The Emerging Scholar Podcast features host and producer Dr. Jonathan McGavock, a professor of pediatrics and child health at the Max Rady College of Medicine, speaking with a variety of experts in the health sciences research field. The Podcast is produced and supported by UMFM with the help of co-producer Jared McKetiak.

 McGavock, also a researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, says each episode is a conversation that will take students through the scientific process of generating ideas, testing a clinical hypothesis and sharing the results.  

“The amount of information available to residents getting started in research is enormous and could be super intimidating. We are providing a starting point and map to simplify the process,” said McGavock. 

The first two episodes focus on ‘how to develop a research question’ with episode one featuring a dialogue with pioneering pediatric researcher and professor Dr. Peter Rosenbaum of McMaster University.  Other early episodes give insights into topics like choosing a mentor, an introduction to various types of clinical research designs and incorporating race and anti-racism into a research project. 

McGavock said this podcast will also provide residents with a set of tools and resources they can easily access when they are working on their own (here). Since each episode is only 30 minutes, it allows those with limited time an opportunity to listen while on their commute or during other daily activities. 

“Every episode has a guest scientist in a different domain and should help fast-track the learner’s project. They will benefit from this interplay of discussion and Q & A with an expert, and then they can go right to the resource that they need, so they can do this independently.” 

While the podcast is geared towards residents, McGavock said graduate students and scientists at every level could also benefit from it. 

“Any graduate student launching into a project that involves humans could enjoy and learn from these interviews. There’s a big pool of students wanting to get into clinical research and I think they can use this as an entry level resource and learn what is expected at the highest level.”  

McGavock has three seasons of the podcast mapped out, as that is the typical length for a residency research project, but said he has no plans to stop making new episodes once the three seasons are complete.  

“This podcast has been a dream of mine for years and without the incredible support and production from UMFM station manager Jared McKetiak it would not be possible,” said McGavock. The first of 14 episodes was released in early 2025 and will drop weekly until mid April.  Episodes can be found on all streaming platforms along with the companion website and UMFM website.  

The study shows breastfeeding beyond three months supports the gradual maturation of the microbiome in the infant’s digestive system and nasal cavity. Meanwhile, stopping breastfeeding earlier than three months disrupts the paced development of the microbiome and was linked to a higher risk of preschool asthma.

Dr. Megan Azad

The study is co-led by Dr. Meghan Azad, Canada Research Chair in Early Nutrition and the Developmental Origins of Disease and director of the Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre.

“This research highlights the profound impact of breastfeeding on the infant microbiome and its essential role in supporting respiratory health,” said Azad. “Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for developing strategies to optimize infant health and prevent respiratory conditions from an early age,” added Azad, who is also a research scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba.

The study used data from mothers and children in the CHILD Cohort Study, a long-term research project that has been following the same 3,500 Canadian children at different stages of life from the womb well into adolescence.

“Healthy microbiome development is not only about having the ‘right microbes’ – they need to arrive in the right order, at the right time,” explained Kelsey Fehr, the lead analyst on the study. “Timing is everything, and breastmilk is the pacemaker.”

Kelsey Fehr – Co-lead study author

Breastfeeding duration remained a powerful determinant of a child’s microbial makeup over time. Co-lead and computational biologist Liat Shenhav, at NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Institute for Systems Genetics and the School’s Department of Microbiology, used these microbial dynamics and data on milk components to train a machine-learning model that accurately predicted asthma years in advance. A statistical model was created to learn causal relationships, which showed that the primary way breastfeeding reduces asthma risk is through shaping the infant’s microbiome.

“The algorithms we developed provide valuable insights into microbial dynamics during an infant’s first year of life and how these microbes interacted with the infant,” said Shenhav. “These insights allowed us to move beyond identifying associations, enhancing our ability to make predictions and explore causal relationships.”

Other key findings:

• Human milk regulates microbial colonization: The study found that human milk serves as a “peacemaker,” indirectly protecting against asthma by regulating nasal and gut microbiome development during the first year of life. 
• Microbial targets for intervention: The bacterial species called Ruminococcus gnavus appeared much sooner in the guts of children who were weaned early from breast milk than in those children who were exclusively breastfed. 

The new research is another example of how the CHILD Cohort Study, one of the most informative studies of its kind in the world, is having an impact on the health and development of children. By following the participants prospectively as they grow, instead of retrospectively (looking back), CHILD researchers can learn more accurately about how different early-life exposures relate to health and disease outcomes.

“We continue to follow the CHILD babies (who are now becoming teenagers) to learn more about how these early-life experiences and microbiome perturbations impact health later in life,” added Azad. “Next, we want to understand which components of mothers’ milk are driving these associations. We are measuring thousands of compounds in breast milk from CHILD to answer this question.”

