UNews - CIHR

More than $1.5 million in CIHR funding for study comparing physical activity levels amongst children worldwide

trevor.kenney — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 21:07:06 +0000

An ambitious ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge-led study to create a new app-based questionnaire to compare the physical activity levels amongst children across the globe has been awarded more than $1.5 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

The study will compare physical activity levels within and between 14 countries on six different continents.

Dr. Richard Larouche, an associate professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences’ Public Health Program, is collaborating with Dr. Mark S. Tremblay, a senior scientist at the CHEO Research Institute in Ottawa, to lead a group of 25 co-investigators as they seek to compare physical activity levels within and between 14 countries on six different continents. Such comparisons could help identify countries that are doing well in promoting some types of activity and help other countries develop interventions to increase physical activity.

“We lack a comparable instrument to measure physical activity across countries,” says Larouche. “So, when we're comparing different studies, some of the differences we see between countries may actually be differences in measurement rather than genuine differences in physical activity behaviours.”

First, they aim to develop an app-based questionnaire and determine its accuracy in measuring physical activity among five- to 17-year-olds in low-, middle-, and high-income countries.

“Most of the questionnaires we have are developed in high-income countries like Canada, the United States and European countries,” adds Larouche. “They tend to do a fairly decent job at capturing things like sport participation but to capture the more lifestyle-associated activities, they don't do such a good job.”

Low-income countries tend to have less organized sport participation and may have higher levels of active play — which the researchers aim to capture through the newly developed questionnaire. The study, which is funded over three years, will begin with the development of the app-based questionnaire and subsequent preliminary testing in each of the 14 countries. Based on initial results, a new version will be created and then translated into the main languages of each country. From there, a pilot study with about 30 children and one of their parents in each country will be conducted to see if further changes to the questionnaire may be needed. The main study will then follow with 500 children and their parents in each of the 14 countries.

“It’s definitely the biggest study that I’ve led, so it’s exciting,” says Larouche, who estimates that up to 100 post-secondary students and research staff across the research network will gain valuable experience collecting the data and/or assisting with other study tasks. “If we get the participation we want, which would be about 7,000 kids total, all levels of country income, based on the World Bank classification, and from urban and rural locations, we will have excellent data to work with that’s directly comparable.”

It will allow researchers to gain an understanding of which countries are doing better than others in promoting physical activity among their youth. This, in turn, can help generate ideas for future policies or interventions by researchers and practitioners. It also generates a dataset that can be used by other researchers for future studies.

“We expect our new questionnaire will facilitate the measurement of physical activity globally,” concludes Larouche. “Our sample has the potential to be the largest and most diverse ever collected to assess the accuracy of such a questionnaire.”

The Research Support Fund supports a portion of the costs associated with managing the research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, such as salaries for staff who provide administration support, training costs for workplace health and safety, maintenance of libraries and laboratories, and administrative costs associated with obtaining patents for inventions.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives boosted by federal grant

trevor.kenney — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 17:42:54 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge is one of 12 post-secondary institutions from across Canada receiving a highly competitive two-year grant to help identify and overcome systemic barriers that impede the career advancement, recruitment and retention of underrepresented and equity-deserving groups.

The U of L will receive $400,000 over two years to support the implementation of EDI initiatives.

“We’re very pleased the granting agencies recognized the progress we’ve made towards enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ community and our plans moving forward,” says Dr. Mike Mahon, U of L president and vice-chancellor. “Our success is dependent on how well we include, value and engage a diversity of students, staff, faculty, administrators and alumni.”

Today, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced the 12 institutions sharing close to $4.8 million in funding as part of the 2020 competition of the EDI Institutional Capacity-Building Grant. The U of L will receive $400,000 over two years to support the implementation of equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives throughout the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.

“This vital funding will support a foundation of important initiatives that will truly move our university forward in terms of operationalizing our commitments and our responsibilities to the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion,” says Dr. Robert Wood, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s interim vice-president (research).

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, which is currently in the process of hiring its first Executive Director of EDI, strives to create a diverse and inclusive community where students, faculty and staff feel welcome, are treated equitably and can thrive in their various endeavours. Achieving this requires intentional and systemic action. This means creating policies, procedures, programs, events and interventions that work to eliminate systemic barriers and establish the conditions and culture that enable the career advancement, recruitment and retention of equity-deserving individuals.

“Guided by the expertise and leadership of our next Executive Director of EDI, and with the support of this important grant, we will look to generate a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion throughout the academic, administrative and research domains of the university,” says Dr. Dena McMartin, the U of L’s incoming vice-president (research) and the first woman to hold a full-term appointment as VPR. “A commitment to EDI and belonging in the context of creative activity, teaching and learning benefits all of us, enriching and elevating our experiences and our perspectives.”

