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The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. Through CIHR, the Government of Canada invested approximately $6.2 million in 2004-05 in research on new and emerging diseases across Canada.
For more than 50 years, antibiotics have come to the rescue, producing rapid and long-lasting 'miracle cures'. Their widespread use in humans and animals has led to a backlash - bacteria that are resistant to most conventional antibiotics. New antibiotics that fight these bacteria are not being actively developed. The CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity is working with partners including the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, the Canadian Committee on Antibiotic Resistance, the Canadian Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute and the Public Health Agency of Canada to explore novel alternatives to antibiotics. Some of these alternatives include:
The next step is to increase research in these areas, taking the focus away from antibiotics and toward new solutions.
Dr. Lorne Babiuk vs. the viruses
"I've always been interested in aspects of medicine that will help society," Dr. Lorne Babiuk says. Not an uncommon interest among researchers - but in Dr. Babiuk's case, he's approached this on a smaller scale than most.
As Director of the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), Dr. Babiuk has focused on viruses and how they invade cells to cause disease.
In the early-1970s, Dr. Babiuk developed a model of the rotavirus - a virus that causes severe diarrhea among children. This model, which demonstrated how the virus infected healthy 'host' cells, has since led to the development of vaccines that are now in the licensing stage of approval for use in humans. A vaccine for cattle has been on the market for more than 20 years.
In 2004, Dr. Babiuk's team worked on two different vaccines for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). These vaccine prototypes, partly funded by CIHR, were developed in collaboration with McMaster University, the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and the University of British Columbia, and have been tested on animals. In 2005, Dr. Babiuk was one of three Canadian researchers to receive awards through the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, spearheaded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Babiuk is working to develop a single-shot vaccine that will reduce the need for multiple immunizations.
As Chair of the Institute of Infection and Immunity Institute Advisory Board and member of CIHR's Canadian Research Coalition on Food and Water Safety, Dr. Babiuk takes a broad approach to protecting the health of Canadians that encompasses many different aspects of public health. He says that, while we cannot predict Canada's next health crisis, the creation of both CIHR and the Public Health Agency of Canada are important steps towards creating the infrastructure that will help prevent and address a crisis - and that research is a critical element in that infrastructure.
In his research interests, Dr. Babiuk has focused on the miniscule, on viruses. In conducting his research, however, he recognizes the importance of larger elements - like people. He collaborates with researchers from many other disciplines, including sociologists, psychologists and engineers. And he regards the 48 graduate students and 42 postdoctoral researchers he has supervised as his greatest research achievement, for they will be the ones who will build upon his earlier work.
The CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity spearheaded the Canadian research community's rapid response to the SARS outbreak, issuing and rapidly evaluating a call for proposals, fast-tracking the peer review process and bringing together partners to fund immediate research into understanding, diagnosing and treating the virus. It later helped to create the Canadian SARS Research Consortium. The Institute supports research to reduce the burden of infectious diseases, focusing on a wide range of issues, including safe food and water, HIV/AIDS, novel vaccine development and emerging infectious diseases.
The Institute of Infection and Immunity is working with its partners to build on the teamwork characterized by Canada's response to SARS to better respond to other emerging infectious diseases, both in Canada and as an integral part of the international effort to prepare for future research challenges. The Canadian Rapid Research Response Team brings together scientific leaders from a wide range of disciplines with expertise in infectious diseases and related areas, as well as the federal government, provincial governments, the private sector and representatives from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. Its objective is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to close to 10,000 researchers and trainees in every province of Canada.
