27th Institute Advisory Board Meeting

Institute of Infection and Immunity
27th Advisory Board Meeting

May 20-21, 2009

Delta Edmonton Centre Suite Hotel
Edmonton, AB

Minutes

Present: L. Barreto, P. Ernst, M. Grant, J. Guimond, R. Hogg, S. Jones, M. Loeb (teleconference), V. Loo (teleconference), J. Madrenas, M. Ouellette, C. Power (Chair), B. Singh, D. Speert, J. Stankova, G. Wu
Staff: J. Bray, D. Dempsey, D. Hartell (teleconference), M. Hume, N. Mason MacLellan, A. Matejcic, B. Moor, C. Richardson
Guests: L. Babiuk, M. King
Regrets: R. Clarke, J. Lavery

Agenda and Minutes

The agenda was approved with the addition of the item "Update on Bill C11" under Other Business.
Approval of the minutes of Jan. 20-21, 2009 was deferred.

CIHR Research Response to the Influenza Outbreak

Federal government planning to establish Canada's pandemic preparedness program began in 2005, and the Institute became actively involved in the process as a joint organizer (with PHAC) of the Influenza Research Priorities Workshop in September of that year. Ultimately, this and numerous subsequent meetings led to the announcement of federal government funding for pandemic preparedness in May 2006, with $21.5 million assigned to CIHR for research. The current H1N1 outbreak will test Canada's ability to respond and will demonstrate the utility of 3.5 years of advance planning.

The H1N1 virus is a new strain having elements of swine and avian influenza, with 2 gene segments differing from normal circulating influenza strains. There have been 9830 cases identified with 79 confirmed deaths, and the outbreak is now rated at phase 5 of the WHO pandemic alert scale (verified human-to-human transmission of an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus able to cause community-level outbreaks). It seems likely that the outbreak will reach phase 6 of the scale in the near term, and there is concern that the strain will re-emerge in the fall, with potentially increased virulence.

The CIHR PPSRI Task Group, chaired by M. Loeb, met on April 27, 2009 to discuss priorities for a research response in the face of an imminent influenza pandemic. The Task Group identified several research goals:

  • Capture data from natural experiment
  • Facilitate collaboration among research groups and linkages between researchers and other organizations involved in pandemic response
  • Facilitate sharing of samples and specimens
  • Encourage the research community to provide accurate and consistent messaging to media

It also reiterated a number of research priorities relevant to a research response to the outbreak. The Institute is actively pursuing a number of communications and funding strategies to meet these goals.

The majority of the PPSRI funding has been committed over the last 3 years, raising the number of Canadian principal investigators focusing on influenza from 3-5 in 2001 to over 70 in 2009. The largest single component of the PPSRI, the Influenza Research Network (principal investigator: S. Halperin), has passed peer-review and is approved to receive $10.8 million over 3 years. This Network of over 200 members will focus on vaccine evaluation with direct feedback to the PHAC on vaccination programs and vaccine safety, effectiveness and coverage; it is unique in the world context at this time. An accelerated timeline has been set to review full applications for phase 2 of the "Outbreak Team Leader" funding opportunity launched in 2007 with the intention of providing funding to rapidly establish the research programs of the 2 leaders previously identified. Efforts are also underway to acquire additional funding for both the team leader initiative and a new round of catalyst grants targeted to the outbreak priority areas and to facilitate the uptake of research results as they are reported. A request for additional government funding for research has been made through the PHAC.

A practical challenge facing researchers attempting to study the outbreak is the availability of laboratory resources to test clinical samples taken for research purposes. Clinical laboratories are overwhelmed and the NML and provincial health laboratories have competing priorities for testing. Particularly at risk is data to document the immune response post-infection. It was suggested that CIHR could work with provinces to help ensure that diagnostic testing capacity is able to support both clinical and research needs in an outbreak scenario. Board members also identified sharing of research results in real time, storage and sharing of clinical research samples and effective, consistent media communications strategies as problematic areas in outbreak situations, but noted that progress has been made in these areas since the time of the SARS outbreak.

Institute Affairs

IAB retirement/renewal

The Nominating and Governance Committee of CIHR has examined the composition of the Institute Advisory Board and has recommended the following changes:

  • Renew – J. Stankova (2 years); G. Wu (3 years)
  • Retire – R. Clarke; M. Loeb; J. Madrenas; M. Ouellette; D. Speert
  • Resigned – J. Lavery

The CIHR Governing Council process to identify new Board members is underway, and decisions are to be announced in July 2009. The many contributions of departing members were recognized and C. Power noted that all will be missed.

