“Art is how some projects need to be realized,” says the assistant professor of occupational therapy. “Creative methods are a versatile way for people to share stories.”

Burghardt, who holds a PhD in critical disability studies from York University, became a faculty member of the College of Rehabilitation Sciences in 2023.

One of her current projects focuses on objects that may hold traumatic memories for formerly institutionalized people with intellectual disabilities.

The objects are artifacts from the Manitoba Developmental Centre (MDC), a facility in Portage la Prairie that closed in 2024, after the Manitoba government issued a public apology to former residents who had been mistreated there.

Through a class action lawsuit filed by former residents, Burghardt was able to retrieve artifacts that were considered to have historical or social value.

Keys that symbolized the control the MDC
staff had over residents.

Over the last year, she’s been working with a group of MDC survivors to decide what to do with the items, such as newspaper clippings, photos, medical equipment, a child’s crib and a leather strap that was used to restrain a person in their bed.

The survivors have responded to the objects through artistic methods such as photography, collage, movement and improvisation.

“One participant picked up this old black phone from the MDC and ‘called’ the institution, improvising with the phone, literally talking back to the institution. And then others followed. It was so powerful.”

Another object that evoked a strong response was a set of skeleton keys that staff carried with them. Burghardt says a local metalworker is collaborating with the group to create a sculpture of a bird, using the keys to represent freedom.

“The keys symbolized the control the staff had. But today they also represent freedom, because the survivors have transitioned to community living and now have keys to their own homes.”

Working with artists Natalie Baird [B.Env.Sc.(Hons.)/14, M.ENV./20] and Toby Gillies [BFA/09], Burghardt and the survivors hope the objects they are “transforming” can one day be shared in a human rights-themed exhibit.

A phone from MDC that a participant used to ‘call’ the facility.

“The participants have been very clear in saying, ‘Our rights were violated,’” the professor says.

Burghardt grew up near Hamilton, Ont., and earned her degree in occupational therapy (OT) at the University of Toronto in 1987.

She started out working with children with disabilities, first in northern Ontario and then in Zimbabwe.

“What appealed to me about OT was it had a real creative element to it. You’re problem-solving to support people in living a meaningful life.”

Burghardt has published research in journals such as the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. Her doctoral research, which examined the experiences of institutional survivors and their families in Ontario, led her to author a 2018 book, Broken: Institutions, Families, and the Construction of Intellectual Disability.

She also has a role at the St. Amant Research Centre, where she is currently involved in a project with children’s caregivers in a respite program.

“I hope that these projects will support people with intellectual disabilities to share some of their experiences,” Burghardt says.

“And I hope that my work helps to transform traditional attitudes about people with intellectual disabilities.”

The associate professor in the College of Pharmacy is driven to understand what goes wrong inside the islets – small “islands” of hormone-secreting cells in the pancreas – that leads to diabetes.

In the islets, how does a toxic protein buildup called amyloid kill beta cells that produce the essential hormone insulin? And can amyloid formation be slowed or prevented?

Publishing in journals such as Diabetes, Diabetologia, Endocrinology and Molecular Endocrinology, Marzban has relentlessly investigated the molecular mechanisms of the disease.

“We are one of the few labs in the world studying amyloid formation in diabetes,” she says.

Through more than a decade of intensive study (2008 to 2019), Marzban’s lab was the world’s first to identify the process by which amyloid destroys insulin-producing beta cells in human pancreatic islets.

Those findings have now enabled her team to develop a blood test that detects amyloid formation in the pancreas.

“It’s the first diagnostic tool of its kind that can detect amyloid at a very early stage, before it damages cells,” she says.

Amyloid starts forming years before diabetes symptoms appear, Marzban says. By the time symptoms show up, it’s often too late to prevent significant damage to beta cells.

“Currently, there is no treatment to remove amyloid once it forms. But in our lab experiments with cultured human islets, we have identified several drugs that show promise for limiting amyloid formation.”

For individuals at risk of Type 2 diabetes, Marzban says, early detection and treatment to reduce amyloid formation could help protect insulin-producing cells, potentially delaying the onset and progression of the disease.

For people with Type 1 diabetes who have received transplanted islets from deceased donors, reducing amyloid formation could improve the long-term survival of the transplanted islets, decreasing the need for insulin injections.

