The $2.1 million in funding was announced today by The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, supported through Genome Canada.

“Genomics has enormous potential to improve Canadians’ lives and to advance post-pandemic economic recovery,” said The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. “Investments, like the one we are making today in genomics research, help keep Canadians healthy and help keep our industries productive, sustainable and competitive globally.”

Distinguished Professor Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg.

The project lead is Max Rady College of Medicine Distinguished Professor Dr. Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg (pediatrics and child health; biochemistry and medical genetics) with Petr Kresta, Chief Operating Officer, Diagnostic Services, Shared Health and partners at Genome Prairie and Genome Alberta. Rockman-Greenberg is also a research scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba and an internationally known researcher who has identified the molecular source of some of Manitoba’s most devastating inherited diseases.

“I congratulate Dr. Rockman-Greenberg and the numerous clinician-scientists on this new research team that will join together in this “All for One” partnership,” said Dr. Digvir Jayas, vice-president (research and international) and Distinguished Professor at UM. “The teams’ work with Shared Health will lay the foundation for precision health in the Prairies and Canada.”

CPMN is the fifth regional All for One precision health partnership, making it pan-Canadian, spanning from coast-to-coast. The goal is to improve the health and wellness of Canadians with serious genetic conditions by enabling access to a timely and accurate genomic-based diagnosis. This enables patients to benefit while helping others through the sharing of their clinical and genomic data within a learning health system.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have this opportunity to develop a Canadian Prairie Metabolic Network,” said Rockman-Greenberg. “We believe that through this clinical network we will demonstrate that a “genomics first” diagnostic approach when considering a hereditary metabolic disorder will greatly enhance the timely care and outcomes for our patients in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.”

Throughout the Prairie provinces, there is a limited local capacity for next-generation sequencing causing delays which limit the benefits of early diagnosis, early treatment and improved outcomes. These delays result in adverse outcomes in patients. This project will combine clinical and laboratory approaches to ensure patients have timely access to new diagnostics, new therapies and clinical and specialty supports.

“Today’s announcement is vital to the ongoing innovation and implementation of clinical and diagnostic techniques that support timely access to care and support for patients,” said Petr Kresta, Chief Operating Officer, Diagnostic Services with Manitoba’s Provincial Health Authority, Shared Health. “We are so pleased to be embarking on this important work with our colleagues at the University of Manitoba and believe the learnings from this project will have a meaningful impact for patients throughout the Prairie provinces and across Canada.”

CPMN will provide access to a full range of multidisciplinary expertise, develop best practice approaches, and provide, as needed, clinical specialist coverage for generalist physicians and their patients. It will also ensure the timely and more cost-effective delivery of innovative and relevant genomic testing in the Prairies, including rapid, inexpensive mitochondrial DNA testing not available elsewhere; generate genomics data that will stay in Canada; and contribute to knowledge and expertise in Canada across multiple disciplines and specialties.

“Genome Prairie is pleased to support the Canadian Prairie Metabolic Network’s significant mandate that will deliver genomics-based precision health services to children in the Prairies with inherited metabolism issues,” said Mike Cey, President and CEO, Genome Prairie. “We are grateful to partner with the best minds in the prairie region such as Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg, at the University of Manitoba and her team, and in collaboration with Petr Kresta at Shared Health and his team. This network of health-care facilities will apply genomics-based tools to rapidly diagnose patients with rare genetic conditions, improving their care, outcomes and family wellness, which in turn, will lay an equitable foundation for precision health locally and nationally across Canada.”

Breastfeeding saves lives and prevents illness. It is environmentally friendly and profoundly important to children’s long-term development. After all, breast milk is the only food that has evolved specifically to feed humans.

Breastfeeding matters

Beyond supplying nutrition, breast milk provides personalized immune protection and shapes the developing microbiome. Scientists have discovered enzymes, hormones, antibodies and live cells in breast milk, and these bioactive components could hold the key to developing new therapies — not only for COVID-19, but also autoimmune diseases, diabetes and cancer.

