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Institute of Genetics (IG)

Integrating the Physical and Applied Sciences into Health Research

Institute of Genetics and the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction in partnership with: the Institute of Cancer Research and the Institute of Infection and Immunity

Four CIHR Institutes Join Forces to Improve the Health of Canadians by More Effectively Exploiting Research Excellence in the Physical and Applied Sciences

A two-day workshop was held in Vancouver in September 2003 to establish a plan of action for improving the health of Canadians by accelerating the translation of research breakthroughs in the physical and applied sciences into health research and clinical practice. The workshop, entitled "Integrating the Physical and Applied Sciences into Health Research", was hosted by the following two institutes within the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) in partnership with two additional CIHR institutes:

Host Institutes

CIHR Institute of Genetics

The CIHR Institute of Genetics support research on the human and other genomes and on all aspects of genetics, basic biochemistry and cell biology related to health and disease, including the translation of knowledge into health policy and practice, and the societal implications of genetic discoveries.

Primary areas of research include (i) the human genome, (ii) genetic determinants of health, polymorphisms, genetic epidemiology and gene-environment interactions, (iii) interventions including health promotion, disease prevention and health services delivery, (iv) clinical genetics (diagnostics, genetic counseling, treatment), (v) pathogenesis and mechanisms of disease and dysfunction related to gene function, (vi) molecular biology and genetics: gene identification, sequencing, structure and function, regulation, gene-gene and gene-genome interactions, (vii) gene products, proteomics, protein chemistry, structural biology, (viii) comparative genomics involving model organisms, (ix) technology development in genomics (e.g. microarray, sequencing) and application as health technologies and tools, (x) bioinformatics, and (xi) ethics issues related to research, care strategies, and access to care (e.g. population screening, privacy and use of genetic information, community and population-based risk management strategies).

CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction

The CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction supports research to enhance mental health, neurological health, vision, hearing, and cognitive functioning and to reduce the burden of related disorders through prevention strategies, screening, diagnosis, treatment, support systems, and palliation. Associated research advances our understanding of human thought, emotion, behavior, sensation (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell), perception, learning and memory.

Primary areas of research include (i) mental health and neurological health promotion policies and strategies, (ii) addiction prevention policies and strategies, (iii) health determinants, (iv) identification of health advantage and health risk factors related to the interaction of environments (cultural, social, psychological, behavioral, physical, genetic), (v) disease, injury and disability prevention strategies at the individual and population levels, (vi) head injury prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation, (vii) addiction, mental health, and dysfunction of the nervous system affecting sensation, cognition, emotion, behavior, movement, communication, and autonomic function, (viii) clinical research and health outcomes research into diagnostic technologies and methods, therapies, treatment, care, and rehabilitation models (long and short-term), (ix) co-morbidity of conditions and impacts on prevention, diagnosis, treatment, care and rehabilitation, (x) design and implementation of health services delivery - from prevention, to screening, to diagnosis, to intervention or treatment, to rehabilitation, to palliation, (xi) development and implementation of health technologies and tools (e.g. imaging, bio-engineering, drug delivery technologies), (xii) development, regulation, function and dysfunction of the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, (xiii) human psychology, cognition and behavior, sleep and circadian biology, and pain, and (ixv) ethics issues related to research, care strategies, and access to care (e.g. informed consent, hospitalization, addiction, mental health and the justice system).

Partnering Institutes

CIHR Institute of Cancer Research

The CIHR Institute of Cancer Research supports research in Canada to reduce the burden of cancer on individuals and families through prevention strategies, screening, diagnosis, effective treatment, psycho-social support systems, and palliation.

CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity

The CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity supports research to enhance immunemediated health and to reduce the burden of infectious disease, immune-mediated disease, and allergy through prevention strategies, screening, diagnosis, treatment, support systems, and palliation.

Integrating the Physical and Applied Sciences into Health Research Workshop - September 19-21, 2003

Executive Summary

Workshop Overview and Motivation

From September 19-21, 2003, the Institute of Genetics (IG) and the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (INMHA) of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) - in partnership with the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and the Institute of Infection and Immunity (III) - convened more than fifty-five leading researchers from the physical, applied and health sciences, plus representatives from the relevant funding agencies [Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Canadian Genetic Diseases Network (CGDN), Health Canada (HC), National Research Council (NRC)] in a focused workshop to:

Identify research trends in the physical and applied sciences and opportunities for exploiting advances in these research disciplines to improve the health of Canadians
Discuss funding opportunities and means of ensuring the continued growth of physical and applied science in health research
Define how to best foster effective interdisciplinary research and training involving collaborations between physical and applied scientists and health researchers
Identify mechanisms that will facilitate productive communication between these research communities

The workshop was structured into several sessions, each focused on a particular aspect of the functional integration of the physical and applied sciences into health research:

Current research trends
Research communities
Funding
Fostering effective interdisciplinary research & training

A series of key recommendations to CIHR and NSERC - along with a set of proposed actions - emerged from a synthesis of the discussions held over the two-day meeting.

