RI-MUHC ANNUAL REPORT 2020
MESSAGE FROM BRUCE MAZER
There is no doubt that 2019-2020 was a year filled with challenges and achievements. Our research community is unique: dedicated, creative, forward-thinking and innovative. Child or adult, every patient who inspires our work at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) is unique, too, and deserves to benefit from exciting new targeted therapies.
Whether it is for landmark public health studies, understanding the implications of a new disease-causing gene in a single patient or family, planning for a bold new Clinical Innovation Platform, or our robust response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we may take tremendous pride in the successes of the past year. In our community of RI-MUHC researchers, trainees and staff, MUHC clinicians and patients, and committed funding partners, we are all drivers of personalized medicine.
MESSAGE FROM INDRA GUPTA
As we adapt to the challenging constraints of the pandemic, science has prevailed at the speed of light with landmark pediatric studies in COVID-19 research and innovative therapies in mental health for our most vulnerable and youngest patients. Our pediatric research community quickly demonstrated strength in these and other areas requiring multidisciplinary collaboration. This would not have been possible without the invaluable partnership of the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation, whose support safeguards the continuity of our research advancement and shaping of future scientists in child health research.
My sincerest gratitude to Dr. Bruce Mazer, whose leadership over the last four years has established the RI-MUHC on the global centre stage, and whose extraordinary steering efforts have sustained the acceleration of pivotal research during these precarious times.
MESSAGE FROM MCGILL UNIVERSITY HEALTH CENTRE
We are pleased to recognize the accomplishments of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in the context of this annual report, and to thank researchers, trainees, management and support staff alike for their curiosity, fervour and focus.
As a subsidiary of the MUHC, the success of the RI-MUHC is intertwined with that of the MUHC. Together, we eye the future to change the present. We pivot to adapt to new realities and anticipate other needs. This is why leadership and sustained support are critical. In that regard, we would like to express particular gratitude to Dr. Bruce Mazer as outgoing Interim Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer. His enthusiastic and extended service has helped the RI-MUHC address opportunities and challenges over the last four years, including those related to personalized medicine and the COVID-19 pandemic. We would also like to express gratitude to the RI‑MUHC’s teams, partners, funders, and supporters for acting collaboratively with purpose to achieve common goals. We look forward to many more impressive achievements in the year ahead.
MESSAGE FROM MCGILL UNIVERSITY
COVID-19 has taught us that in the face of a global health crisis, collaboration is paramount. At the outset of the pandemic, many McGill and RI-MUHC scientists whose research was abruptly interrupted turned on a dime to collectively fight the novel virus.
Of course, collaboration between our institutions is not new. The pioneering genetic research conducted in RI-MUHC and McGill labs offered the earliest glimpses of where we were heading: personalized medicine, which hailed the next frontier in medical research. Today, genetic testing leads to targeted cancer regimens, which improve outcomes in ways the first oncologists could never have imagined. We now use personalized medicine to treat an increasingly broad array of cancers, as well as for cardiovascular disease, microbiome research and more.
We offer our RI-MUHC colleagues a heartfelt thank-you for their leadership and contributions in fighting the pandemic. Congratulations on the advances achieved this year, be they COVID19-related or in any of the other areas in which you excel.
Oversight
- BOARD OF DIRECTORS
- CENTRE DIRECTORS
- AUDIT/INVESTMENT COMMITTEE
- MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
- RESEARCH PROGRAM COUNCIL
- SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE (2019)
—Reporting period: April 2019 – March 2020
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
CENTRE DIRECTORS
AUDIT/INVESTMENT COMMITTEE
MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
RESEARCH PROGRAM COUNCIL
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE (2019)
NEXT READ