The Government of Canada is committed to tackling challenges encountered by underrepresented and equity-deserving groups in Canadian research institutions and their impacts on the whole of the research ecosystem.

This pilot funding program is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada(NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). NSERC is administering it on behalf of the three federal research granting agencies.

ARRTI researcher earns $642,600 CIHR grant to investigate complex process of ribosome formation

trevor.kenney — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 15:39:15 +0000

Long-term goal is to inhibit interactions between small RNAs and ribosomal RNAs thereby depriving cancer cells of protein factories

Understanding one of the fundamental building blocks of life may also hold the key to unlocking new targets for the treatment of cancer. The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Dr. Ute Kothe and her team will look to unravel the complex process of forming ribosomes, the body’s protein factories, through RNA research in a new five-year project that has received $642,600 in funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR).

Dr. Ute Kothe is a professor of biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and a Board of Governors Teaching Chair.

Identifying Critical RNA-RNA Interactions during Ribosome Biogenesis is the title of the project that will be based at the U of L and within the Alberta RNA Research and Training Institute (ARRTI), but also include collaborators at the Universities of Sherbrooke and McGill ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Quebec, as well as three German institutions.

“What excites me about this project is the intersection between it being medically important and also fundamentally important to understanding life. If you don’t understand life, you cannot develop new therapeutic strategies,” says Kothe, a professor of biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Board of Governors Teaching Chair.

The CIHR grant has been close to a decade in the making. Kothe has revised and resubmitted her application multiple times over the years, indicating the competitive nature of these grants. By earning this funding, she is among the top 10 per cent of biomedical researchers in Canada. The grant also illustrates the growth and impact of biomedical research at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, and in particular ARRTI, as Kothe is the first of the research group to secure a CIHR Project Grant since ARRTI’s inception in 2012.

“This important CIHR grant will support Dr. Kothe in making foundational advances in our understanding of cancer cells and cancer treatment,” says Dr. Robert Wood, vice-president (research). “The U of L was recently named second in the country in our category in the Maclean’s rankings. The groundbreaking research being conducted by stellar colleagues such as Dr. Kothe is a major driver of this strong reputational standing.”

Kothe believes wholeheartedly in how this research can add to the body of knowledge around forming a complex biological machine, which is the prerequisite to better understanding cancer cell division and tumor growth.

“This study is a great example of how the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge is contributing to biomedical research in Canada, and also illustrates the important link between fundamental and biomedical research — one doesn’t work without the other,” she says. “RNA research and cancer research go hand-in-hand and this is the strength we can build upon here in Lethbridge with ARRTI.”

All cancer types share a need for increased protein production to enable rapid cell divisions and tumor growth. Accordingly, all cancer cells are characterized by an enhanced production of protein factories called ribosomes and by an enlarged cellular compartment, where ribosomes are assembled.

“Cancer cells need the most proteins because they grow so rapidly. If a tumor wants to grow, it needs proteins, and cancer cells are smart – they have found a way to make more ribosomes, to make more protein machines, and that’s how they can outcompete all the other cells,” says Kothe.

Therefore, inhibiting ribosome formation is a promising future therapeutic strategy in cancer treatment. However, it is currently impossible to target this pathway because there is a fundamental lack of understanding ribosome formation. Kothe’s research aims to close this knowledge gap, thereby opening a new avenue for impairing assembly of protein factories in cancer.

“Ribosomes consist predominantly of RNA, a sister molecule of DNA,” says Kothe. “Critical steps during ribosome formation constitute the chemical modification and three-dimensional folding of ribosomal RNA. Interestingly, these steps are mediated by other small RNAs in the cell. Our long-term goal is to inhibit these interactions between small RNAs and ribosomal RNAs thereby depriving cancer cells of protein factories.”

That the grant stretches over five years affords an excellent opportunity for students to participate in the research work.

“This research grant opens training and employment opportunities for different researchers ranging from post-doctoral researchers who already have their PhD, as well as a couple of PhD and master’s students,” says Kothe, who plans to send students to Quebec and Germany to work with their collaborators as the study progresses. “I also think it’s important we include our undergraduate students in the research. It is one of our particular strengths at the U of L that we train them early and they get experience that really sets them up to go anywhere they want in the world.”

Kothe is enthused to get started and eager to unlock the mysteries of RNA in forming the body’s protein factories as the prerequisite for future RNA-targeted cancer therapeutics.

“RNA is an awesome drug target, so once we understand ribosome formation and the role of RNA in this process, we are one important step closer to targeting and inhibiting it in cancer. This should be a much more feasible treatment method than any other types of drugs.”

UNews - CIHR

More than $1.5 million in CIHR funding for study comparing physical activity levels amongst children worldwide

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��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives boosted by federal grant

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ARRTI researcher earns $642,600 CIHR grant to investigate complex process of ribosome formation

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��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives boosted by federal grant