The World Health Organization (WHO) has ended the global COVID-19 emergency, citing increased immunity, fewer deaths and less pressure on hospitals. The pandemic, which was first declared an international crisis on January 30, 2020, resulted in unprecedented lockdowns, economic upheaval and the deaths of at least seven million people worldwide and more than 52,000 people in Canada. (CBC News)
Here are some experts from McGill University who can provide comment on this issue:
On January 12, the Federal Government announced more than $295 million for science, research, and engineering in Canada through the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) 2020-2 cycle, the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) 2020 Transformation results, and the Tri-agency Scholarships and Fellowships.
Read the full story on the McGill Newsroom or the McGill Reporter.
Below is a list of all CRCs awarded in the 2020-2022 Cycle and McGill Co-PIs and Collaborators NFRF-T 2021-2027:
A research team led by Dr. Claudia Kleinman, an investigator at the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital, together with Dr. Nada Jabado, of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), and Dr. Michael Taylor, of The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), discovered that several types of highly aggressive and, ultimately, fatal pediatric brain tumors originate during brain development. The genetic event that triggers the disease happens in the very earliest phases of cellular development, most likely prenatal.
An over-reliance on self-report screening questionnaires, wherein patients essentially define their own condition, in place of diagnostic interviews conducted by a health care professional, has resulted in over-estimation of the prevalence of people with depression in many research studies – often by a factor of two to three times. This is according to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The study found that over 75% of recent research on depression prevalence has been based exclusively on patient completed questionnaires.
A regimen of a novel bone anabolic medication (which builds bone mass) followed by an antiresorptive agent (which maintains bone mass) has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of fracture among post-menopausal women with severe osteoporosis, according to results of a clinical trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Women who experience hypertension during pregnancy face an increased risk of heart disease and hypertension later in life, according to a new study.
McGill Newsroom
Canadian drug safety network provides reassuring evidence regarding risk of heart failure of anti-diabetes medications
Incretin-based drugs, a type of medication used to treat type 2 diabetes, do not increase the risk of being hospitalized for heart failure relative to commonly used combinations of oral anti-diabetic drugs, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
By Tod Hoffman, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research
The use of incretin-based drugs is not associated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a study published in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
The research was conducted by the Canadian Network for Observational Drug Effect Studies (CNODES), which used the health records of almost 1 million patients with types 2 diabetes.
The discovery that tavilermide induces the production of mucin, a crucial lubricant in tears, offers hope of relief to people who suffer from chronic dry eye disease. The invention and the development of a drug based on this small molecule was made by the team of Dr. H. Uri Saragovi, Senior Investigator at the Lady Davis Institute (LDI) at the Jewish General Hospital and Professor of Pharmacology at McGill University.
Landmark Clinical Trial of a Novel Combination Treatment for Type 1 Diabetes Begins at Jewish General Hospital and McGill University Health Centre
Low levels of vitamin D significantly increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study led by Dr. Brent Richards of the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital, and published in PLOS Medicine. This finding, the result of a sophisticated Mendelian randomization analysis, confirms a long-standing hypothesis that low vitamin D is strongly associated with an increased susceptibility to MS. This connection is independent of other factors associated with low vitamin D levels, such as obesity.
