistics for the World Health Organization. He has worked extensively in Africa and is director of the international Countdown to 2030 for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health.

“Manitoba is special in having long-term partnerships in countries like India and Kenya,” Boerma said. “Most universities don’t have that.”

The Dutch physician spoke about the U of M’s international achievements in limiting the transmission of HIV/AIDS, improving access to family planning, and reducing maternal and child mortality.

Successful U of M-led approaches to HIV prevention, Boerma said, include promoting male circumcision and working directly with higher-risk populations, such as sex workers, to reduce transmission.

Family planning is being emphasized in Uttar Pradesh, where the U of M is supporting the government with research and technical collaboration to improve access to modern contraceptives.

U of M doctors and researchers contributed to lowering the number of global child deaths from 12.6 million in 1990 to 5.4 million in 2017. “We’ve made great progress,” Boerma said. “But there are still big gaps in quality of care.”

The leading causes of death among children worldwide are all preventable, he said, with good health care for mother and baby at the time of birth and with sanitation, nutrition, immunization and treatment of diseases such as pneumonia.

The Centre for Global Public Health’s vision is to secure permanent, endowed funding and establish a state-of-the-art Institute of Global Health at the University of Manitoba. This sustainable platform will empower the U of M to forge a much more extensive international health network.

“We aspire to take this proud history we have, and the platform and partnerships we have developed, and move to the next level,” Blanchard said. “If we can replace project-based funding with stable, ongoing funding, we can do so much more to increase access to health care for those who are most in need.”

Watch a short video about the U of M’s life-saving work in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India:

The following article co-authored by Ties Boerma, professor with the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences and Canada Research Chair for Population and Global Health, appeared online on The Conversation: 

“Everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes access to all medical services, sanitation, adequate food, decent housing, healthy work conditions and a clean environment,” Dr. Ties Boerma told the Class of 2022 at Inaugural Exercises for the Max Rady College of Medicine, held on the Bannatyne campus on Aug. 22.

Boerma, a U of M professor who holds a Canada Research Chair in population and global health, was formerly the head of health statistics for the World Health Organization. The Dutch physician has worked extensively in Africa and is director of the international Countdown to 2030 for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health.

In his Alan Klass Memorial Address to the medical students, Boerma urged them to remember that health and disease are social issues. In Canada, he noted, the life expectancy of Indigenous people is about 12 years shorter than that of the general population. “You must do something about it,” he said.

With a crowd of family members and friends looking on in the Brodie Centre Atrium, the 110 members of the Class of 2022 were formally cloaked in their first white coats and recited the Hippocratic Oath, vowing to practise medicine ethically.

Like Boerma, Dr. Brian Postl [MD/76], dean of the Max Rady College of Medicine and the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, called on the future physicians to rectify Indigenous health inequities.

“Indigenous people have very large health gaps that we must address, and many of those gaps are rooted in systemic racism,” he said, adding, “Don’t be afraid of it, learn about it.”

The Max Rady College of Medicine has admission policies aimed at ensuring that the student body reflects the diversity of the Manitoba population. The class includes nine Indigenous students.

In addition, Postl said, “22 per cent of you are first-generation university attenders in your family; 37 per cent are from families whose incomes are below the Canadian median; 43 per cent of you consider yourselves part of a visible minority; 27 per cent have a first language other than English and French; and five of you declare a disability. These are enormous strengths.”

After the ceremony, Ashley Monture, a 24-year-old student who is of Mohawk and Cree descent, said the most moving part for her was the honour song performed by Indigenous physician Dr. Lisa Monkman.

Monture’s goal is to practise family medicine in northern and rural communities. “It’s very important to me to be able to advocate for the health of Indigenous people, and for Indigenous patients to see Indigenous physicians,” she said.

Luke Sadler, 33, is starting medical school with a background in early childhood education and community service. As the parent of a seven-year-old son with special needs, he said “a big driving factor” in his decision to enter medicine was that he hopes to use his own experience to help patients navigate the health-care system.  

