III Newsletter – February 2013

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Message From the Scientific Director, Dr. Marc Ouellette

It is a pleasure to reach you at the beginning of 2013. I wish you all health and success in your research activities.

A first draft of the new Institute Strategic Plan is now completed following a last round of discussion at the January IAB meeting in Vancouver. This is now being translated and it will be open for your input through an on-line survey very shortly.

The next strategic initiative the Institute is planning is focused on the translational aspect of antibiotic resistance. We have built a steering group (chaired by Dr. Eric Brown) and are now contemplating the potential for international collaboration. Through the HIV Initiative, we are now working on a funding opportunity for curing HIV. One goal is to encourage non HIV researchers to collaborate with HIV researchers. An application development workshop will be held in Ottawa on February 28, 2013. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and community members with expertise in HIV cure research, to allow them to network, share ideas, and begin to build teams in preparation for this funding opportunity. The Strategy for Patient Oriented Research is progressing and is accepting expressions of interest (see p.5). Please do not hesitate to contact the Institute for information, to help you in building those expressions of interest. The first slates of Roadmap Signature initiatives are now well underway and the Institute is supporting several of these funding tools. In the coming Newsletters, we will be featuring some of the work that III-funded teams are conducting as part of these Roadmap Signature Initiatives.

The funding results of last open competition have just recently become public. I would like to congratulate all the researchers who were successful and the one who benefited from III-affiliated strategic opportunities (see p.3). For those who were not successful this time, I wish them much luck and success in their next application.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require further information.

Sincerely,

Marc Ouellette

Researcher Profile

Emma Allen-Vercoe

Emma Allen-Vercoe obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology in 1999 from the Open University (UK) as part of an industrial partnership with the Centre for Applied and Microbiological Research (CAMR, now the Health Protection Agency), Porton Down, UK, studying the role of fimbriae and flagella in Salmonella enteritidis infections. As a postdoc, she remained at CAMR for 2 years, training to work with CL3 (Containment Level 3) pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, before moving to Calgary in 2001 and taking up an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratories of Drs. Rebekah DeVinney and Mike Surette, working on Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) pathogenesis.

In 2004, Dr. Allen-Vercoe obtained a Canadian Association of Gastroenterology /CIHR/ AstraZeneca Fellow-to-Faculty Transition Award that allowed her to develop her own research program and to join the Faculty of Medicine in Calgary in September 2005 as an Assistant Professor. At this point in her career she decided to branch out and build a niche for herself in the area of human gut microbiome research, then an emerging discipline. With CFI funding, Dr. Allen-Vercoe set up a laboratory for the culture of anaerobic bacteria, and she moved this set-up to the College of Biological Sciences, University of Guelph, in 2007. Dr. Allen-Vercoe has established the 'Roboguts' in her laboratory, a chemostat-based system to precisely model the microbial ecosystem of the human gut and its response to exogenous stress.

Recently, Emma, together with collaborators Elaine Petrof (Queen's University) and Greg Gloor (University of Western Ontario), received broad press coverage for having found a very useful purpose for bacteria grown in the “Robogut” to make fake poop! Indeed, fake poop, as well as real poop, can be used as therapy (fecal transplant) to treat C. difficile infections. C. difficile infections are difficult to treat and can rebound once antibiotic treatment stops, leading to chronic rounds of re-infection and retreatment. The disease can lead to severe and life-threatening inflammation of the colon.

Fecal transplants have been successful in knocking out C. difficile by repopulating a patient's colon with donated healthy bacteria. However, receiving real poop carries certain risks, and can be unpalatable for some, making fake poop an acceptable treatment. Emma's “RePOOPulate” treatment is still considered an experimental one, and needs to go to clinical trial before going commercial. A story to follow.

