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RI-MUHC ANNUAL REPORT 2020

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MESSAGE FROM BRUCE MAZER

Bruce Mazer, MD, Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer (Interim), RI-MUHC, October 2016–June 2020, and Indra Gupta, MD, Deputy Executive Director and Deputy Chief Scientific Officer (Interim), RI-MUHC, and Head of Child Health Research (Interim), MUHC
Bruce Mazer, MD, Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer (Interim), RI-MUHC, October 2016–June 2020, and Indra Gupta, MD, Deputy Executive Director and Deputy Chief Scientific Officer (Interim), RI-MUHC, and Head of Child Health Research (Interim), MUHC

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

Peter Kruyt, Chairman, and Pierre Gfeller, MD CM MBA, Board member and MUHC President and Executive Director
Peter Kruyt, Chairman, and Pierre Gfeller, MD CM MBA, Board member and MUHC President and Executive Director

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

David Eidelman, MD, CM, Vice-Principal (Health Affairs) and Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Martha Crago, PhD, Vice-Principal (Research and Innovation)
David Eidelman, MD, CM, Vice-Principal (Health Affairs) and Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Martha Crago, PhD, Vice-Principal (Research and Innovation)

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.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

  • Peter Kruyt, Chair
  • Louise Proulx, Interim Vice-Chair until Dec. 2019
  • Pierre Lortie, Treasurer
  • Cinzia Raponi, Secretary
  • Graham Bagnall
  • Mary-Anne Carignan
  • Martha Crago
  • David Eidelman
  • Pierre Gfeller
  • Bruce Mazer
  • Raymond Royer
  • Gloria Tannenbaum

CENTRE DIRECTORS

  • Jean Bourbeau, Centre for Innovative Medicine
  • Kaberi Dasgupta, Centre for Outcomes Research and Evaluation
  • Don van Meyel, Centre for Translational Biology

AUDIT/INVESTMENT COMMITTEE

  • Pierre Lortie, Chair
  • Cinzia Raponi, Secretary
  • Graham Bagnall
  • Mary-Anne Carignan
  • Peter Kruyt
  • Jaime Pimstone
  • Dawn Singerman
  • Bruce Mazer

MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

  • Bruce Mazer, Chair
  • Jenny Koulis, Secretary
  • Shari Baum
  • Jean Bourbeau
  • Miguel Burnier
  • Kaberi Dasgupta
  • David Eidelman
  • Reza Farivar-Mohseni
  • Liane Feldman
  • Gerald Fried
  • Indra Gupta
  • Costas Karatzas
  • Ariane Marelli
  • James Martin
  • Cinzia Raponi
  • Marc Rodger
  • Michael Shevell
  • Don van Meyel
  • Simon Wing

RESEARCH PROGRAM COUNCIL

  • Simon Wing, Chair until Aug. 2019
  • Ariane Marelli, Chair since Sep. 2019
  • Basil Petrof, Vice-Chair
  • Jenny Koulis, Secretary
  • Jean Bourbeau
  • Miguel Burnier
  • Daniel Dufort
  • Kaberi Dasgupta
  • Reza Farivar-Mohseni
  • Liane Feldman
  • Gerald Fried
  • Indra Gupta
  • Ed Harvey
  • Costas Karatzas
  • Virginia Lee
  • James Martin
  • Bruce Mazer
  • Peter Metrakos
  • Keith Murai
  • Constantin Polychronakos
  • Cinzia Raponi
  • Marc Rodger
  • Erwin Schurr
  • Michael Shevell
  • Don van Meyel
  • Trainee Council representatives:
  • Kashif Khan
  • Kim Phan
  • José Luis Ramirez-GarciaLuna
  • Guests:
  • Associate program leaders
  • Desjardins Centre for Advanced Training representative
  • Research program managers

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE (2019)

  • Jim Woodgett, Chair
    Director of Research, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute
  • Karen Antman
    Provost, Boston University Medical Campus and Dean, School of Medicine
  • Michael Brudno
    Director, Centre for Computational Medicine, SickKids Research Institute
  • Elliot Chaikof
    Surgeon-in-Chief, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Professor, Harvard Medical School
  • Albert Descoteaux
    Director, PhD Program in Virology-Immunology of INRS–Institute Armand Frappier
  • Elizabeth Eisenhauer
    Clinician Scientist, Kingston General Hospital Research Institute
  • Susan Marlin
    President and CEO, Clinical Trials Ontario
  • Freda Miller
    Senior Scientist, Neurosciences & Mental Health, SickKids Research Institute
  • Paula Rochon
    Vice-President, Research, and Senior Scientist, Women’s College Hospital


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