INMD IAB Meeting Highlights - November 2009

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November 5-7, 2009
Winnipeg, Manitoba

The Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes held their IAB Meeting in Winnipeg at the University of Manitoba.

Guest presenters for the 27th Institute Advisory Board meeting were:

  1. Dr. Peter Jones provided a comprehensive presentation about the work he and his colleagues are doing at the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals at the University of Manitoba.
  2. Dr. Charles Bernstein gave a compelling presentation about his research using the Manitoba Health database to advance knowledge in chronic inflammatory bowel diseases.

Strategic planning – Context setting

To set the context for the meeting, P. Sherman addressed the recently released CIHR Strategic Plan, Health Research Roadmap: Creating innovative research for better health and health care. He presented slides which outlined the strategic priorities of CIHR. He explained that at this meeting the Board is being tasked to identify the strategic priorities INMD will focus on for the next five years. He reiterated the necessity that INMD's priorities align with Roadmap.

INMD Strategic Planning Summits:

P. Sherman reported on the INMD Strategic Planning Summits that had occurred since the last meeting:

  1. Canadian Lipoprotein Conference – October 17th on Windsor
  2. Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism – October 18th in Montreal
  3. World Diabetes Conference – October 21st in Montreal
  4. Obesity Society's Annual Scientific Meeting October 26th in Washington

A number of INMD IAB members attended these Summits and reported back to the IAB.

Strategic Planning:

The objective of this Institute Advisory Board meeting was to identify strategic priorities for INMD's Strategic plan for 2010-2014. By the end of the two day meeting the IAB identified four new (draft) strategic priorities for INMD:

  1. Food and Health: to develop an evidence base to inform nutritional practice and food policy, to foster research into the nutritional health of diverse populations that will benefit human health and reduce the risk of chronic disease. This includes evaluation of biomarkers of nutritional health, emerging innovations in food technology and benefits/risks to human health, with special considerations to the need for therapeutic interventions and to populations subject to food insecurity.
  2. Continuum of Care: to improve health and healthcare by fostering research in to the continuum of care and to specifically address translational research, models of health care and healthcare reform, care gaps, priority populations, and developmental and transitional care across the lifespan.
  3. Environments, Genes and Chronic Disease: to recognize the influence of and to promote the acquisition of knowledge on the phenotypical variation of both complex and rare diseases, interactions with microbiomes and health consequences of changes in the built , natural and social environments
  4. Obesity: Seeking Solutions: to build upon the strong foundation of knowledge already established related to obesity with a strong focus on moving to solution with focused interventions at policy, clinical and population levels and to foster research in priority populations

Next Steps:

The INMD team will refine the details of the strategic plan with the facilitator. The staff will then send out the draft priorities via email to INMD stakeholders, so that they can comment on the priorities. P. Sherman will present the draft strategic plan to Scientific Council in December, and will seek approval from the President.

INMD Activity Report:

INMD will be participating in the following workshops:

  • CIHR Bone Health Consensus Meeting, November 9th and 10th, 2009, led by the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis (IMHA)
  • CIHR Biomarkers for Precision Medicine Initiative national workshop, November 19th and 20th, 2009, led by the Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (ICRH) CIHR Patient-oriented Primary Care Summit-Scaling up Innovation, January 18th and 19th, 2010 in Toronto, led by the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR). INMD will be hosting a workshop on diabetes at this Summit. .
  • CIHR "Developing a Research Agenda to Support Sodium Reduction in Canada". INMD will be co-hosting this national workshop with ICRH January 25th and 26th, 2010

P. Sherman highlighted meetings that INMD had in Washington with two Institutes of the National Institutes of Health. INMD met with the Deputy Director and the Branch Chief of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIHLBI). They also met with the Director and Deputy Director, Director of the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition, and the Assistant Surgeon General, of The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Both institutes are highly enthusiastic to work with INMD and develop partnerships.

Next Meeting:

The next IAB will be in February 2010 at McMaster University in Hamilton.