Yet, remarkably, we still don’t fully understand the composition of breast milk, or the biological basis for its many health effects. In fact, more scientific papers have been published on headaches than breastfeeding, and more federal research dollars from Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada have been invested to study corn than breast milk.

The act of breastfeeding also supports mother-infant bonding and helps to prevent breast and ovarian cancer in mothers. Unfortunately, most mothers do not even meet their own breastfeeding goals, let alone achieve recommendations of exclusive breastfeeding for six months, followed by 18 months of breastfeeding along with other foods.

This is particularly concerning during this pandemic, when mothers infected with COVID-19 may be separated from their newborns (despite World Health Organization guidance to the contrary) and breastfeeding support is often unavailable because public health visits are being cancelled and lactation services have been suspended in many places.

Tensions abound

Every parent knows that infant feeding is a complex issue, often evoking strong emotions based on personal experience. Difficult or negative breastfeeding experiences can fuel a defensive “breastfeeding denialism” attitude.

Conversely, some breastfeeding advocates refuse to acknowledge that for some families, formula is necessary for medical, personal, societal or socioeconomic reasons. These extreme attitudes cause a tense and unproductive environment for researchers working to generate inclusive evidence-based guidance for infant feeding.

Industry partnerships also cause tension in this field because the infant feeding industry frequently violates the World Health Organization code for marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and transgressions have worsened during the pandemic. However, due to lack of funding for breastfeeding research, scientists are often faced with choosing between industry funding or no funding at all.

Unfortunately, these tensions often detract from the energy and resources that breastfeeding advocates, researchers, health professionals and policy-makers could be using to advance their shared goal of supporting maternal and child health.

What can be done

Of course, members of the diverse breastfeeding advocacy and research communities will not always agree — but we should aim to find common ground and work together. There are many stakeholders involved, each with a role to play:

Governments and non-profit funding organizations should acknowledge the importance of breastfeeding and breast milk and invest more resources into this field.

Researchers should build interdisciplinary teams to study breast milk as a biological system and think broadly about “breastfeeding challenges” in the context of complex social systems – including social inequities, parental leave policies, lactation difficulties and donor breast milk.

Companies, researchers and advocacy groups should co-develop a conflict of interest framework for research on breastfeeding and breast milk and reporting of results.

Messaging is key to achieving these goals. All groups need to communicate effectively with each other, and with the health-care, research and public sectors. This means providing or sharing clear resources to convey scientific evidence free of conflict of interest, targeted to each audience, such as fact sheets for policy-makers, engaging videos for the public and infographics for health-care providers.

Stakeholders also need to actively discredit unfounded claims and misinformation, such as unsubstantiated health claims made by infant nutrition companies, or rumours about the transmission of COVID-19 via breastfeeding, when there is no evidence of this occurring.

Looking forward

COVID-19 has highlighted both the importance and fragility of breastfeeding support systems. // Shutterstock

Progress in breastfeeding, breast milk and lactation research is being hampered by tensions among researchers, advocates and industry.

As breast milk scientists, breastfeeding researchers and lactation specialists, we are concerned about these tensions and their potential to impede or delay discoveries in our field. Last year, we held a workshop to discuss these concerns and develop solutions.

Our workshop paper was written before the pandemic, but its recent publication is timely. The pandemic has brought researchers together in ways that seemed impossible before.

Breast milk research that would normally take years has been completed in months with unprecedented efficiency. A global network of human milk banks was established in a matter of days to share information about safe operations during the pandemic. Milk scientists and breastfeeding researchers are meeting monthly with the WHO to speed up the transition from discovery to policy.

We hope these trends will continue beyond the pandemic and become the new standard for doing and sharing research.

COVID-19 has also emphasized both the importance and fragility of breastfeeding support systems, which have suffered considerably due to current restrictions. The pandemic has also highlighted the potential of breast milk to inform new avenues of biomedical research, such as milk antibodies as potential therapeutics.

