Message from Norman Rosenblum, INMD Scientific Director
June 2023
It was a great pleasure to recently host an INMD Institute Advisory Board (IAB) meeting in St. John’s at Memorial University. The meeting started with a Meet & Greet and Poster Session held at the Whale Atrium of the Core Science Facility. Thank you to Dr. Margaret Steele, Dean of Medicine and Dr. Sukhinder Cheema, Professor of Biochemistry and former IAB member, and to the students who enthusiastically presented their posters, for welcoming the IAB to Memorial University.
The meeting included presentations by Dr. PJ Devereaux and Dr. Hertzel Gerstein on the Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) and the newly formed Diabetes Clinical Trials Network, that will facilitate the design and conduct of high‐impact trials in Canada and internationally. Catherine Street, Director of the Newfoundland and Labrador SUPPORT Unit, presented to the IAB about the various patient-oriented programs in the province including Quality of Care NL and the work that the SUPPORT Unit is doing to support the Health Accord NL. Thank you as well to Dr. Stephen Bornstein for providing a lectureship and sharing his insights into Knowledge Mobilization (KM) based on his leadership and past experience as the Director of the Centre for Applied Health Research at Memorial University. Finally, the leaders of the INMD-funded Health Research Training Platform Pilot (HRTP) grants presented their progress to the IAB: Dr. Nicola Jones, lead for the TRaIning A New generation of researchers in Gastroenterology and LivEr (TRIANGLE), Dr. Todd Alexander, lead for Kidney Research Scientist Core Education and National Training (KRESCENT 2.0), and Dr. André Tchernof, lead for Maximize your Research on Obesity and Diabetes (MyRoad). The work undertaken by these HRTPs is extremely important in developing the next generation of health researchers in the INMD mandate areas.
One of the final meeting highlights was the presentation by Dr. Charu Kaushic, Scientific Director of the Institute of Infection and Immunity (III), on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), as well as III’s leadership in embedding EDI considerations into the funding opportunities, including the CIHR Research Excellence, Diversity and Independence (REDI) Early Career Transition Award. Dr. Kaushic’s presentation stimulated considerable discussion and interest among the IAB members.
I wish to thank the research community at Memorial University for their warm welcome and the INMD IAB members for participating in the meeting and sharing their ideas and enthusiasm.
Norman Rosenblum, MD, FRCPC, FCAHS
Scientific Director
Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes
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