Science Meetings of Interest

Funding Opportunities

  1. The Bhagirath Singh Early Career Award in Infection and Immunity
    No application is required.
  2. Team Grant : Health Challenges in Chronic Inflammation Initiative
    Deadline for full application: 2013-10-15
  3. Catalyst Grant : Environments, Genes and Chronic Disease
    Deadline: 2013-04-024)
  4. Catalyst Grant : HIV/AIDS Community-Based Research (2013-2014)
    Deadline: 2013-04-15
  5. Master's Award : HIV/AIDS Community-Based Research (2013)
    Deadline: 2013-04-01
  6. China-Canada Joint Health Research Initiative (2013)
    Deadline: 2013-03-14
  7. Planning Grants : Winter 2013 Priority Announcement
    Deadline: 2013-02-15
  8. Dissemination Events : Winter 2013 Priority Announcement
    Deadline: 2013-02-15
  9. Operating Grant : Winter 2013 Priority Announcement
    Deadline: 2013-03-01
  10. Discovery Frontiers - Call for Proposals (NSERC, Genome Canada, CIHR, CFI)
    Deadline for letter of Intent : 2013-05-01

Congratulations to funding recipients

III would like to congratulate the following researchers for their success in securing funding from III Priority Announcements should be capitalized. Priority Announcement - Open competition September 2012 - Bridge funding

Abdelaziz Amrani, Université de Sherbrooke: Role of STAT5b in the protection against diabetes.

Luis B. Barreiro, Hôpital Ste-Justine: Identifying host genetic factors that affect the interplay between M. tuberculosis and macrophages.

Patrick W. Lee, Dalhousie University: Molecular and immunological characterizations of reovirus oncolysis.

Xi Yang, University of Manitoba: Linkage between innate and adaptive immunity in chlamydial infection.

World Tuberculosis Day – March 24, 2013

World Tuberculosis Day is designed to build public awareness about the global epidemic of tuberculosis and efforts to eliminate the disease. In 2011 alone tuberculosis causes the deaths of about 1.4 million people in the World.

March 24 commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the Mycobacterium tuberculosis. At the time of Koch's announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people.

CIHR is contributing to the fight against TB as it financed $6M in TB research in 2011-12. One of the projects supported was “Taima TB” from Dr. Gonzolo Gustavo Alvarez (Ottawa Hospital Research Institute). Taima TB, which means “STOP TB” in Inuktitut dialect, is an awareness campaign, aimed to expand and increase awareness of TB in the community of Iqaluit through a multifaceted awareness campaign to empower community members with TB knowledge in both Inuktitut and English to improve uptake in preventative efforts and to reduce stigma. STOP TB is an initiative formed in 1999 to control tuberculosis by a worldwide alliance working to increase the adoption of DOTS (the strategy to cure TB), provide a global drug facility, develop new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics, and motivate the social mobilization of civil society. One of the planned strategic investments within the Roadmap Signature Initiative: Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples is tuberculosis. III will invest in this exemplar, as it is directly relevant to the Institute's priorities.

Joint CHARAC-III IAB Meeting

The Institute Advisory Board (IAB) of III and the CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Advisory Committee (CHARAC) meet independently throughout Canada on a regular basis. Once every three years both advisory committees have a joint session to discuss issues of common interest. Our last joint session was in Vancouver on January 15.


From left to right: Jonathan Angel (IAB and Chair of CHARAC), Martin Schechter (invitee), Brian Ward (IAB), Paul MacPherson (CHARAC), Aslam Anis (invitee), Roy Duncan (IAB), Patrice Allibert (IAB), Chris Archibald (CHARAC), Jennifer Gunning (HIV/AIDS Research Initiative), Eric Brown (IAB), Anthony Jevnikar (Chair of IAB), Jennifer Raven (III), Judith Bray (III), Michael Mulvey (IAB), Megan Levings (IAB), Wendy Street (III), Aida Fernandes (IAB), Jane Hutchison (HIV/AIDS Research Initiative), Marc Ouellette (III), Eric Cohen (CHARAC), Brenda Hemmelgarn (IAB), Christopher Kaposy (IAB), Dale McMurchy (CHARAC), David Scheifle (invitee), Anita Rachlis (CHARAC), Suzete Dos Santos (HIV/AIDS Research Initiative), Kate Shannon (CHARAC).

Changes to CIHR's Open Suite of Programs and Enhancements
to the Peer Review Process

CIHR published last December a document entitled Designing for the Future: The New Open Suite of Programs and Peer Review Process. It outlines the refined design and transition plan for the new Open Suite of Programs and peer review process and is available on the CIHR website.

We are asking you to provide your questions and comments to Roadmap-Plan.Strategique@cihr-irsc.gc.ca.