Marzban earned her PhD in pharmacology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2001. She later pursued postdoctoral work at UBC, the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute and the University of Geneva in Switzerland. After returning to UBC, she joined UM in 2019. She is also a researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba.

“I spend a lot of time with my trainees and students,” she says. “One of the most important parts of my job is preparing the next generation for their future careers as successful scientists.”

Marzban has long studied diabetes in lab animals. In order to investigate the disease’s effects in humans and compare diabetic with non-diabetic individuals, she receives post-mortem pancreatic tissue, for which she is immensely grateful.

“A loved one has just passed away, and the family needs to make the difficult decision of donating their tissue. It’s their sacrifice that has led to all these discoveries.”

Marzban and her team are now preparing for clinical trials and a patent for the amyloid blood test. “We’re confident the test works well,” she says. “Now it’s about bringing it to market and scaling up production.

“Once our strategy is out there, others will build on it, opening the door to new therapeutic strategies.”

For him, the two roles complement each other.

“To be an effective researcher, it helps if you do clinical work. I don’t think you can guide research the same way if you don’t understand what’s on the ground,” says Bullard, a professor of pediatrics and child health who is cross-appointed in medical microbiology and infectious diseases.

Bullard, a UM faculty member since 2010, is a pediatric infectious disease specialist and medical microbiologist. What motivates him, he says, is answering research questions that arise through his work with patients at the Children’s Hospital.

Very early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bullard wanted to know how long people stayed infectious with the virus. At the time, he was associate medical director of Manitoba’s Cadham Provincial Laboratory. He assembled a research team and discovered that people with COVID were contagious for seven or eight days.

Bullard’s team was one of the first in the world to report this finding. His results were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases and used to inform self-isolation guidelines by the Public Health Agency of Canada, the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and public health agencies in the United Kingdom.

Bullard also published research in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showing that children were less infectious than adults. “Our lab findings correlated well with what we were observing clinically,” the scientist says.

Congenital syphilis, which occurs when syphilis passes to a baby during pregnancy, is another area of expertise for Bullard. He leads a national surveillance study that has confirmed a known high rate of the disease in Manitoba. Provinces such as British Columbia and Ontario are now seeing increasing rates, he says.

“I can help those provinces by suggesting actions they can take to get on top of the disease while the case numbers are still small.”

Bullard, who is also affiliated with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, is currently working on a project about vaccine-preventable diseases and hopes to join a study focused on measles.

“Seeing kids suffering in hospital with diseases that are preventable through vaccines, including measles, really motivates me to understand these infections –  and just as importantly, the thought process for why caregivers would opt not to provide vaccines.”

Bullard was born in Nassau, Bahamas and moved to Winnipeg with his family at age three. His mother, who is from Winnipeg, and his father, from the Bahamas, met while attending UM.

Bullard, who held his leadership role at the Cadham lab for 12 years and also served as director general of medical and scientific affairs at the National Microbiology Laboratory, says he has a long list of UM professors who guided and influenced him.

One of those mentors was Dr. Joanne Embree, a professor of pediatrics and child health who told Bullard that he didn’t have to enter internal medicine to pursue a sub-specialty in infectious diseases, but could do it through pediatrics. That changed the course of his career.

As a pediatrician, Bullard gets to see firsthand the impact his research has on children.

“I know that what I’m doing benefits them. That’s the main part of what drives my research.”

For the full story, please visit Winnipeg Free Press.

Training people with lived experience of these illnesses will help the research team to formulate questions about patients’ needs, said study leader Dr. Yoav Keynan, a professor of internal medicine and medical microbiology and infectious diseases at the Max Rady College of Medicine in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

It will also give people from marginalized communities a voice in designing clinical trials that test the effectiveness of different approaches to care.

For example, Keynan said, a trial could look at improving engagement and retention in care by providing sexually transmitted infection care together with opioid agonist therapy, used to treat opioid addiction.

People with lived experience could include those with HIV, experiencing homelessness or struggling with injection drug use, Keynan said.

“This is a first-of-its-kind project in Canada, in that we are combining people with lived experience and researchers to be part of clinical trials training and co-creation,” he said.

“This project is so important right now because Manitoba has the highest rate of new HIV diagnoses in Canada. And HIV and STBBI rates in the Prairie provinces have been the highest in the country for more than a decade and show no signs of slowing down.”

The project recently received a four-year grant of $800,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Pan-Canadian Network for HIV/AIDS STBBI Clinical Trials Research.