10 Year External Review of CIHR

The CIHR Act requires CIHR to review the mandate and performance of each Institute to "determine whether its mandate or the policies respecting its role and functioning should be amended or whether it should be merged with another Health Research Institute or terminated". Planning has begun for a review of the Institutes in September to December of 2010, and an overall review of CIHR in February 2011. The Terms of Reference for the review have been approved by GC, and the Chair of the International Review Panel (IRP) has been named (Elias Zerhouni from NIH). Each Institute will be assessed by a 3 person Institute Review Team, with a member of the IRP on the Team; the Team will submit a report to the IRP, and the IRP is responsible for the overall review of CIHR. Data sources for the Institute review may include stakeholder surveys, researcher surveys, bibliometric analyses, administrative system data and information from the research reporting system.

Members of the Board were provided with the criteria for reviewers and asked to provide B. Singh with names and contact information for potential reviewers by May 31.

New Investigator Forum Debrief

The Institute's 3rd New Investigator Forum took place on April 17-19, 2009 at the Kingbridge Centre north of Toronto. The program was well received by the approximately 50 registrants, and evaluation feedback was extremely positive, with most program elements receiving a score of 4 or better on a 5 point scale. The mock peer review workshop, where participants were divided into panels and reviewed real applications under the guidance of III-relevant CIHR peer review committee chairs, garnered top honours (4.7). The PRC chairs, CIHR observers and the participants themselves were of the opinion that similar workshops should be available to all new investigators.

Although registration has been declining over the years (100 to 70 to 50), the Board supported repeating the Forum in 2 years time, perhaps in conjunction with another CIHR Institute.

Budget

The Institute Support Grant (ISG), which funds the majority of the operating expenses for the Institute, had an opening balance of $1.39 million in April 2008 and a closing balance of about $0.499 million, for an overall expenditure of $0.891 million. Compared to previous years, significantly less was spent to support workshops and conferences from this source in 2008-9 due to revised Treasury Board regulations, and more was spent on professional services for Institute-led meetings and reports. With the Institute transition planned for December, this year's ISG grant will be $0.75 million for a total budget of $1.25 million. Any surplus remaining at the end of December will not be available to the next incarnation of the Institute, in part because the grantee in the future will be the host institution, not the Scientific Director.

New commitments from the Institute Strategic Initiative (ISI) budget included the following:

  • Priority Announcement – Bridge Funding September 2008 Competition:
    • $1,988,508 (23 new grants, 2008-9 budget)
    • $278,000 (3 renewal grants, 2009-10 budget)
  • Catalyst Grants – SFW: $198,841 (2 grants)
  • Catalyst Grants – Systems Biology: $496,295 (5 grants)
  • Catalyst Grants – Microbiome: $630,756 (10 funded by III, 2 by partners)
  • STIHR Grants: $1.5 million/year/6 years (7 funded by III, 4 by CIHR/others)

Expenditures from the ISI budget totaled $11.1 million in 2008-9, leaving a surplus of only $82,584. Actual and planned commitments in 2009-10 total $9.44 million, with a projected deficit of $0.34 million. Although all ISI funds are being utilized to support the infection and immunity research community, the increasing number of one year grants, especially for bridge-funding, was seen by some Board members as less strategic than is ideal, emphasizing the need for more pro-active development of strategic initiative funding opportunities.

Blueprint II: CIHR Strategic Plan

The draft CIHR Strategic Plan 2009-2014 has been renamed the Health Research Roadmap and is posted for general commentary on the CIHR website. Input is requested by June 12; revisions incorporating input received will be made over the summer, and the Plan will be formally launched in September.

The Plan has 4 strategic directions:

  • Invest in World-Class Excellence
  • Set Health and Health System Research Priorities
  • Accelerate the Capture of Health and Economic Benefits of Health Research
  • Achieve Organizational Excellence, Foster a Culture of Ethics and Demonstrate Impact

Each strategic direction has a number of concrete actions that will be undertaken to implement the plan, and there was a conscious effort to harmonize both directions and actions with the principles of the federal government's Science and Technology Strategy.

Although recognizing the substantial funding gains made by CIHR since its inception ($310 million in 1999-2000 to $974 million in 2007-8), Board members were concerned by the prospect of little or no increase to CIHR in the next 3 or more years. It was suggested that the Health Research Plan should emphasize the return on investment that results from CIHR research funding, particularly in developing high quality personnel at a very reasonable cost. Research intensive universities and hospitals are major employers in many communities, and are responsible for managing one third of the total Canadian research and development dollars. Further, there are excellent examples of successful companies that were founded on research originally funded by MRC/CIHR (e.g. Infectio Diagnostic Inc. in Quebec). While there are other factors that limit effective development of new Canadian companies (e.g. insufficient venture capital), the Strategic Plan should emphasize the critical role of CIHR in underpinning scientific innovation and contributing to economic development.

