III Newsletter – July 2012

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Message from Dr. Marc Ouellette,
Scientific Director

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to reach you through this Newsletter just before your summer holidays to provide news and updates from the Institute of Infection and Immunity.

Our Institute Advisory Boards

The Institute benefits from the expertise of the Institute Advisory Board (IAB), the CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Advisory Committee (CHARAC) and the Community-Based Research Steering Committee (CBR-SC) to provide advice which helps the Institute achieve the goals of the different programs it is responsible for managing. These advisory groups, each with expertise in their respective program areas, meet throughout the year to discuss priorities and emerging opportunities. CHARAC held its last meeting in Ottawa on June 15th, 2012, the CBR-SC will meet this month, and the III-IAB met in Halifax, June 12-13, 2012.

It is my great pleasure and privilege to highlight the contribution of the following retiring members. They will be greatly missed for their contributions to the activities of the Institute:

From the CIHR-III Advisory Board:

  • Dr. Gillian Wu, York University, board member 2006-2012
  • Dr. Robert Hogg, Simon Fraser University, board member 2008-2012

From CHARAC:

  • Dr. Marina Klein, McGill University, committee member 2008-2012
  • Dr. Sean Rourke, University of Toronto, committee member 2009-2012

Many thanks for your dedication to the Institute and to the Infection and Immunity community. The Institute has received many outstanding applications to fill the positions vacated with these departures and we will announce the new Board members in our next bulletin. The Institute strives to achieve a balanced representation of the Infection and Immunity community with respect to geography, research themes and gender. For CHARAC and the CBR-SC, we also seek the strong voice of at least one person living with HIV.

One of the highlights of the CHARAC meeting was a consultation session on future CIHR activities and investments focused on finding a cure for HIV. In July 2012, the International AIDS Society and its partners will officially launch a global scientific strategy - Towards an HIV Cure. I have the pleasure of sitting on the Towards an HIV Cure Stakeholder Advisory Board representing Canada and identifying opportunities for collaborations with our international counterparts. Given the alignment of the international strategy with CHARAC identified priorities, the HIV/AIDS Research Initiative will be investing in this area in the years ahead.

Café Scientifique

As part of our commitment to reach out and engage the general public, III hosted a Café Scientifique entitled "No Pathogens at my Picnic, No Bacteria at my Beach" in Halifax on June 11th This event was moderated by Dr. Mohamed Karmali, Director-General of the Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses at PHAC and a member of the IAB. The evening's presentations included discussions on the challenges involved in monitoring the safety of our food and water, the new technology and research in the area of food and water safety, and the steps that consumers and the public can take to help address this growing concern. Our expert speakers included Drs Rafael Garduno, PhD, from Dalhousie University, Timothy Ells, PhD, from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Ms. Krysta Montreuil, MSc, from Halifax Water. A lively and involved crowd participated in the event and challenged the speakers with thought provoking and insightful questions.

Reform of the open and peer review

We have engaged with the research community in the reforms of CIHR's Open Suite of Programs and Peer Review Process, through a series of group discussions, town hall meetings, and other activities. The community's response is vital to the reform process. CIHR is carefully reviewing and considering all of the feedback received before the final decisions are made. A summary of the feedback will be published later in July and CIHR anticipates communicating the refined design in the fall of 2012. Information on the proposed reforms can be found on our website.

Current and Upcoming funding opportunities

The Institute is co-lead with the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis (IMHA) on the Roadmap Signature Initiative (RSI) on Inflammation in Chronic Disease. Seven institutes and the HIV/AIDS Research Initiative are partnering on this initiative, which has been approved by Science Council for launch in the summer of 2012.

Through the Canada-China Science & Technology Agreement, human vaccines were selected as the topic for an upcoming initiative between the governments of China and Canada. Several discussions with the Government of Canada and bilateral discussions with Chinese officials (Ministry of Science and Technology (MOSTP) have taken place, and the announcement should be forthcoming within the next several months. Networking workshops between Canadian industry leaders and their Chinese counterparts are in preparation.

A new funding opportunity called Healthcare Renewal Policy Analysis was launched in April and the application deadline is September 19th, 2012. It is a joint program developed by CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR) and the Knowledge Translation Branch as part of CIHR's Roadmap Signature Initiative in Evidence-Informed Healthcare Renewal (EIHR). These grants seek to form meaningful partnerships between researchers and senior-level policy makers who work directly within the health sector in federal, provincial or territorial government departments, regional health authorities, that develop policy with population-level health impacts. III is a partner on this funding opportunity and will fund two grants related to various aspects of our mandate.