Sandhini Lockman, 23, conducted research on a neurological disorder while pursuing her master’s degree in biochemistry and medical genetics at the U of M. She hopes to become a physician who makes a difference in the field of mental health.

Lockman said being cloaked in the white coat of a physician was the highlight of the ceremony. “So much time and effort went into this moment. When they finally put the coat on you, you feel accepted into the profession,” she said. “That was emotional for me.”

International and Canadian leaders in the field of global public health – including distinguished experts from Brazil, India, Pakistan, Peru, Nigeria and Uganda – will gather in Winnipeg on June 12 and 13 to discuss Canada’s role in making a healthier world.

The conference, Canada and Global Public Health: Moving from Strategy to Action, is presented by the University of Manitoba and the Gairdner Foundation, a Canadian non-profit organization that recognizes impactful health research.

“Canada’s commitment to global public health policy, programs and preparedness has been recognized throughout the world,” said Dr. James Blanchard, Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology and Global Public Health at the University of Manitoba and director of the Centre for Global Public Health in the U of M’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

“But there is much work to be done. We need better-coordinated efforts among governments, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions and funders. We need to take stock of what Canada has accomplished and identify how we can best contribute to priorities set by organizations like the United Nations. We need to specifically address the health inequities faced by women and girls.”

“By bringing together international experts here at the U of M – an institution with a track record of successful global health initiatives in countries such as India and Kenya – we’re setting the stage for two days of focused and productive dialogue. We hope the delegates will emerge with an action plan,” said Dr. Brian Postl, dean, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

Topics for discussion at the conference include:

• Identifying key challenges in global public health and emerging strategies and opportunities to address them
• Reviewing areas of Canadian excellence for improving global public health
• Developing concrete strategies for mobilizing and coordinating Canada’s efforts in global public health to enhance their impact.

On June 13, about 300 delegates and guests will attend the conference gala dinner at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The gala, hosted by Margo Goodhand, author and former editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, will celebrate Manitoba’s contributions to global health, including successful research, treatments and discoveries in the areas of maternal and child health, Ebola and HIV/AIDS.

The conference takes place in the Frederic Gaspard Theatre in the Basic Medical Sciences Building on the U of M’s Bannatyne campus (entrance through Brodie Centre, 727 McDermot Ave.).

Thirty internationally respected leaders will speak or participate on conference panels, including:

Zulfiqar Bhutta MBBS, PhD, Robert Harding Chair in Global Child Health, Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto); Founding Director, Centre of Excellence in Women & Child Health, Aga Khan University

James Blanchard MD, MPH, PhD, Director, Centre for Global Public Health, University of Manitoba; Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology and Global Public Health, University of Manitoba

Ties Boerma MD, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Population and Global Health, University of Manitoba; Director, Countdown to 2030 for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health

Patricia Garcia MD, MPH, PhD, Professor and former Dean, School of Public Health, Cayetano Heredia University, Peru; former Minister of Health of Peru; first woman to lead Peruvian National Institute of Health

Assad Hafeez MBBS, M.Sc., PhD, Director-General of Health, Federal Ministry of Health Services, Pakistan; Dean, Health Services Academy of Pakistan; Chair of the Executive Board, World Health Organization (2017)

Prabhat Jha OC, MD, DPhil, Endowed Professor of Global Health and Epidemiology and Canada Research Chair in Global Health, University of Toronto; Director, Centre for Global Health Research, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto

Hon. Keith Martin MD, PC, Executive Director, Consortium of Universities for Global Health (Washington, D.C.); former Canadian Member of Parliament; participant in diplomatic missions to Africa and Middle East

Rosanna Peeling PhD, Chair of Diagnostics Research and Director, International Diagnostics Centre, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Professor, Medical Microbiology/Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba

David Peters MD, MPH, DrPH, Edgar Berman Chair in International Health; Professor, Department of International Health; Director, Alliance for a Healthier World, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Baltimore, Md.)

César Victora MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil; Director, International Center for Equity in Health; Co-chair, Equity Technical Working Group, Countdown to 2030 for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health