We hope this added urgency will encourage researchers, advocates, funders and policy-makers to work together to accelerate progress in supporting breastfeeding and breast milk research.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence. It is authored by:

Meghan Azad (Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health; Canada Research Chair in the Developmental Origins of Chronic Disease, University of Manitoba)

Katie Hinde (Associate Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University)

Lars Bode (Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Research Excellence, University of California San Diego)

Luisa Zuccolo (Senior Research Fellow, Health Sciences, University of Bristol)

Merilee Brockway (Post-doctoral Fellow, Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba)

Nathan C. Nickel (Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences; Co-Director MILC; Associate Director, Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, University of Manitoba)

Rafael Perez-Escamilla (Professor of Public Health, Yale University)

C4T (Canadian Childhood Cannabinoid Clinical Trials) is an academic-led research team comprising parents, doctors, nurses and scientists. Their goal is to “move cannabinoid use from the era of anecdote to evidence to treat health concerns in children.” (https://www.c4trials.org/)

Dr. Lauren Kelly

The scientific director of C4T, and nominated principal applicant, Dr. Lauren Kelly, is a pharmacologist, assistant professor in the department of pediatrics & child health and community health sciences in the Max Rady College of Medicine, clinical trialist at the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation, and research scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba.

Kelly says that the use of cannabis by pediatric cancer patients to treat symptoms like pain, nausea and anxiety is increasing. She points to a 2017 survey by the Canadian Pediatric Surveillance Program of 1500 pediatricians, which found that 50% of pediatricians manage at least one child using cannabis for medical purposes and 22% manage five or more.

Since there are currently no pharmaceutical grade cannabis products approved for use in children, cannabis is being obtained from various sources including black market websites.

“The need for high-quality evidence is paramount to ensure the safe use of cannabis products by children,” says Kelly. “It is time to focus on obtaining rigorous evidence and develop the clinical trials needed to inform safe selection and dosing of cannabis products in children where the risks and benefits are appropriately balanced.”

The team will gather information through several different means. They will survey physicians, nurses, pharmacists, patients and parents to gather information on which cannabis products are currently being used for symptom management to give them a better idea of which products have the best safety profile.

A parent-led group will conduct qualitative interviews that were designed by the researchers with families of children with cancer to help better understand access to medical cannabis, physician support and reasons for cannabis use.

A registry across five provinces will be established to collect clinical information on use of cannabis from pediatricians who manage children with cancer and other conditions to evaluate the safety, pharmacodynamics (the effect of drugs on the body) and pharmacokinetics (how the body processes the drug) of cannabis use in children.

Additionally, the team will conduct an open-label dose finding study on a cannabis health product for symptom management in children with cancer, collecting samples from patients using cannabis at several hospitals across Canada.

All of this information will be compiled into a resource hub for the public and families, containing up-to-date evidence on cannabis use for medical purposes in children, either for during active cancer treatment or for symptom management post-treatment. The hub will also contain communications tips for parents and health-care professionals on how to approach the subject with each other.

Kelly says that parents are looking for reliable information and she hopes that this study will help fill in some of those gaps.

“It’s a lot about learning from the parents and where they’re getting information. Many patients have had a less than ideal experience trying to use medical cannabis in hospitals. They want to know who they can trust and how we can build this trust,” she says.

The end goal will be to develop an active clinical trial and facilitate drug development for a regulated pharmaceutical grade cannabis product approved for use in children with cancer, for which there are currently none available.

For more information on the project please visit: https://www.c4trials.org/

A Winnipeg doctor whose research focuses on figuring out what causes rare genetic disorders within certain populations in Manitoba is one of three people in the province to be among the newest recipients of the Order of Canada.

Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg said she was sitting at her desk, surrounded by students and colleagues at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute, when she got the call telling her the news about two weeks ago…

Two other Manitobans were also given the honour: Louis-Frédéric Paquin, for his contributions to francophone culture through the creation of Franco-Manitoban television and documentaries, and Janice Sanderson, for her leadership within Manitoba’s public service by promoting improved quality of life and health for children.

Rockman-Greenberg, who is a clinician scientist at the research institute and a distinguished professor at the University of Manitoba, said she only planned to stay in Winnipeg temporarily when she came here after finishing school in Montreal over four decades ago.

“I thought I would stay six months, but I have been here for 41 years,” she said. “It’s been a perfect fit.”