The Institute is partnering on the recent launch of the Genome Canada and CIHR Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Competition, which is part of the CIHR Roadmap Signature initiative in Personalized Medicine. This funding opportunity will help create the next generation of tools needed to deal with the massive amounts of data produced by modern genomic technologies and allow researchers to better understand the biology of living things. For full information, visit the Genome Canada website.

The Institute is also partnering with the CIHR Institute of Aboriginal People's Health on the recently announced Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples Signature Initiative. The overall goal of the Pathways Initiative is to develop a better understanding of how to implement and scale up interventions and programs that will address Aboriginal health inequities. Pathways will fund implementation science to address four targeted, timely, and important health inequities affecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis (Aboriginal) peoples namely suicide, tuberculosis, obesity and oral health. CIHR-III will fund grants in the field of tuberculosis.

Two funding opportunities are also available through the Hepatitis C Research Initiative. The Dissemination Events Priority Announcement provides a maximum of $25,000 per award for dissemination events and activities that focus on the communication of health research evidence to the appropriate researcher and/or knowledge user audience(s). The Knowledge Synthesis Grant Priority Announcement will support projects furthering the contextualization and integration of research findings of individual research studies within the larger body of knowledge on the topic of Hepatitis C. These awards provide a maximum of $100,000 for one year.

Recent III Funding

III would like to congratulate the many recipients of funding through recent III and HIV/AIDS Research Initiative competitions.

Competition results

Strategic Plan

The Institute and its Board members are working on the renewal of the strategic plan 2013-17. Discussions thus far have centred on the new strategic directions that will be contained in the plan, which may include: championing and enhancing Infection and Immunity Research; promoting innovation and ensuring impact; and engaging stakeholders and community partners. The Institute is planning on completing a draft for September 2012, in time for the fall IAB meeting. Following approval by the IAB, the draft will be posted on the web for feedback from the Canadian I & I community. After the consultation, our goal is to secure CIHR approval by December 2012.

Your feedback on any issue related to CIHR and health research is important, and my role as Scientific Director is to bring your issues to the CIHR Science Council. Please do not hesitate to contact myself or other III team members if you need advice or further information. I wish you success in your research endeavours and have a nice summer,

Best wishes,

Marc Ouellette

III Funding Opportunities

There are many funding opportunities available through CIHR, including recently launched opportunities related to HIV; please see the Funding Opportunities Database for full details.

Meeting of Interest

AIDS 2012 — July 22-27, 2012 — Washington D.C., US

Canadian Immunization Conference — December 3-5, 2012 — Vancouver, BC

Contact us

Staff list

The Institute of Infection and Immunity provides national leadership and creates programs that promote innovative research aimed at reducing the global burden of infectious diseases and disorders of the immune system.

Québec City

2705 Laurier Blvd., CHUL - Room TR 62
Québec Qc G1V 4G2
Tel: 418-577-4688
sd.iii-imii@crchul.ulaval.ca

Marc Ouellette, Ph D
Scientific Director
Tel: 418-577-4688
sd.iii-imii@crchul.ulaval.ca

Serge Desnoyers, Ph D
Assistant Director
Tel: 418-656-4141 x46251
serge.desnoyers@crchul.ulaval.ca

Jennifer Raven, Ph D
Associate, Strategic Initiatives
Tel: 418-656-4141 x46250
jennifer.raven@crchul.ulaval.ca

Mireille Perrault
Assistant
Tel: 418-577-4688
mireille.perrault@crchul.ulaval.ca

Ottawa

Room 97, 160 Elgin Street
Address locator: 4809A
Ottawa ON K1A 0W9
Tel: 1-888-603-4178
sd.iii-imii@crchul.ulaval.ca

Judith Bray, Ph D
Assistant Director
Tel: 613-954-7223

Diane Christin
Institute Project Officer
Tel: 613-941-0997

David Hartell
Associate, Strategic Initiatives
Tel: 613-941-4329

Jennifer Gunning
Associate Director, HIV/AIDS, Research Initiative
Tel: 613-941-4483

Paula Kirton
Associate Director, HIV/AIDS
Partnerships & KT, Research Initiative
Tel: 613-941-4439

Suzete Dos Santos
Associate HIV/AIDS, Research Initiative
Tel: 613-941-4464

Jane Hutchison
Associate HIV/AIDS, Research Initiative
Tel: 613-948-9396

Marc-Étienne Joseph
Associate HIV/AIDS, Research Initiative
Tel: 613-641-4464

Simone Marcantonio
Project Officer HIV/AIDS Research Initiative
Tel: 613-948-2461

Andrew Rajhathy
Program Officer HIV/AIDS, Research Initiative
Tel: 613-952-4263

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