AHFMR invests $25 million in research teams with members across Alberta

One team designing devices for people with devastating brain and spinal injuries

(Edmonton, Alberta) Monday, April 20, 2009 ... People who suffer damage to their brain or spinal cord often struggle the rest of their lives with permanent disabilities. AHFMR Senior Scholar Vivian Mushahwar, PhD, is leading a new Alberta-wide team of scientists, engineers, physicians, therapists and nurses who are designing neural prostheses to help restore function for people stricken with injuries or disease.

The Smart Neural Prostheses to Restore Motor and Sensory Function team is one of five teams who were successful in AHFMR's second Interdisciplinary Team Grants competition. This $50 million program provides opportunities for collaborative teams of scientists and physicians from across the province to join forces to tackle research questions and healthcare challenges in areas of priority for Alberta. Alberta Health and Wellness has contributed $17 million towards the AHFMR team grants program.

"This made-in-Alberta team model is a bold new way of supporting research," says AHFMR Interim President and CEO Jacques Magnan. "The teams' investigators are medical scientists, doctors, nurses, rehabilitation specialists, and population health researchers. Their varied expertise allows the teams to address research questions from all angles. This team approach with a focus on a single issue means there is a much higher probability that the results from research can be used to improve health policy, systems, and care."

"AHFMR's Interdisciplinary Grants program brings together the best minds in medical research," says Doug Horner, Minister of Advanced Education and Technology. "With Alberta's new innovation system, these collaborative teams can accelerate their discoveries, and generate tremendous new technologies for our health system, benefitting Albertans and people around the world."

"It would take me 20 years to get the results that this team will be able to achieve in five years," says AHFMR Senior Scholar Vivian Mushahwar, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Cell Biology, and Centre for Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta (U of A). "Our team is designing neural devices with input from the people who will use them, and from the doctors and rehabilitation specialists who know the risks, and themselves have dreamed of creative solutions."

"I was in tears when I heard about the number of disciplines participating in the team, resulting in a sharing of expertise and knowledge. I anticipate exciting developments which will benefit a number of people with disabilities, allowing them to maintain their independence and maximize their abilities," says Louise Miller, C.M., MBA, President and founding member of SCITCS, the Spinal Cord Injury Treatment Centre Society. Miller sustained a spinal cord injury in 1984 following surgery.

"Many people I know have and do suffer with pressure ulcers – imagine the costs to the health system, never mind the impact on people's lives. We really look to the scientists to implement the results generated from the team's research efforts that will prevent this problem," says Miller.

Mushahwar's team of 16 researchers is co-lead by AHFMR investigators Dr. Zelma Kiss, PhD, a neurosurgeon in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences and the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine, and Richard Stein, PhD, a professor in the Department of Physiology, and the Centre for Neuroscience at the U of A.

The team is focused on three major research projects: to design form-fitting garments that will stimulate muscles and prevent pressure ulcers for people who are bed-ridden or in wheelchairs; to create new devices which will help people with spinal cord injuries to stand and walk; to create a system that will stimulate small regions of the spinal cord and brain to restore walking, a sense of touch, and the sensations of pressure, movement, temperature and pain for people with injuries, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, ALS and other degenerative diseases.

"Our team is working on these three major projects simultaneously," says Richard Stein, PhD. "We will take what we learn about preventing pressure ulcers and apply those results to our research into standing and walking, and vice-versa."

Team partners include people with brain and spinal injuries, doctors, nurses, rehabilitation and home care specialists from the Intensive Care Unit at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, Allen Gray Continuing Care Centre in Edmonton, Home and Extended Care in Edmonton, and the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton.

Funding support for this research team has also been provided by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Spinal Cord Injury Treatment Centre Society.

For more information or interviews please contact Karen Thomas, Media Specialist, AHFMR, 780.423.5727 x225, 1.403.651.1112 (cell),

To learn more about the AHFMR Interdisciplinary Teams, visit www.ahfmr.ab.ca

BACKGROUNDER

The 2009 Teams

1. Smart Neural Prostheses to Restore Motor and Sensory Function

   The problem

   Damage to the brain or spinal cord causes permanent disabilities, a cost of about $23 billion a year to the healthcare system in Canada. As damaged areas in the central nervous system cannot easily regrow, improving the quality of the life of people who have lost movement and function can be achieved through advanced rehabilitation using neural prostheses. These electrical devices can replace or restore an injured part of the nervous system.

   The team

   This team of 16 researchers from the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary includes neuroscientists, computer scientists, engineers, physicians, nurses, rehabilitation medicine professionals, industrial partners, and people who will use the neural prostheses.