CIHR will be travelling to institutions across the country to discuss the design and implementation plan with the research community. These meetings started in January 2013.

Immunization Research

CIHR and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) are in discussions to create a national immunization network focused on priority issues for known or emerging vaccine-preventable diseases. The network will build on existing expertise in vaccine evaluation and will undertake research regarding vaccine safety and efficacy, novel methodologies for vaccine evaluation, and attitudes affecting vaccine uptake. A network development workshop is planned in Ottawa at the end of March. Further announcements will follow.

New Investigator Forum

May 31-June 2, 2013
Manoir du Lac Delage, Lac Delage, Quebec

The Institute of Infection and Immunity is very pleased to announce the Institute's 5th New Investigator Forum. The Forum will be held May 31-June 2, 2013 and is intended to facilitate the career development of new investigators. It aims to strengthen infection and immunity research by establishing peer networks of new investigators working in related or overlapping areas of research.

The Forum will also enhance the mentorship of new investigators through formal presentations and interactive workshops given by renowned senior scientists. In addition, there are frequent opportunities for informal interactions between participants and presenters at the forum. Meeting participants will represent all CIHR themes (basic science, clinical science, population health and health services) and will include eligible researchers within 5 years of their first research appointment. The meeting will also bring together a cross section of experts working on various aspects of research in infection and immunity. These expert researchers will enrich the program by facilitating scientific sessions and conducting workshops on a wide range of topics.

For more information on the Forum, please consult the website or contact Serge Desnoyers, III Assistant Director at serge.desnoyers@crchul.ulaval.ca.

The HIV/AIDS Research Initiative Corner

Canadian Initiative for HIV Cure Research
The CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Initiative – in partnership with the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) and International AIDS Society (IAS) – will soon launch a Team Grant funding opportunity under the Canadian Initiative for HIV Cure Research.

Aligned with the international scientific strategy – Towards an HIV Cure - the goal of this initiative is to contribute to the global search for a safe and effective cure for HIV. The initiative is expected to transform HIV cure research in Canada into a collaborative, interdisciplinary model of knowledge creation and application through the funding of research programs that actively engage HIV basic scientists and clinical investigators as well as experts from complimentary disciplines and sectors.

The full funding opportunity will soon be available in the CIHR Funding Opportunities Database.

Please also look for other recently launched HIV-related funding opportunities including: Priority Announcements for Operating Grants, Dissemination Events and Planning Grants; and under the HIV/AIDS Community-based Research Program - Catalyst Grants and Master's Awards.

Minister of Health Announces Support for New Research on HIV/AIDS
On November 27, 2012, the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health, announced Harper Government funding for new research to address HIV/AIDS in Canada. The funding will support two community-based research centres, including one focused on helping Aboriginal Canadians, and four teams that will examine the link between HIV and health issues related to aging and mental health.

To reach the HIV/AIDS Research Initiative,
please contact:

Jennifer Gunning, Associate Director
jennifer.gunning@cihr-irsc.gc.ca


Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is pictured with researchers following a tour of the lab of HIV researchers Drs. Jonathan Angel and Paul MacPherson at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. From left to right: Dr. Marc Ouellette, Dr. Jonathan Angel, Dr. Cécile Tremblay, Dr. Paul MacPherson, Minister Aglukkaq, Dr. Sean Rourke, Dr. Rashmi Kothary.

Call for Expressions of Interest: SPOR Networks

Canada's Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) is a collaboration of researchers, provinces and territories, partners, health care providers, patients and families – all working in partnership to improve the quality and effectiveness of care provided to Canadians.

The SPOR National Steering Committee is inviting the health research community to provide input on research network capacity in Canada.

This call for expressions of interest is being held from January 18 to February 28, 2013. It is an opportunity for Canada's researchers to provide information on the current network landscape. The goal is to identify existing and emerging research network capacity in patient-oriented research in Canada that could align with the SPOR network objectives. Please note that this is not a formal letter of intent or a CIHR funding opportunity. It is an open dialogue with Canada's research community and a venue for Canadian researchers to demonstrate where there is capacity to translate research evidence into better health care policies, therapies, and practices.

We ask for your support in promoting this call for Expressions of Interest. Please share this information throughout your research communities to encourage their input.

Detailed information on this call for expressions of interest and the submission process can be found on CIHR Website.

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