Strategic Priorities and Initiatives

Pandemic Preparedness Strategic Research Initiative (PPSRI)

Since its initiation in 2006, the PPSRI has established 5 research priorities, negotiated 4 formal partnership agreements resulting in $20 million additional funds, launched 30 funding opportunities and funded 71 of 149 applications received. The initiative has implemented a 3 phase program – pre-pandemic capacity development, outbreak research support and facilitation, and support for knowledge translation activities. Of the $36.6 million in PPSRI funding managed by CIHR, $34.8 million is committed. Competitions currently in progress include Catalyst Grants: Pandemic Preparedness (decision in July 2009), Knowledge Translation Supplements, and Meetings, Planning and Dissemination grants.

A second Canadian Pandemic Preparedness Meeting is planned tentatively for the winter of 2010; goals will be to present and discuss recent research results, facilitate networking and identify research needs and gaps. A pre-meeting session with a focus on lessons learned from SARS and the current H1N1 outbreak may be included, with the intention of informing a public health and health care professional audience.

Data collection for the mid-term evaluation of the PPSRI has been completed, and the report is in preparation. The evaluation assessed the overall design and implementation of the Initiative, and identified both areas of success and areas requiring additional support or alternative strategies. The establishment of partnerships, identification of research priorities, launch of appropriate funding opportunities, and significant resource leveraging were seen as achievements. Additional support or alternative strategies are required for a coordinated international research agenda, increased capacity in specified areas and a broader engagement in knowledge translation.

Canadian Microbiome Initiative (CMI)

The first funding opportunity of this initiative was funded in March and April of 2009, with 12 of 25 catalyst grant applications succeeding in this competition. The funded projects dealt with a wide range of focus areas in humans – pulmonary system, gastrointestinal tract, vagina – and also included a project on ethical and regulatory research guidelines for the human microbiome. CIHR partners supporting the catalyst grants include IGH, INMD, ICRH and the Ethics Office.

The microbiome team grant funding opportunity will be launched in June 2009, with partners Genome Prairie and Genome British Columbia, the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Institut Rosell Lallemand, Crohn's and Colitis Foundation Canada, the CIHR Ethics Office and CIHR Institutes ICR, IMHA and INMD. The initiative will also feature collaboration with 3 Canadian cohorts – the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development Study, the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, and the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project. It is anticipated that the total budget available for the team grants will exceed $13.3 million over 5 years.

The International Human Microbiome Consortium has been established and CIHR has been recognized as the Canadian connection to the international research effort. Currently, B. Singh is the CIHR representative to organizational research meetings, one of which is in June. This meeting will examine data sharing considerations to facilitate collaboration between microbiome researchers. It was noted that the initiative was still in the early stages, with techniques being developed. Moreover, it is complicated to share data; many variables must be controlled (e.g. diet, antibiotics, disease states) and several body sites are targeted. Canadian scientists are competitive in certain domains – IBD for example – but CIHR is not interested in funding only genome sequencing.

UK/Canada Initiative on Microbial Resistance

The UK/Canada Initiative on Microbial Resistance continues the Institute's development in the area of antibiotic resistance and is an outcome of a workshop sponsored by the Institute and the UK Medical Research Council (UK-MRC) held at Canada House, London, England on February 6-7, 2008. The attending UK and Canadian researchers demonstrated enthusiasm for partnerships in areas of synergy and proposed that research teams which incorporated members from both countries might accelerate research progress in the area. Subsequently, the chief executive of the UK-MRC, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, met with CIHR President Dr. Alain Beaudet and reached agreement in principle to fund up to 2 Canada/UK consortium grants valued at $8 million over 4 years. The consortia will be modeled on the UK Clinical Research Collaboration – Translational Infection Research Initiative of July 2007.

To prepare Canadian and UK researchers, the Institute and MRC launched a catalyst grant funding opportunity in December 2008 to assist teams in developing team strategies to establish consortia. Three applications were received, and two will be funded in July 2009, at approximately $120,000 over 9 months.

The UK MRC has approved its share of the funding for the consortium grants. The Institute of Infection and Immunity has reserved $2 million over 4 years in the strategic initiative budget for its share of the funding opportunity and has approached the CIHR Scientific Council (through its SPP committee) for approval of the remaining $2 million from central CIHR resources. Due to competing priorities, approval of this request is in some doubt at the time of the IAB meeting, and members of the Board, while strongly endorsing the commitment of central CIHR funding for an international collaboration of this nature, agreed to the contingency of allocating additional Institute strategic funding to ensure that the partnership will proceed.

