INMD Newsletter - August 2011

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Message from Phil Sherman, INMD Scientific Director

Each of CIHR's 13 Institutes has an advisory board composed of a diverse group of national and international representatives of the public, private and non-profit sectors, including the research community and health practitioners.

Institute Advisory Boards (IABs) act in an advisory capacity to the Scientific Directors of the institutes and to the Governing Council with respect to the full range of institute activities. These activities include deliberation and evaluation on institute health research priorities and strategies and implementation plans for engaging the broader research community. They play a key role in the development of the institute's strategic plan, encourage partnerships, community links and engagement of relevant stakeholders, and communicate institute activities to the research community and the public. Profiles of all of INMD's IAB members can be viewed on our website. Please do not hesitate to contact any one of the INMD IAB members with issues and concerns where you feel that INMD might be able to provide some assistance.

INMD IAB members completing terms (from the left): Dr. Robert Haché and Dr. Daniel Bichet

INMD IAB members completing terms (from the left): Dr. Robert Haché and Dr. Daniel Bichet

The beginning of September brings about planned changes to the composition of all of the CIHR IABs. I wish to personally thank Drs. Robert Haché (York University) and Daniel Bichet (University of Montreal) for their outstanding contributions to the deliberations of the INMD IAB. I also wish to thank Rob for providing ethics leadership to the INMD IAB by serving as the Ethics Designate. Both Daniel and Rob have now completed their terms in office, so we bid them fond farewells and best wishes.

Philip M. Sherman, MD, FRCPC
INMD Scientific Director

CIHR 2011 International Review

The Governing Council of CIHR coordinated an International Review to determine whether CIHR has fulfilled its mandate during the last 10 years, and how CIHR can improve in the future. The Expert Review Team Report for Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes and the CIHR International Review Panel Report 2005—2010 are both now available on the CIHR website. The international review was conducted by an International Review Panel (IRP) chaired by Dr. Elias Zerhouni, former Director of the US National Institutes of Health. In addition, 13 Expert Review Teams (ERT) conducted reviews of the 13 CIHR Institutes.

The IRP commended the institutes for catalyzing research and convening and creating productive research partnerships between investigators and among institutes. The ERT recognized that INMD's focused support of obesity research has had a transformative impact on the Canadian research community. The panel also noted that by broadening our strategic research priorities from a single focus on obesity to four new research priorities, INMD has adopted a more inclusive strategic plan. Among the recommendations in both the ERT and IRP reports, was to move beyond traditional short-term academic metrics to demonstrate theof health research.

INMD looks forward to working with the other institutes to respond to the recommendations made by the IRP, in the spirit of improving our performance and preparing CIHR to meet Canada's future health research opportunities and challenges.

Cochrane Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Functional Bowel Disorders (IBD/FBD) Review Group: An Introduction to Cochrane Systematic Reviews John MacDonald, Univ. Western Ontario

Physicians, other health care providers and decision-makers rely on clinical practice guidelines, expert advice, and recommendations presented in traditional narrative reviews. Unfortunately, the quality of these sources is highly variable and may be poor even when published in high impact journals. The need for better quality reviews has led to the development of 'systematic reviews', which use explicit methods to identify, select, and collect relevant clinical research and to critically appraise and analyze the data, thus ensuring that a comprehensive search for relevant data is conducted and biases in data extraction and interpretation are avoided.

The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organization that aims to help people make informed decisions about healthcare by preparing, maintaining and promoting high quality, up-to-date systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions. Cochrane systematic reviews are published in the Cochrane Library (CL), an electronic database of systematic reviews. Abstracts and plain language summaries of all Cochrane systematic reviews are available without subscription. The main work of The Cochrane Collaboration is performed by 52 Cochrane Review Groups, who prepare, maintain, and disseminate Cochrane reviews in their subject areas.

CIHR is a funder of the Canadian Cochrane Centre (CCC), one of 14 independent, not-for-profit Cochrane Centres worldwide. The CCC cultivates evidence-based decision making by promoting the use and accessibility of Cochrane reviews. The CCC supports and offers high quality training to those interested in using and producing Cochrane systematic reviews.

The Cochrane Inflammatory Bowel Disease/Functional Bowel Disorders (IBD/FBD) Review Group prepares systematic reviews of health care interventions directed at ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and functional bowel disorders. The IBD/FBD review group has over 400 members worldwide, including 72 Canadian authors. As of August, 2011, the IBD/FBD review group will have 61 systematic reviews and 31 protocols published in the CL. Systematic reviews such as, "Aminosalicylates for induction of remission or response in Crohn's disease" serve to bridge the existing gap between therapy that is consistent with current evidence and that which is routinely administered to patients.

INMD wishes to congratulate researchers that were successful in recent INMD supported competitions:

Principle Investigator Institution Paid Project Title
Jeffrey G. Dickhout McMaster University Role of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in the development of kidney disease.
Mary R.'Abbe University of Toronto Evaluating the impact of Canada's Sodium Reduction Strategy on dietary intakes of sodium, the overall nutritional quality of the food supply, changes in food labeling, and consumer knowledge and attitudes towards sodium
Lindsay University of Calgary Population-level prevention and implications for socioeconomic inequities in health: Dietary sodium as a case example
Jerry M. Spiegel University of British Columbia Food systems and health equity in an era of globalization: Think, Eat and Grow Green Globally (TEG3)
Valerie S. University of Toronto Identifying policy interventions to reduce household food insecurity.