Rockman-Greenberg’s research has involved screening newborns for genetic disorders to detect them before symptoms appear. It also places an emphasis on working with the people involved to make sure the patient stays at the centre of any healthcare recommendations.

Read more on the CBC story here.

Birk says she was attracted to pediatrics in part because of the acute care aspect and because of the “potential for recovery” in the patient population (meaning that while there is a component of the profession involving very sick patients, many patients do recover).

“Pediatricians are kids at heart,” Birk says, “I think pediatrics in and of itself keeps me young.”

While attending medical school at the University of Manitoba, Birk took a nephrology course taught by her now colleague Dr. Keevin Bernstein and ended up choosing pediatric nephrology as a specialty.

“I always liked the logic and thought processes that went into nephrology,” she says, “I like the problem solving aspect of it. I liked the practice of it in my pediatrics residency. It was a natural fit.”

Birk credits mentors Dr. David Rush, a world-renowned transplant nephrologist, Dr. Peter Nickerson, who helped establish the national organ transplant registry and Dr. Paul Grimm, a pediatric kidney transplant researcher and clinician, for leading her down her chosen career path.

Once graduating with her MD in 1990, and completing her pediatric residency at the U of M in 1993, she went on to a pediatric nephrology fellowship at the University of Minnesota, world-renowned for pediatric kidney transplantation. Upon returning to Winnipeg in 1997, under the mentorship of Rush, Birk established a protocol biopsy program for kidney transplantation, which aligned with Rush’s earlier work in adult kidney transplantation. The program changed the standards of post-transplant care for pediatric renal transplant recipients nationally and internationally.

In 2013, Birk was named section head of pediatric hospital medicine in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Manitoba and tasked with developing a newly formed academic section. She created, with the help of colleagues, a thriving section involving in-patient care for hospitalized children.

She was appointed site medical director for the department in 2017 during a time of multiple stresses on the health-care system, due in large part to the increasingly complex medical and social case mix of hospitalized children. She was tasked with optimizing bed flow within the Children’s Hospital, which now has some of the best statistics in Canada.

Birk realized that teamwork and shared responsibility between physicians, nurses and allied health was crucial to improve the patient experience and move new initiatives forward. The Children’s Hospital is now routinely cited site-wide as a model of inter-professional collaboration.

“If I had any legacy as a site director, it’s that everyone now recognizes the importance of working collaboratively. That’s how you get results,” she says.

Moving forward, Birk will focus on four pillars during her tenure:

• Help acute and chronic care patients and their families better navigate the health system and develop complex care services to provide patients with supports when they return to their communities.
• Develop pediatrics as a centre of academic excellence for medical education through collaboration with undergraduate and postgraduate leaders.
• Embed diversity and reconciliation within the hospital to drive change and set expectations both academically and within the hospital culture, focusing on the promotion of Indigenous people, immigrants, LGBTQ, and women.
• Develop and promote research, seek funding partners to advance knowledge translation and create an innovation hub within the department.

Mentorship is also high on Birk’s list of priorities and she wants everyone working in the Children’s Hospital to achieve their highest potential.

“When people feel valued and empowered, they are more productive and happier in their work – ultimately that positively impacts patient care,” she says.

Birk is passionate about social change. She is adamant about embedding anti-discrimination policies and embracing diversity within the department, taking her lead from Dr. Brian Postl, dean, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, and fellow pediatrician.

“There is a long history of pediatricians driving positive change, because we live it every day,” she says.

As a pediatrician, Birk heard numerous first-hand accounts from Indigenous patients and students about discrimination they faced within the health-care system. Stories from Dr. Catherine Cook (vice-dean, Indigenous Health, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences) and testimonies from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have also left an impact on the new department head.

She estimates that at least 40% of her patients in her professional practice are Indigenous. In Manitoba, over 30% of the indigenous population is under the age of 14.

“We are in a pivotal time in our society. We cannot ignore the history of residential schools, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s inquiry and the Brian Sinclair inquest,” Birk says, “We need to acknowledge these events institutionally and improve processes for health care access for Indigenous children.”