Agenda and Participants

The workshop organizing committee, agenda and participant list are available in Appendices A, B and C, respectively. Summaries of the content and desired outcomes of the four major workshop sessions are provided below:

Current Research Trends

Acknowledging the enormous breadth implicit in the title of the workshop, eight topics were chosen to illustrate where physical and applied sciences have made and are making significant inroads and impact in health research, and where health research sees a role for the physical and applied sciences.

In this session, leading researchers from the fields of biophotonics, nanotechnology, micro- and macro-instrumentation, physics and chemistry described new innovations in their fields, where they see their respective fields heading over the next five to ten years, and how they see their fields - and innovations in their fields - helping health research. Similarly, health researchers with expertise in microbial and eukaryotic systems, and genomics discussed how they see their fields developing and advancing and where they see needs and opportunities for the physical and applied sciences.

From these presentations and follow-up round-table discussions, the workshop participants identified critical areas of health research where research programs involving physical and applied scientists would accelerate progress, and then identified ways to better and more quickly inform the physical and applied science research community of opportunities and needs in health research.

Research Communities

Currently, research collaborations between experts in the physical and applied sciences and those in health research are most often formed in response to a "Request for Applications" (RFA) where interdisciplinary research is valued. While there are certainly examples of scientific and engineering breakthroughs resulting from collaborations formed in this manner, too often the collaboration is created on paper to improve the potential for successful funding of the application, with relatively little attention paid to strengthening the partnership before or after the grant writing stage. This recurring problem is due in part to the current disconnect (albeit slowly diminishing) between the physical and applied science research community and those disciplines that are traditionally thought to comprise the health research community.

Discussions in this session therefore centered on the current opportunities and barriers to more effective and successful integration of these two broad research communities, including coordination between the funding organizations for each community: NSERC for physical and applied scientists and CIHR for health researchers.

Funding

An underlying theme of this workshop was to determine how Canada can best establish a longterm funding strategy that will support and sustain interdisciplinary research that integrates the physical and applied sciences into health research in productive, innovative, and collaborative programs.

In a focus session, representatives from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Genome Canada and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) described current and planned mechanisms of support. This provided a context for a roundtable and open discussion on Canada's future needs for effective sustainable funding programs, including the establishment of appropriate scientific review panels, projections on the magnitude of required total funding, and optimal configuration of funding programs.

Fostering Effective Interdisciplinary Research & Training

A long-term strategy for improving the health of Canadians through research that integrates the physical and applied sciences into health research must rely on the training of a new generation of scientists with the ability to bridge these fields, to understand both cultures and languages, to understand what the physical and applied sciences have to offer, and to grasp the challenges presented by the fields of biology that can benefit from technological advances. Some successful examples of creating training and research programs at the interface between the life sciences and the physical and applied sciences were presented and discussed in the broader context of general mechanisms that work.

Recommendations

The translation of discoveries by physical and applied scientists into the life sciences has, to a considerable extent, dictated the style and pace of health research over the last quarter century. High-throughput DNA sequencing technology, ESI and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, multiphoton correlation laser spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy are but a handful of the many technologies developed by physical and applied scientists that have revolutionized the manner in which health research is conducted. Recognition of the importance of this connection between breakthroughs in health research and fundamental research in the physical and applied sciences suggests that considerable good would come from (1) more actively informing the physical and applied science research community of the current needs of health research,
and (2) supporting research conducted by or involving PIs from the physical and applied science community that effectively addresses the specific needs of health research.

A central goal of this two-day workshop was to provide a set of recommendations to the CIHR and NSERC for improving the quality, quantity and overall impact of health research in Canada led by or involving physical and applied scientists. These recommendations are intended to provide CIHR and NSERC with a framework for accelerating the discovery of new technology and the translation of that technology to the solution of pressing problems in medical science.

1. The CIHR in collaboration with NSERC should be proactive in identifying emerging and established fields of physical and applied science that have the potential to make or are already making important contributions to health research.