Keynan said the project is building on and leveraging the success of Increasing Capacity for Maternal and Pediatric Clinical Trials (IMPaCT), a clinical trials training program funded by the CIHR.

“We are excited to partner with IMPaCT and get this project rolling,” he said. “There will be opportunities for people who are community-based researchers, front-line workers and people with lived experience to work together to define what the most important priorities are for them, and it’s bringing more people to the table.”

The funding will help train more than 12 people from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The one-year immersive training program will include how to develop responsive and respectful clinical research.

The trainees will form the foundation of what is being called the Strengthened Prairies Integrated Knowledge Exchange (SPIKE).

Keynan said that people with lived experience will help researchers and care providers better understand the relationship between HIV and STIBBI transmission rates and systemic factors, such as colonialism, mental health and substance dependency.

“We believe that this type of participatory research is needed to make sure that the questions asked, and the answers we receive, are meeting the needs of the community,” Keynan said.

“It grounds the research in the needs of the people that it’s supposed to serve, and it makes sure that the clinical research is relevant to those who need it most.”

When researchers analyzed the prevalence (number of existing cases) and incidence (new cases) of chronic illnesses – including arthritis, heart disease, congestive heart failure and dementia – diabetes was the only one to see a significant increase.

“Over the 20-year period from 2004 to 2023, Manitobans’ health improved overall,” said study leader Lindsey Dahl, an epidemiologist at MCHP.

“But the number of Manitobans living with diabetes and the number who are diagnosed each year climbed to an alarming degree. We’re not seeing progress with the diabetes epidemic the way we are with other conditions.”

In the decade from 2013 to 2023, there was a 46 per cent increase in the number of Manitobans living with diabetes. “People are being diagnosed at a younger age and living longer with diabetes,” Dahl noted.

Comparing the three-year period 2020 to 2023 with the period 2015 to 2018, the number of new cases of diabetes rose by 21 per cent. “That represents more than 6,000 additional Manitobans newly diagnosed, compared to the previous period,” Dahl said.

The study, The 2024 Regional Health Authorities (RHA) Indicators Atlas, marks the sixth time that MCHP, part of UM’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, has taken a broad look at Manitobans’ health status and health-care use, at intervals of about five years.

The researchers studied de-identified (anonymous) health data stored in the Manitoba Population Research Data Repository at MCHP. They analyzed more than 110 health indicators, from doctor and nurse practitioner visits to hospitalizations, procedures such as hip replacements and cataract surgeries, and tests such as CT scans and MRIs.

The nearly 400-page study report includes a 20-year trend analysis for almost all the indicators.

“Keep in mind that while the rates of many diseases dropped, the actual number of Manitobans living with these conditions continues to rise because of population growth, and because the proportion of the population that is elderly is growing,” Dahl said.

While the atlas doesn’t reveal the reasons for trends, it’s likely that the decline in most chronic diseases reflects better prevention, earlier diagnosis and improved treatment, the scientist said.

“We assume diabetes is the exception because of risk factors that include unhealthy diet, obesity and physical inactivity, as well as socioeconomic factors such as food insecurity that put residents of lower-income communities at greater risk.”

The study used census data to determine income levels by area, confirming the relationship between lower income and poorer health.

Other 20-year trends identified in the study include:

• The rate of hospital use decreased. The causes of hospitalization remained stable.
• The rates of cardiac catheterizations, percutaneous coronary interventions (coronary angioplasties with stenting), hip replacements, CT scans and MRIs increased, while the rate of coronary artery bypass surgery decreased significantly.
• Looking at primary care, the report highlights three negative trends: the percentage of people with asthma receiving appropriate care dropped in recent years; the percentage of people with diabetes undergoing eye examinations also decreased; and the percentage of heart-attack patients receiving appropriate beta-blocker medications decreased.
• On a positive note, prescribing of benzodiazepines for older adults (not recommended because these sedating drugs carry risks for that age group) decreased significantly.
• The number of different prescription drugs dispensed per user increased significantly. Residents of lower-income areas received more types of drugs.
• The percentage of Manitobans dispensed an opioid decreased. Lower-income areas had a higher percentage of people dispensed an opioid.

“A key conclusion is that reducing health gaps related to income and the social determinants of health – such as nutritious food and stable housing – should remain a priority in Manitoba,” Dahl said.  

Manitoba’s five regional health authorities will use the findings in the atlas to help them assess the health of their communities and create strategic and operational plans.