Birk plans to promote Indigenous leads within her department, hoping it will lead to a succession of more Indigenous leaders down the line.

 “Academic institutions can set an example for the rest of society. As a leader, you need to be deliberate about enacting cultural change – you cannot rely on solely on an individual’s good will. My ultimate goal as a leader is to foster positive change and cultivate the next generation of leaders.”

“It is increasingly critical to have clinicians directly connected with patients in order to help craft the most appropriate research questions and studies and to ensure that knowledge translated from the research effectively becomes mobilized to the best care for the individual patient and family,” says Dr. Allan Becker [MD/69], the recipient of the 2018 Dr. John M. Bowman Memorial Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation Award.

“The clinician-scientist is critical in ensuring an effective cycle from health assessment to improved healthcare,” says Becker, a professor of pediatrics and child health in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences and scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba.

A recognized international leader in pediatric allergy and asthma research, care and education, Becker’s primary research interest is the origins of allergy and asthma in early life. He credits the influence of Dr. Jack Bowman, for whom the Rh award is named, in his approach to his own research and practice.

“Jack Bowman was the consummate clinician-scientist and I feel incredibly fortunate to have benefited from exposure to his approach to patient care and research,” says Becker. “I have had the pleasure and the luxury to work with exemplary clinicians, scientists and clinician-scientists. Those individuals were critical in helping me address the core question that has driven my research over the years: “What is it about our environment that has driven the epidemic of allergy and asthma over the past few decades?”

Becker was presented with the award at the annual Rh Awards Ceremony, Lecture and Reception on April 29, 2019. At the same event, awards were presented to recipients of the 2018 Terry G. Falconer Memorial Rh Institute Foundation Emerging Researcher Awards.

To learn more about this awards program visit http://umanitoba.ca/Rhawards/

The 2018 recipients are:

APPLIED SCIENCES

Qiuyan Yuan.

Qiuyan Yuan (civil engineering) focuses on the sustainable treatment of municipal solid waste through developing innovative resource recovery methods. She has produced valuable enzymes from food waste, water filtration media from crushed glass, biodegradable material from textile waste, and activated carbon from agricultural waste. Her research helps to divert waste from landfill and ease the burden on the environment, and promotes economic benefit for the waste treatment industry by generating revenue through the production of valuable products.

Emma McGeough.

Emma McGeough (animal science) focuses her research on areas related to forage-based livestock production including overwintering strategies for extending the grazing season for beef cattle in Canada. Her studies centres on ruminant nutrition and mitigation of greenhouse gases from livestock, specifically enteric methane, through manipulation of cattle diets. She is also involved in life-cycle assessment and carbon foot printing of beef and dairy production under Canadian conditions.

CREATIVE WORKS

Daniel McCafferty.

Daniel McCafferty (School of Art) is an interdisciplinary graphic designer, whose work uses print, video, publishing, collaboration, data, mapping and code, to explore relationships between communication and systems of power. He is currently researching the role of the press on the process of early colonization. Daniel is a Media Artist in Residence at Video Pool where he is exploring code-based generative video essays.

HEALTH SCIENCES

Meghan Azad.

Meghan Azad (pediatrics and child health; Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba) holds a Canada Research Chair in Developmental Origins of Chronic Disease. Her award-winning research program is focused on the role of infant nutrition and gut microbiota in the development of asthma, allergies and obesity.Her team is also examining perceptions of breastfeeding on social media, and developing methods to improve societal support for breastfeeding through school-based education programs.

INTERDISCIPLINARY

Changmin Jiang.

Changmin Jiang (supply chain management). His major research area is transportation and logistics, an interdisciplinary field between economics/management and industrial engineering. This research involves various issues and aspects in the transportation sectors, particularly the economic and policy analysis. His studies include competition and cooperation between the aviation and the rail sectors, airline strategic alliance, network-regional airlines relationships and airport pricing.

NATURAL SCIENCES

Chengbo Yang.

