Brain Canada and Heart & Stroke announce recipients of $6 million research competition
TORONTO, Sept. 12, 2022 /CNW/ – Today, Brain Canada and Heart & Stroke announce that Canadian researchers Dr. Peter Liu and Dr. Douglas Lee are each a recipient of a Heart-Brain Connection IMPACT Award— a competition totalling $6 million. These researchers will lead two multi-disciplinary teams bringing together close to 100 members from institutions across the country.
From left: Trudy Hall, Dr. Douglas Lee, Dr. Gustavo Saposnik, Peter Chaban. Dr. Lee and Dr. Saposnik are Principal Investigators of UNEARTH CVD: Using novel approaches for the early recognition of transient ischemic attack, heart failure and connections with vascular dementia. (Heart & Stroke/Brain Canada) (CNW Group/Heart and Stroke Foundation)
“We are thrilled by the calibre of the two teams and the thoughtful, innovative research programs they have designed,” says Dr. Viviane Poupon, President, and CEO of Brain Canada. “By bringing together leading and diverse experts from across the country, including people with lived experience and Indigenous peoples, they will drive discovery that goes beyond what would be possible for a single researcher or a single institution.”
The four-year projects will study urgent questions linking heart and brain health with the aim of making changes to patient care and improving outcomes for people in Canada. Currently, one person dies in Canada every five minutes from heart disease, stroke or vascular cognitive impairment, outpacing other diseases. In fact, 20% more people die of heart-brain related conditions than from all cancers. The impact of these heart-brain connections on people’s lives and on the health care system is profound, especially given our health system is designed on a “single disease” model – with different conditions being treated by different specialists. These projects challenge that system through broad collaboration.
Teams will begin work on their projects in 2022 and there are plans to bring the two teams together to share updates on their work as early as 2023. “Putting research into action by sharing knowledge and results are critical components of this award,” says Doug Roth, CEO of Heart & Stroke. “We are confident these teams, these projects and this approach to research will accelerate a much-needed shift around how we explore heart disease and brain disorders.”
Heart-Brain Connection IMPACT Award recipients:
BHRIITE (Brain-Heart Research Integrative Innovation Team Endeavor), led by Dr. Liu, University of Ottawa Heart Institute
“Our program stems from speaking with patients who were falling through the gaps created when heart and brain diseases are treated and researched separately,” explains Dr. Liu, Principal Investigator of BHRIITE. “We aim to change the fundamental disconnect between brain and heart conditions and develop new tools to predict who is at risk and how severely with new diagnostic blood tests and new ways to take pictures of the heart and brain. Together with patient partners, we will also test new treatments that can be used to protect both the heart and the brain.”
This diverse team will integrate patients’ lived experience with expertise in molecular manipulation, in-depth cognitive and cardiac testing, pharmacology, systems biology, clinical trials, epidemiology, biostatistical modelling, machine learning and artificial intelligence. It will also include components such as an Indigenous-led curriculum to build a network of Indigenous health mentors and trainees to support Indigenous capacity to engage in research.
UNEARTH CVD (Using novel approaches for the early recognition of transient ischemic attack, heart failure and connections with vascular dementia), led by Dr. Lee, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, UHN, Toronto and Dr. Gustavo Saposnik, St. Michael’s Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto
“By assembling a team of leading Canadian experts in stroke neurology, cardiovascular disease, aging, general internal medicine, family medicine, sex and gender, health services research, basic science, biomedical engineering, biostatistics, bioethics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, we will find better ways to diagnose possible strokes early and prevent devastating effects such as paralysis” says Dr. Lee, Principal Investigator of UNEARTH CVD.
The team will also develop new methods to diagnose early declines in brain function, so that patients can receive preventive strategies and to study the intersection between heart failure and dementia which may radically change how doctors treat these conditions in the future. The project will also include engagement with Indigenous researchers and inclusion of Indigenous peoples with lived experience.
Funding for the Heart-Brain Connection IMPACT Award has been made possible by the Canada Brain Research Fund (CBRF), an innovative arrangement between the Government of Canada (through Health Canada) and Brain Canada Foundation, and Heart & Stroke.
To date, Health Canada has invested over $130 million through the CBRF which has been matched by Brain Canada and its donors and partners.
About Brain Canada
Brain Canada is a national non-profit organization that enables and supports excellent, innovative, paradigm-changing brain research in Canada. It plays a unique and invaluable role as the national convener of the brain research community. We join people, labs and platforms across the country, as well as institutions, organizations and sectors – in order to drive innovation and foster an interconnected brain research system. Our work enables Canada to excel and make even greater contributions to the global quest to understand the brain and brain disorders. Join us in funding brilliance daily, braincanada.ca.
About Heart & Stroke
Life. We don’t want you to miss it. That’s why Heart & Stroke has been leading the fight to beat heart disease and stroke for 70 years. We must generate the next medical breakthroughs, so Canadians don’t miss out on precious moments. Together, we are working to prevent disease, save lives and promote recovery through research, health promotion and public policy. Heartandstroke.ca @HeartandStroke
SOURCE Heart and Stroke Foundation
For further information: Melissa Arauz, Brain Canada, [email protected], 514-377-6461; Kate Comeau, Heart & Stroke, [email protected], 902-412-6523
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
___
AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.
New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.
“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.
The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.
Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.
It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.
Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.
Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.
The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.
The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Product Name: Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten
All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors.
Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.