Besides Shenhav and Azad, other study co-senior investigators are Padmaja Subbarao at the University of Toronto and Michael Surrette at McMaster University in Hamilton.

October 1 to 7 is National Breastfeeding Week in Canada. Canadian Breastfeeding Week is observed during the 40th week of the year, typically in October. This timing reflects the first week of a baby’s life when breastfeeding often starts. The 10th month of the year, October, symbolically marks the beginning of this important journey for many families.

UM Knowledge Exchange is an important opportunity for UM researchers to share emerging knowledge with members of the public and the wider UM community. UM Knowledge Exchange is hosted by the Associate Vice-President Research, with support from the UM Learning for Life Network.

Each year more and more children in Manitoba present with the life-disrupting disease type 2 diabetes. Why is this happening, which children are at highest risk how it impacts health and quality of life, and what can be done to best care for children living with disease? 

Moderator

Allison Dart MD, MSc FRCPC or Vern Dolinsky PhD, associate professor, pediatrics and child health, Max Rady College of Medicine

Panelists

Brandy Wicklow MD, MSc FRCPC Associate Professor, pediatrics and child health, Max Rady College of Medicine

Christine Doucette PhD, Associate Professor, Physiology and Pathophysiology, Max Rady College of Medicine

Meaghan Jones PhD, Assistant Professor Type 2 diabetes in children, Biochemistry and Medical Genetics, Max Rady College of Medicine

Samantha Bonneteau, Parent Advisor, Next Generation DREAM study

Diabetes in Children, May 8, 7pm-8:30pm (CDT) at Degrees Diner. UM Knowledge Exchange is a hybrid event with in-person and online options to attend.

Please register by May 3 to join the discussion.

Add Diabetes in Children to your calendar. Coffee and other refreshments will be provided, and the kitchen at Degrees Diner will be open for specialty coffee and full food service. Parking is available with registration.

Or join us for online viewing 7 pm CDT to watch the live stream. Participate during the live session by asking your questions via email to: Research [dot] Communications [at] UManitoba [dot] ca

The seven-part UM Knowledge Exchange panel-discussion series is ongoing until May 2024. More details can be found on the UM Knowledge Exchange webpage.

The 2024 Canada Gairdner Momentum Award is an initiative of The Gairdner Foundation, recognizing some of the world’s most significant biomedical and global health research and discoveries. Laureates are mid-career investigators recognized for exceptional scientific research contributions with continued potential for impact on human health.

Azad is a Canada Research Chair in Early Nutrition and the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease and is a Research Scientist at Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba. She is recognized for her innovative research in human breast milk and infant microbiome as Director of the Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre (MILC), the THRiVE Discovery Lab, and the International Milk Composition (IMiC) Consortium. Dr. Azad was recently featured on the Big Idea podcast.

“I am deeply honoured to receive this award to highlight the foundational impacts of breast milk in early childhood nutrition and the developmental origins of health and disease,” said Azad. “Although this award is presented to an individual, I would like to recognize the many colleagues, mentors and trainees I have the privilege of working alongside and thank them for their many contributions to this research.”

The Azad Research Team

Azad’s team of innovative researchers in breastfeeding, human breast milk and the microbiome are supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the US National Institutes of Health, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

By studying thousands of children in Canada and internationally, her team has shown that longer and more exclusive breastfeeding is associated with reduced risk of asthma and healthier body composition. Her research has engaged organizations such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Health Canada to foster support for evidence-based policy-making.

Azad’s interest in breastfeeding began during her post-doctoral studies at the University of Alberta while training with the CHILD Cohort Study, working on a research project studying the infant gut microbiome to answer questions about the development of allergies and asthma. “The microbiome was a pretty new thing at the time and we found that one of the key variables in the study turned out to be whether babies were fed by formula or breast milk,” said Azad.

“Having found that breastfeeding was so important, I started my own lab at UM to better understand the butterfly effect of early nutrition, where the first few months have a lifelong impact on health and the immune system. We are also exploring how breastmilk works as a complex system. Previously, researchers focused on the nutrients, hormones, or cells in breastmilk would all be working independently. My approach has been to build multi-disciplinary teams to better understand how all these components interact and function together.”

Through MILC, Azad’s team works to connect scientists with healthcare providers and community members to co-design research projects about breastfeeding and lactation. More recently the international IMiC Study extends these community partnerships and research network in Burkina Faso and Tanzania and Pakistan.

“By working with diverse populations to develop strong evidence that breastfeeding is fundamentally important to infant health, we can help promote policies and programs to support breastfeeding – such as paid maternity leaves or lactation rooms in workplaces,” said Azad. “We also want to support parents who have trouble with breastfeeding. We are proud to collaborate with the Winnipeg Breastfeeding Center, Shared Health Manitoba, and the new Milk Mentors peer support program to enhance lactation support programs in our province. In the coming years we hope to see these resources expanded to improve access to rural and Indigenous communities.”