Chengbo Yang (animal science) currently conducts research in the area of gut health and nutrient utilization relevant to non-ruminants. His research interests include investigating: molecular and cellular mechanisms of gut chemosensing in gut growth and health, roles of feed ingredients and bioactive compounds on modulation of molecular interactions between pathogens and host, identification of antibiotic alternatives, and biotechnological and nutritional strategies to improve nutrient utilization efficiency for sustainable animal production.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Johnson Li.

Johnson Li (psychology) is a quantitative researcher who focuses on proposing and developing applied statistical models in social sciences research. He is developing new measurement and statistical models for use by researchers, teachers, and psychologists, which will have implications for theory and practice in psychology and education. His statistical interests include, but are not limited to, educational measurement techniques, structural equation modelling, effect size estimations, probability-based statistics, and reliability and validity assessments.

Doctors treating children with head injuries should add one more item to their checklist when considering whether to order a CT (computed tomography) scan or surgical intervention, a new study suggests.

A team of researchers from across Canada — including the head of the University of Manitoba’s pediatrics department — announced an improved method to determine if children with minor head injuries need such measures in a report published on Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The new rule adds to the CATCH assessment method, which lists seven things pediatricians should look for: how alert a patient is, open fractures, persistent headaches, irritability during an exam; basal skull fractures, a hematoma (and dangerous bruising), and how dangerous the mechanism of injury was.

“The first CATCH was pretty good, but we needed to add one more area to make sure we really caught all the kids that needed to be scanned with the CT who presented with a minor injury,” said Dr. Terry Klassen, medical director at the U of M’s pediatrics department and scientific director for the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba.

Read the full story here.

Her research on treatment of hypophosphatasia (HPP, an often-fatal bone disease that results from a missing enzyme) has attracted international attention. She is currently the Canadian leader in this field, conducting clinical trials of a novel enzyme replacement therapy, and is also active and the lead for Canada in the International HPP registry.

“Dr. Rockman-Greenberg is an outstanding and highly respected scholar, best known for advancing and translating scientific discovery into new treatments and novel approaches for genetic neuromuscular and skeletal disorders,” says Dr. Digvir Jayas, vice-president (research and international) and Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba. “Her contributions to medical care of patients with rare genetic conditions have been exceptional, and metabolic clinicians from around the word often turn to her for her expert opinion.”

The achievements of Dr. Rockman-Greenberg include a series of targeted newborn screening programs for Manitoba populations at risk for rare conditions such as CPT- 1 deficiency that is over-represented in Hutterite communities. This condition can be treated by proper dietary management and must be diagnosed early to allow for treatment and to prevent brain damage. Another example is glutaric aciduria type 1 newborn screening for the Oji-Cree. Such programs are unique in the field of newborn screening because the tests are DNA based and they have been implemented with input and direct participation, support and approval from the communities involved.

These successes have had a positive effect on the health of the populations in which such rare conditions are relatively common and have served as models for similar targeted screening programs.

The University of Manitoba has a long and proud history with the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and is honoured that nine of our alumni have been recognized with this prestigious distinction. Inducted alongside Dr. Rockman-Greenberg is alum Dr. Philip Berger [MD/74]. Our other laureates include: Bruce Chown [MD/22], John Dirks [MD/57], Henry Friesen[MD/58], James Hogg [MD/62], Charles H. Hollenberg [MD/55], Arnold Naimark [MD/57], Allan Ronald [MD/61], and Estelle Simons [BSc/65; MD/69].

About Dr. Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg

Dr. Rockman-Greenberg held the positions of Head of the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba and Medical Director, Child Health Program, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, from April 2004 to August 2014. From 1979 to the present, she has been a clinical and metabolic geneticist in the Program of Genetics and Metabolism, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. She served as Director of the Metabolic Service in the Program of Genetics and Metabolism from 1992 to 2015.

She currently is a clinician scientist in the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba and has developed the Metabolic Disorders Clinical Trials Research team. She rose to the rank of Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Child Health and Biochemistry and Medical Genetics, University of Manitoba in 1994. In the spring of 2015 she was bestowed the title Distinguished Professor by the University of Manitoba.

Childhood obesity rates in Canada have doubled since 1970, with nearly 1 in 3 children now classified as overweight or obese. Over the same period, the consumption of artificial sweeteners has steadily increased among children and adults, including pregnant women.