The full study is available online.

The assistant professor of community health sciences has traced the transmission of infections such as COVID-19 and mpox in specific populations.

But his greatest interest is in sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBIs), such as HIV and gonorrhea. As a social epidemiologist, Shaw aims to understand how social structures influence people’s health in ways that are not equitable.

“STBBIs are infections of inequity,” he says. “They are far more prevalent in groups that are marginalized by factors such as poverty and racism. Examining these inequities and partnering with those most affected can illuminate the public health policies that we need to ensure no one is left behind.”

In a study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, Shaw found that female sex workers in Kenya had widely varying rates of HIV infection, depending on which area of Nairobi they worked in.

“With this kind of knowledge, we can target the specific places with higher prevalence to make the most impact,” says Shaw, who joined the UM faculty in 2021 and holds a Canada Research Chair in program science and global public health.

“Program science” is an approach that embeds research into public health programs so findings can quickly be translated into better care. “This is why we do research, so it doesn’t just sit on a dusty shelf,” he says.

Shaw was five years old when he and his family fled Laos for Canada as refugees. He grew up in Winnipeg and is a three-time UM alum.

As a member of UM’s Institute for Global Public Health, he has collaborated on research in countries such as Colombia, India, Pakistan and Nigeria.

In Manitoba, he has formed relationships and conducted research with non-profits such as Nine Circles Community Health Centre, Sunshine House and Ka Ni Kanichihk.

In a study in the International Journal of STD & AIDS, he compared data from two Winnipeg gonorrhea outbreaks, in 2012 and 2016.

The first outbreak was in areas where gonorrhea was historically recorded. The second took place in those hotspots, but also spread to different areas of the city.

“It was a sign of things to come. We’re now seeing exploding HIV and syphilis rates.”

Shaw is now working with Indigenous partners on a study that focuses on decolonizing gonorrhea epidemiology. Indigenous people in Manitoba have gonorrhea rates eight to 10 times higher than the general population, he says.

“This study has Indigenous community members asking the questions and interpreting the results,” says the professor, who worked for 10 years as an epidemiologist with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

Shaw says one of the best aspects of his job is drawing on multiple fields for his research.

“My work involves understanding history, politics, policy and sociology, which shape the health of individuals.

“As a refugee from war-torn Southeast Asia, I’ve witnessed how forces out of our control can determine our well-being. Through my research, I hope to extend the lifeline that was given to my family and find ways to achieve a more just society through public health policy and programs.”

Each person’s experience with MS is different, due in large part to factors like their gender, age, ethnicity and if they live in a city or not. Together, these factors contribute to a person’s diversity, yet researchers are unsure which of these put people at the greatest health disadvantage.

With almost $2 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the interdisciplinary team at Dalhousie University, the University of Manitoba, Queen’s University and the University of Waterloo, will examine that relationship to improve the health of people with MS who have historically not been part of past studies.

The team will develop ways to test how biological factors, like genetics, age and sex, contribute to health outcomes in people with MS. That will involve recruiting 500 diverse people with MS to look at how a person’s biology, lifetime experiences and environment affect their health. And, the research will test ways to best support people with MS who experience health disadvantages because of their experiences and environments.

The researchers, co-led by Dr. Kaarina Kowalec, associate professor in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences‘ College of Pharmacy, University of Manitoba, will work closely with people living with MS in Manitoba as well as health-care providers, advocacy groups and health policy decision-makers. Other co-principal investigators include Dr. Ruth Ann Marrie, professor at Dalhousie University, and a long-time UM MS researcher.

“We are taking an inclusive approach to ensure our research findings are meaningful, equitable and actionable,” said Kowalec. “Understanding diverse life stories and biological differences can help advance effective care and support for everyone living with MS.”

If interested in participating, please visit the study site or contact: msepidemiology@nshealth.ca

Now imagine that a blood test could, by detecting certain genetic variants, predict whether your child will experience this damage from the drug.

In a recent breakthrough published in the journal Human Genomics, Dr. Britt Drögemöller, assistant professor of biochemistry and medical genetics and Canada Research Chair in pharmacogenomics and precision medicine, has taken the first steps toward developing that test.

Her lab team is the first in the world to harness two kinds of unique large-scale data to develop a polygenic risk score for cisplatin-induced hearing loss.