“This award is a tremendous achievement for Dr. Azad and the entire University,” said Mario Pinto, Vice President (Research and International). “We are honoured that she has selected the UM as her home and continue to celebrate her career milestones together. This award is a testament to the impact of her research, which is helping to improve maternal and child health outcomes in Canada and around the world.”

She also added that it can help if a parent or guardian communicates with neighbours that their child has an allergy.

“Allergy-safe treats and non-food treats would be something that I think a lot of families who manage food allergy would be really open to,” said Protudjer.

Read here

Listen here

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.

The study builds off of the Translating Emergency Knowledge for Kids (TREKK) program, for which UM is the host institution. Through its website and app, TREKK provides parents and health-care providers from across the country with evidence-based information and resources on more than 50 topics related to children. 

“Receiving this funding is really exciting,” said Dr. Terry Klassen, professor of pediatrics and child health at the Max Rady College of Medicine, director of TREKK and principal investigator of the study. “The funding allows our team to put together evidence, identify the latest research and put it in a format that health-care providers can access and use. I’m delighted that we can help improve the health outcomes of children and families in this country.”

The study will look at 10 conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers will update resources for conditions like asthma, bronchiolitis and croup. The research team will also add new topics on conditions like pneumonia to the TREKK database.

“I think the pandemic has changed things and made certain conditions more common,” said Klassen, UM Canada Research Chair in clinical trials, CEO of the Children’s Hospital Research institute of Manitoba (CHRIM) and scientific director of the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation. “So with this changing dynamic, and what health-care providers are seeing in the emergency departments, it’s important they have the resources that best meets their needs.”

To reflect the needs of emergency departments, the research team will survey health-care professionals to see what additional topics should be added to TREKK’s resources. The researchers will also ask parents and youths about what information is important for emergency health-care providers to know.

The researchers will then test the usability of the resources they create and make changes as needed.

Dr. Veronica Lai

“These days we can Google basically anything, but that doesn’t assure the accuracy of the content and whether it’s evidence based,” said Dr. Veronica Lai, a UM postdoctoral fellow at CHRIM, and a co-investigator on the study. “At the end of the day, we hope that the resources we develop are going to be used by someone who needs the information, so we need to hear from them, and use their feedback so we can improve the resources.”

Klassen said they’ve found that some emergency department health-care providers experience a lot of anxiety when dealing with kids because they don’t treat them often and are used to seeing adult patients. He said it’s helpful and empowering for them to be able to quickly find evidence-based information on TREKK’s website or app.

“This is about improving the outcomes of children when they visit an emergency department,” Klassen said. “We want any child, anywhere, to have the best care possible. TREKK’s resources provide doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists with information to feel more confident when dealing with a child.”

Join us online at 7 p.m. for “Feeding Baby: What, when and how to introduce foods,” moderated by Mae Santos, Registered Dietitian and master’s student from the Protudjer Lab.

Use the online viewing link at 7 pm on Thursday, Mar. 3 to watch the live stream.

Until recently, guidelines prescribed what foods parents should avoid feeding their infants, with the aim, in part, to prevent food allergies. Findings from the Learning Early About Peanut study caused pediatric societies worldwide to leap from active avoidance to active introduction.

Although active introduction may reduce the risk of certain food allergies, uptake of this approach has been slow, partly due to confusion around the dramatic shift.

Join our expert panel as they discuss this new approach, how it may prevent food allergies and hear practical guidance for families with infants.

Panelists:

• Dr. Elana Lavine, MD, FRCPC, is a paediatric allergist and clinical immunologist practicing in Toronto, and a staff physician at Humber River Hospital. She is an assistant professor in the departments of paediatrics at the University of Toronto and at Queen’s University (adjunct). She is the current Paediatrics Section advisor for the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 
• Dr. Edmond S. Chan, Clinical Professor, University of British Columbia (UBC), Clinical Investigator (BCCH Research Institute) and Head (UBC Division of Allergy & Immunology, BCCH)
• Dr. Jennifer Protudjer, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics and Child Health, Max Rady College of Medicine, UM’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences; Endowed Research Chair in Allergy, Asthma and the Environment; Research Scientist, Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba 

Use the online viewing link at 7 pm on Thursday, Mar. 3 to watch the live stream.

Participate during the live session by asking your questions on the SLIDO platform at:

#CafeMarch https://app.sli.do/event/vmzfevjo

(No user registration needed.)

About UM Café Scientifique

The UM Café Scientifique series brings together experts with non-researchers (you, me, neighbours and friends) in a relaxed atmosphere (wherever you are joining us from virtually!), to learn about their research and the questions it raises. Cafés are scheduled throughout the academic year, on a weeknight, and encompass topics that reflect the breadth of research underway at the UM. They are hosted and organized by the Office of the Vice-President (Research and International).