Update on Institute Activities

Dear Colleagues,

With the fall season now well underway, I would like to take the opportunity to update you on what we have been working on over the summer, and some of our major activities that have taken place over the last several weeks.

New members bring added expertise to our Institute Advisory Board

I am delighted to announce that four new members joined the INMHA Institute Advisory Board (IAB) in September, bringing valuable diversity and expertise to complement the existing membership and guide our strategic activities. I would like to introduce and extend a very warm welcome to:

  • Jennifer Chandler, Professor and Bertram Loeb Research Chair, Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
  • Marco Prado, Professor, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology/Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Robarts Research Institute/Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontari
  • Johanne Renaud, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Institut universitaire Douglas, McGill University; and
  • Antonio Strafella, Professor, Department of Medicine, Senior Scientist, Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network

Our board comprises a group of outstanding and extremely engaged individuals. I look forward to working with these leading experts in their fields and in particular to meeting with them in person at the next face to face meeting of the IAB in Ottawa, where we will focus our attention on developing the Institute’s Strategic Plan.

Neuroscience Leaders Meeting: A launching point for the Canadian Brain Research Strategy

This September found me in Halifax at an engaging meeting of Canadian neuroscience leaders, where we discussed our collective strengths, challenges and how we can better collaborate to establish Canada’s place among the world’s top neuroscience nations. I would like to extend a sincere thank you to Vic Rafuse and the team at the Brain Repair Centre at Dalhousie University for organizing and hosting this important event.

I am delighted to report that this meeting produced some of the most exciting progress to date towards the development of a Canadian Brain Research Strategy (CBRS). The CBRS was initiated in 2015 when my predecessor Tony Phillips brought together a like-minded group of leaders to design a strategy aimed at elevating fundamental scientific discovery in brain and mental health, and it has been building steam in the Canadian neuroscience community ever since.

One of the most notable outcomes of this recent meeting was the creation of a new CBRS executive, led by Yves De Koninck, and which includes 10 members from coast-to-coast, with a mandate from the broad Canadian neuroscience community. I am fully supportive of the efforts of these leaders as they work to chart the next phase of the CBRS – bringing Canada’s own unique approach to the International Brain Initiative – and I look forward to sharing their progress with you over the coming months.

Discussing pain research in the context of opioids and medical cannabis

I was honoured to have been invited to speak at the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences 2018 Annual Forum, which this year focused on exploring a national strategy to usher in a new era of chronic pain prevention, primary care and specialist treatment in Canada.

As you know, INMHA is currently directing a lot of its strategic efforts on building the collective knowledge base on opioids and cannabis, and my presentation at this forum was therefore focused on pain research in the national opioid crisis and medical cannabis context. With hundreds of thousands of Canadians currently using prescription opioids for pain and limited evidence to support the efficacy of medical cannabis for pain, significant and strategic research investments are critical.

Our institute has been hard at work developing partnerships and launching strategic funding opportunities in order to inform evidence-based solutions for chronic pain, within the context of opioids and cannabis. For example, recently funded Opioid Crisis Knowledge Synthesis grants are linking knowledge users and researchers to gain information on opioid prescription monitoring, safer opioid prescribing and opioid-free postoperative analgesia. In addition, the recent Evaluation of Interventions to Address the Opioid Crisis funding opportunity will support grants to rapidly assess interventions and practices that have been put in place to address the most urgent elements of the opioid crisis, including unrelieved pain – one of the drivers of the current opioid crisis in Canada.

We are also supporting research into the potential therapeutic use of cannabis for pain management as part of the current Cannabis Research in Urgent Priority Areas funding opportunity, and additional multi-year opportunities for cannabis research funding are currently in development and expected to launch next year. You can read more about our efforts on cannabis here, and you can expect more information in the coming months, as we work to develop the CIHR Cannabis Initiative.

As you can see, there are a lot of exciting activities underway at the institute, with more opportunities and projects on the horizon. As always, I thank all of our staff, stakeholders, partners and everyone engaged with the institute for your support and interest in our work, and invite you to share your ideas by reaching out to members of the INMHA team, or connecting with me on Twitter.

Best,

Samuel Weiss, PhD, FRSC, FCAHS
Scientific Director
CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction

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