   The plan

   The team is developing more sophisticated neural prostheses for treating people with damage to their nervous system. These include devices that tap into small regions of the spinal cord and brain to activate the groups of nerve cells that regulate walking, touch, pressure, movement, temperature, and pain.

   The outcomes

   Improved neural prostheses will provide personalized medicine to some of the most vulnerable people living with disabilities, restoring function to people with irreparably damaged nervous systems, increasing their independence in daily living and their ability to function in society and the workforce.

   Team leaders

   Vivian Mushahwar, Department of Cell Biology, and Centre for Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, U of A

   Zelma Kiss, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, U of C

   Richard Stein, Department of Physiology, and Centre for Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, U of A

   Team Members

   U of A: Peter Allen, Ming Chan, Anastasia Elias, Martin Ferguson-Pell, Kenneth Fyfe, Vincent Gaudet, Walied Moussa, Keir Pearson, Christian Schlegel, Richard Thompson, Kathryn Todd

   U of C: Sean Dukelow, Michael Eliasziw

2. Alberta IBD Consortium: Etiology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Gene, Microbe & Environment Interactions

   This team will study genes, environmental exposures, and microorganisms as essential interacting elements in the development of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, and find new ways to categorize, treat, predict outcomes, and prevent inflammatory bowel disease.

   Team Leaders

   Herman Barkema, Department of Production Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, U of C

   Richard Fedorak, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, U of A

   Khrisendath (Kris) Chadee, Department of Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, U of C

   Team Members

   U of A: Gordon Broderick, Leo Dieleman, Karen Madsen, Jonathan Meddings

   U of C: Paul Beck, Stefania Bertazzon, Jeroen De Buck, Subrata Ghosh, Gilaad Kaplan, Wallace MacNaughton, Derek McKay, Remo Panaccione, Kevin Rioux, Keith Sharkey, David Sigalet, Martin Storr

   University of Manitoba: Denis Krause

   University of Toronto: Mark Silverberg

   Alberta Health & Wellness: Lawrence Svenson

3. Understanding and Treating Diastolic Heart Failure: Novel Mechanisms, Diagnostics and Potential Therapeutics

   The team will better define diastolic heart failure and its causes, and develop new methods to clearly diagnose and treat the condition.

   Team Leaders

   Jason Dyck, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, U of A

   Todd Anderson, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, U of C

   Team Members:

   U of A: Alexander Clark, Justin Ezekowitz, Mark Haykowsky, Zamaneh Kassiri, Daniel Kim, Peter Light, Gary Lopaschuk, Finlay McAlister, Michelle Noga, Gavin Oudit, Ian Paterson, Richard Schulz, Richard Thompson

   U of C: Israel Belenkie, Henry Duff, Matthias Friedrich, Jonathan Howlett, Merril Knudtson, Hude Quan, Sarah Weeks

4. Interdisciplinary Chronic Disease Collaboration: Improving the Efficient and Equitable Care of Patients with Chronic Medical Conditions

   The team will study new health policies and programs to help people with (or at risk of developing) health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease and vascular disease.

   Team Leaders

   Brenda Hemmelgarn, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, U of C

   Braden Manns, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, U of C

   Marcello Tonelli, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, U of A

   Team Members:

   U of A: Sarah Bowen, Timothy Caulfield, Jeffrey Johnson, Scott Klarenbach, Finlay McAlister, Ronald Plotnikoff, Ross Tsuyuki

   U of A Hospital: Deb Gordon

   U of C: Norman Campbell, Kathryn King, Lindsay McLaren, Kevin McLaughlin

   Alberta Health Services - Edmonton: Richard Lewanczuk

   Alberta Health Services - Calgary: Peter Sargious, Sid Viner

   Canadian Agency for Drugs & Technologies in Health: Donald Husereau

   Statistics Canada, Health Information and Research Division: Claudia Sanmartin

   University of Toronto: Sharon Straus

   Queen's University: Mark Rosenberg

   University of Aberdeen: Marjon van derPol

5. The Alberta Sepsis Network

   The team will identify the molecular mechanisms at work and the drugs that work best for the various types of sepsis infections.

   Team Leaders

   Paul Kubes, Department of Physiology & Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, U of C

   Christopher Doig, Department of Critical Care Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, U of C

   Ari Joffe, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, U of A

   Team Members:

   U of A: Noel Gibney, Liang Li, John Vederas

   U of C: Paul Boiteau, John Conly, Elaine Gilfoyle, David Johnson, Kevin Laupland, Richard Leigh, Christopher Mody, Daniel Muruve, Kamala Patel, Stephen Robbins, Michael Surette, Graham Thompson, Hans Vogel, Brent Winston, Kunyan Zhang, David Zygun

   University of Lethbridge: Deborah Saucier, Robert Sutherland

   University of Toronto: Sharon Straus