“We designed a predictive model based on human genetic variants associated with hearing loss,” she says. “We also generated the first data measuring how treatment with cisplatin changes the activity of genes in tens of thousands of specific cells in the inner ears of mice.”  

Currently, many cancer patients have to take cisplatin because it’s highly effective, the geneticist says. But a hearing-protectant drug can be added for some patients.

“The polygenic score will be an additional piece of the puzzle that can be used to guide treatment decisions.”

Drögemöller was born and raised in South Africa. After earning her PhD at Stellenbosch University, she came to Canada in 2014 for a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia.

In 2020, she and her husband, fellow South African geneticist Dr. Galen Wright, were both hired as UM Canada Research Chairs. Drögemöller is also a researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba and the CancerCare Manitoba Research Institute.

She arrived at UM with a broad aim to identify genetic variants that contribute to adverse drug reactions. But she has now honed in on the genetics of hearing loss – both drug-induced and age-related.

One of her recent findings is that losing your hearing from exposure to loud noise involves very different genetic pathways from losing it because of age-related deterioration of inner-ear cells. And it’s the latter that overlaps with genes that are known to be involved in dementia. 

“Is there a common genetic pathway that’s dysregulated in both hearing loss and dementia? We’re working on that now.”

Drögemöller’s lab is analyzing genomic, hearing and dementia data from about 27,000 participants in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. She focuses her work on older adults and children, she says, because they have traditionally been excluded from genetic research.

The scientist and her husband – whose genetic expertise is in neurological disorders – recently obtained funding with pharmacy prof Dr. Kaarina Kowalec for a suite of cutting-edge lab equipment that generates spatial transcriptomics data.

“It’s the first of its kind in Manitoba,” Drögemöller says. “It not only allows you to look at the expression of genes in each cell of a tissue – such as inner-ear tissue – but it also tells you exactly where in the tissue that cell is located.

“If there’s something wrong in the cell, how does that affect the cell next to it? It gives you a better idea of how cells are communicating with each other. So this is super exciting.”

Robert Schroth [DMD/96, M.Sc./03, PhD/10], professor of preventive dental science at the Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry, has dedicated more than 15 years to understanding the oral health of children under the age of six.

“I recognize the importance of setting kids on the right path,” says Schroth, who is also a researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba.

The dentist-scientist has become an international authority on early childhood caries (tooth decay), which in its severe form aggressively damages primary teeth and affects many aspects of kids’ health and well-being.

In a 2016 study, Schroth found that Indigenous children in Canada were more than seven times more likely to undergo dental surgery in hospital for this severe form of caries than other children.

The question of why kids from disadvantaged backgrounds have a high rate of tooth decay has propelled him into more than a dozen research studies.

“We have known for years that early childhood caries is influenced by the oral microbiome,” says the lifelong Winnipegger, who joined UM as a full-time faculty member in 2010.

“But decay is also influenced by genetic variants, and by environmental factors like diet, oral hygiene and access to dental care. The more we can unravel the combined risk factors, the better we can target preventive approaches, such as painting silver diamine fluoride on kids’ teeth. We have shown in clinical trials that it is effective in arresting decay.”

Last year, Schroth was awarded a six-year Applied Public Health Chair by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). In this role, he is focused on research to improve children’s access to oral health care.

He’s currently evaluating the rollout of a caries assessment guide that he developed to help non-oral health professionals – such as doctors and nurses – identify children at risk for tooth decay.

Schroth is also studying the impact of the Canadian Dental Care Plan. He says the plan addresses some of the financial issues related to accessing care, but doesn’t address the lack of dental offices in certain underserved areas of Canada, or barriers like food availability, housing and access to running water.

As a CIHR chair, Schroth can pivot his research if a public health problem arises. One issue he’s watching with concern is the growing anti-water fluoridation movement.

He is currently working with Prashen Chelikani [PhD/04], professor of oral biology, to examine the oral microbiome associated with severe tooth decay in First Nations and Métis preschoolers. That project is combining clinical, bacterial and genetic sequencing data to analyze the overall risk of caries.

“Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have thought this interdisciplinary work was possible,” he says.

Schroth leads the global Early Childhood Caries Advocacy Group and hopes to host a symposium for the organization in Winnipeg.

He says he developed an interest in early childhood caries research because it was a neglected area that he could make his own.

“My passion for research comes from my ability to make discoveries, answer questions, and also to provide evidence of systemic and oral health connections.”