Fields that should be recognized include:

Functional Imaging

Novel imaging tools and techniques are under development and refinement to allow researchers to better address important questions related to health and human biology. These tools cover the breadth of necessary imaging scales, from tracking of single protein motion in cells and fluids to functional imaging on organ and whole body length scales.

Nanotechnology

Nanoscience is an emerging science for which there is no road map for development, particularly with respect to health research. The tools of nanoscience are currently being applied to address fundamental issues related to biomolecular structure and function; however, novel nanomaterials for therapeutic applications remain a distant but potentially important goal.

Micro-fluidics Based Instrumentation

The integration of microfluidics with surface chemistry has led to tremendous success in the form of gene chips and, more recently, protein chip applications. These technologies, along with a number of promising microfluidics-based lab-on-a-chip instruments under development, provide an excellent example of how physical and chemical sciences have combined to provide a tremendous improvement in the way health-research and clinical diagnostics are conducted.

Spectroscopy of Biological Systems

Spectrometry, particularly the various modes of mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy, is central to progress in health research. New advances in MS are anticipated from current research in the physical and applied sciences, including improved integration with high-resolution separation processes, novel ion detection schemes, and resolution of instrumentation miniaturization issues. Similarly, we are currently witnessing dramatic improvements in the power and range of application of NMR spectroscopy, as well as in other modes of spectroscopy, such as UV resonance Raman spectroscopy, and their application to health research.

Technology Development for Health Research

A common and important goal throughout all areas of technology development for health research is that of cost reduction, but with attendant increases in resolution and speed. Improving the sensitivity and throughput, while reducing the cost, of current work-horse technologies of health research, including highthroughput DNA sequencers, peptide sequencers and protein mass-mapping systems, is central to progress in systems biology and the full realization of its potential in health research (see below).

This list is not intended to be exhaustive or exclusive. As areas of physical and applied science research, as well as health research, are constantly evolving, the CIHR and NSERC must remain proactive in evaluating research in the physical and applied sciences that should be supported to accelerate advances in medical practice.

2. The CIHR should be proactive in identifying important areas of health and health-related research where the involvement of the physical and applied science research community is essential to progress.

A key conclusion of the workshop was the realization that the physical and applied sciences can make and have already made seminal contributions to the advancement of health and health research in Canada. Illustrative areas of health research where significant and sustained contributions from physical and applied scientists are clearly required to achieve or accelerate progress include:

Chemical Biology

Recent advances in molecular biological, chemical, and biophysical techniques are presenting us with spectacular opportunities both to increase our understanding of biological systems at the molecular level and to attack medical problems by, for example, designing and constructing small molecules as spectroscopic probes, functional congeners, and diagnostic and therapeutic agents. As a result, major advances in biology and medicine will likely originate through collaborations between those disciplines able to create and apply an integrated combination of chemical, structural, biophysical, computational, and molecular biological methods to critical areas of human health.

Microbial Systems

There are clear needs from the microbial research community for tools that work well with the specific requirements of their systems: namely, the ability to probe microbes in their natural environments and within soil microcosms. This will require development and validation of new proteomics and genomics tools, including new forms of sample separation and mass spectrometry that allow global and temporal studies of these systems in their natural environment.

Integrative Functional Genomics

The creation of genetic and interaction networks are enabling researchers to rapidly identify possible pathways for disease. However, the utility and pace of this emerging field are limited by instrumentation and analytical challenges associated with working with vast amounts of MS interaction data that compromise proper annotation and curation of the data. Many interactions are more complex than what is currently modeled and faster and lower cost methods are now required to properly identify and correctly annotate these networks.

Single-cell Systems Biology

The development of technology and instrumentation capable of dissecting genome and proteome responses in single cells would enable statistical analysis of the variations in individual cell responses, as opposed to measuring the average response of a cell population as is currently practiced. The ability to probe at the single cell level has far-reaching implications. For example, the technology may be applied to cataloging the cellular heterogeneity in the central nervous system, to monitor embryo development or cellular differentiation, or to observe pharmacokinetics in single rare cells, such as chemotherapy-resistant cells or adult stem cells. The technology would also improve clinical practice, such as detection of cancer. Cell-to-cell variability in a tumor increases as the disease progresses. Proteome maps from a hundred individual tumor cells could therefore be used to generate a molecular index that provides prognostic information to guide patient therapy.

3. The CIHR and NSERC should jointly establish and widely publicize programs to rapidly inform physical and applied scientists about current research opportunities and needs in health research.