Some research suggests that regular consumption of artificial sweeteners may paradoxically increase the risk of obesity and metabolic disease, although little is known about the effect of exposure in utero. A new study aims to find out.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health awarded Azad and her team, which includes researchers from the University of Calgary, $75,000 to look into the issue.

Meghan Azad

“Recently in the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study, we found that maternal consumption of artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy is associated with higher infant body mass index,” says Azad, an assistant professor in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the U of M and a research scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba.

“However, we do not know the biological reason for this association. With the help of this new funding we will analyze existing fecal and urine samples from infants in the CHILD cohort to examine their gut microbiome and metabolism. This research will help us understand how artificial sweetener consumption during pregnancy influences infant weight gain,” says Azad.

The results of the study will help improve nutrition recommendations for pregnant women and could ultimately contribute to new strategies for childhood obesity prevention.

“I am extremely proud of Dr. Azad and her team’s intuitive and forward-thinking research,” says Dr. Digvir Jayas, Vice-President (Research and International) and Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba. “The collaborative nature of this project will hopefully lead to better health outcomes for children in Manitoba.”

Her impact on medical research and the health of children continues to have a global impact.

Rockman-Greenberg helped establish the first clinical lab specializing in the use of DNA testing to diagnose genetic disorders. Her approach to research, by involving her subjects in the clinical discovery process, is considered transformational and has inspired many to follow suit.

She is credited with identifying the molecular cause of some of Manitoba’s most devastating inherited diseases. One debilitating and often fatal disorder, hypophosphatasia, is rare throughout the world yet common in Manitoba and select Canadian communities. Rockman-Greenberg and her team pioneered a new way to treat this disease with an investigational drug, successfully treating it in 2008. Promising clinical trials are continuing under her visionary leadership.

The Rx&D Health Research Foundation (HRF) recognized Rockman-Greenberg for her accomplishments with the Medal of Honour. She is the first female recipient of this award since its inception in 1945.

The award recognizes outstanding individuals whose research and/or contribution to public policies in Canada have achieved international recognition.

“The University of Manitoba congratulates Dr. Rockman-Greenberg on this much deserved recognition of her excellence as a pediatrician and geneticist,” said Digvir Jayas, vice-president (research and international) and Distinguished Professor at the U of M. “She has improved the care of children and families around the globe and advanced our understanding of some of the world’s most challenging rare genetic disorders.”

Rockman-Greenberg earned her medical degree from McGill University in 1974, and then completed a fellowship in biochemical and clinical genetics at Montreal Children’s Hospital and McGill University. In 1979, she joined the department of pediatrics and child health at the U of M where she is now a professor in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

From 2004 to 2014, she served as both the head of the department pediatrics and child health, and as medical director of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s child health program. In addition, she holds an academic appointment as professor within the department of biochemistry and medical genetics. She is currently a clinician scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, a research partner of the U of M.

“I am honoured and humbled by this award from the HRF,” said Rockman-Greenberg. “To me this award represents much more than the acknowledgement of my lifelong motivation to help understand and treat genetic disorders. It represents the momentum-building in all sectors of society, to recognize and meet the needs of individuals and their families affected with rare and ultrarare genetic disorders, whether it be through support of patient-oriented research, legislation and policy development, innovation and partnerships with industry, or through patient advocacy.”

She added, “We can only become a better society by getting to know at all levels the challenges of rare genetic disorders and the amazing resiliency of these individuals and their families, and then get on with the job of fixing the problems. We have unique opportunities now to apply evolving and new technologies to such human disorders.”

She has been recognized with many awards including: being named a Distinguished Professor at the U of M (2015), elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2014), recipient of the Dr. John M. Bowman Memorial Winnipeg Rh Institute Foundation Award (2013), and one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women (2012) by the Women’s Executive Network (WXN).

With more than 5,487 citations of 166 published works in some of the field’s most prestigious journals, such as Nature, Nature Genetics, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine, Rockman-Greenberg is one of the most prolific academic clinicians in the Max Rady College of Medicine.