HIV/AIDS

Results of recent competitions for grants from the $22.5 million dedicated annually to the CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Initiative were reviewed. The continuing low application and success rates for the health services/population health stream were highlighted along with efforts by the CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Advisory Committee (CHARAC) to address this issue. As a result of a working group's deliberations, a "Centres for Population Health and Health Services Research Development in HIV/AIDS" funding opportunity was launched in December 2007. The two successful centres will receive funding of $0.5 million annually for 5 years to "mobilize research talent and increase productivity and impact of research by providing core infrastructure funding for multidisciplinary teams". It was also noted that 2 of the 52 STIHR grants approved in the recent competition were HIV-focused, and one of these would contribute to pillar 3/pillar 4 capacity in time.

Outcomes of the CHARAC planning session held in January 2009 include new funding opportunities in "Co-morbidity" and "Drug Toxicities" to be developed in 2009-10. Priority announcement, catalyst grants and the community-based research (CBR) program competition will also be re-launched.

The CBR program has undergone a formal evaluation and 14 recommendations are contained in the report. The recommendations address awareness and promotion, application process, merit review, requirements for release of funding and administration. CHARAC will consider the recommendations in its June meeting, and develop a 3 year implementation plan in 2009.

The Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative (CHVI) plans to spend $139 million over 5 years, with $22 million of that allocated to "Discovery/Social Research" and administered by CIHR. Five catalyst grants and 2 operating grants have been funded under CHVI to date, but the majority of the research funding will be dedicated to emerging team grants launched May 7, 2009 and large team grants to be launched in summer 2009. Four applications for a "pilot scale HIV vaccine manufacturing facility for clinical trial lots" are being reviewed, and the results are anticipated by late 2009 or early 2010. Up to $89 million will be committed to the selected facility, with $28 million derived from the Gates Foundation.

Vaccines of the 21st Century

A report from the meeting of potential vaccine initiative funders organized by the Institute in Ottawa on January 16 2009 has been completed and circulated to meeting participants. Three priority areas were identified and a number of organizations represented expressed interest in participating with the Institute in an initiative led by the Institute, but funding commitments were limited. A catalyst grant funding opportunity in this area is under review with funding decisions anticipated by September 2009. Launch of a major vaccine initiative may require more time to develop the appropriate tool and focus, and a launch before June of 2010 is unlikely. It is proposed to build this around a human immunology theme, perhaps incorporating system biology approaches.

Guest Speaker – Lorne Babiuk: VP Research, University of Alberta

Guest Speaker – Malcolm King: Scientific Director – Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health

Strategic Investment Gaps and Opportunities

Human Immunology, Clinical Immunotherapy and Vaccines of the 21st Century

Noting that major research gaps exist in the current understanding of the human immune system, the Board discussed strategies to catalyze research that might enable progress in advancing human immunology. The challenges are several – sample collection is difficult and time consuming, cohorts are difficult to establish and maintain, reviewers are critical of what is perceived as discovery research instead of hypothesis driven research, individual researchers don't have the resources to provide an in-depth systems approach, mentors for those entering the field are limited. While large scale programs with multi-million dollar platforms might be able to integrate human and animal studies and develop the necessary biobanks and tissue microarrays, regional sample collection and research ethics boards make such programs very difficult to implement. In the CIHR context, it was suggested that the creation of an NCE-like structure might be the most feasible approach, especially if such a network integrated existing cohorts and focused on new tools to assess immunity. Each centre in the network might specialize in one or 2 diseases, considering them from the perspectives of all 4 pillars, but the platform technologies and sample protocols would need to be standardized. Multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease were cited as Canadian examples which have existing research strengths, control groups and established cohorts. Exploiting the occurrence of rare diseases (e.g. human knockouts) may also yield useful data. And a better understanding of the parameters of the human immune response might lead to more effective development of vaccines, both therapeutic and prophylactic.

Chronic Inflammation, Infections and the Immune System

As for immunotherapy and vaccines, the nature of the human immune response in cases of chronic inflammation and infections is not well characterized. There is interest across multiple CIHR Institutes in targeting inflammation as a common theme in various disease states. It is proposed that a workshop be held in the fall to consider potential research responses, with the Institute of Infection and Immunity being particularly interested in investigating "immune mechanisms involved in chronic inflammation to identify novel biomarkers, therapeutic targets and prevention strategies". Other CIHR Institutes include ICR, ICRH, IMHA, INMHA, and INMD.

Other Business

Bill C11

M. Ouellette described parliamentary committee meetings he attended relating to Bill C11, which deals with the regulation of microbial pathogens and toxins. Minor changes had been made to the old Bill C54 when the new one was introduced but it was virtually the same legislation. In the end, level 2 pathogens were excluded from the Bill following presentations by researchers, but other proposals were not implemented. Researchers were assured that additional consultation will be done by PHAC when the regulations are drafted. The Bill has been passed by the House and will now go to the Senate.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 11:40 a.m.