苹果淫院

By 聽James Martin

苹果淫院 professors Corinne Maurice and Kieran O鈥橠onnell have been appointed to the CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program, a new initiative that helps outstanding early-career researchers develop the leadership and communication skills, and network connections, they鈥檒l need to solve some of our most pressing problems

Remember the classroom chestnut about the three Rs? The future of cutting-edge research hinges on the three Cs: communication, collaboration and connection. A new initiative from the (CIFAR) aims to help promising early-career researchers develop their skills as leaders and collaborators. Two 苹果淫院 professors are in the first cohort of 18 CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars: Corinne Maurice, assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Kieran O鈥橠onnell, assistant professor in epigenetics and epidemiology in the Department of Psychiatry.

The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program is open to researchers who are in the first five years of their first academic appointment. Scholars receive $100,000 CDN in undesignated research support (meaning it could be used to buy equipment or to pay student and postdoctoral researchers) and a two-year appointment to one of CIFAR鈥檚 14 research programs, which are global networks of leading interdisciplinary researchers who 鈥渢ackle questions across four broad areas: improving human health, creating successful societies, using technology to make life better, and sustaining life on Earth.鈥�

Corinne Maurice came to 苹果淫院 in January 2015 and is the Canada Research Chair in Gut Microbial Physiology. Her research focuses on better understanding the interactions between bacteria and bacteriophages (viruses that attack bacteria), and how we might modulate those natural relationships to get better results from antibiotics and other interventions.

Although we have long appreciated the importance of a healthy gastrointestinal tract, Maurice鈥檚 field is surprisingly new. So new, in fact, that it wasn鈥檛 even the subject of her PhD research at the Universit茅 de Montpellier in France. 鈥淚 focused on bacterial and viral communities in aquatic systems,鈥� she says, adding with a chuckle, 鈥淪o I basically went kayaking on Mediterranean lagoons.鈥� As she was finishing her doctorate, other researchers began publishing the first seminal papers using data from the Human Microbiome Initiative, a four-year quest to identify and sequence all the microorganisms in the human body聽 鈥� basically, the microbe version of the Human Genome Project.

鈥淪o when I started looking at postdoc opportunities, the field of human microbiome research kept coming up on my radar,鈥� she recalls. 鈥淚 thought it was so cool that you could look at humans as micro ecosystems; I鈥檇 never considered the human body that way. During my four-year postdoc with Peter Turnbaugh at Harvard University, I transitioned to the human gut. But I鈥檓 still working on bacterial communities and the viruses that affect the bacteria.鈥�

Kieran O鈥橠onnell also had an a-ha moment when it came to choosing a postdoc path. While finishing his PhD in clinical medicine at Imperial College London, where he studied the long-term effects of maternal prenatal anxiety or depression on child development, he attended a conference in Boston. There, 苹果淫院 epigenetics researcher Michael Meaney gave a presentation on how a mother rat鈥檚 nurturing activity strongly affected whether their babies grew up to exhibit anxiety-like or depressive-like behaviours.

鈥淗e was unpacking the biology of something we have known for years: 聽that what happens early in life can have a sustained impact on brain and behaviour,鈥� O鈥橠onnell remembers. 鈥淚 immediately wondered if similar molecular mechanisms could be at play in humans.鈥� That question led to five years working as a postdoc in Meaney鈥檚 lab at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre, and now O鈥橠onnell鈥檚 current appointment as a principal investigator at the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics & Mental Health.

Much of his research focuses on understanding what is happening, at the molecular level, during the prenatal development period 鈥� particularly with respect to a mother鈥檚 anxiety, depression or stress 鈥� with the ultimate goal of one day being able to identify people who may be at risk for adverse mental health outcomes such as ADHD or depression.聽 In order to get the richest understanding of how the 鈥減ersistent influence鈥� of early development plays out over a lifetime, O鈥橠onnell works with multiple cohorts around the world, including a large group of British twentysomethings that have been studied since they were in the womb. 聽His postdoc appointment was through CIFAR/NeuroDevNet, so he is excited at the prospect of continuing his collaboration with CIFAR鈥檚 鈥渞eally dynamic, interdisciplinary鈥� Child & Brain Development Program.

Maurice is joining the CIFAR Humans & the Microbiome Program. 鈥淲hat the Global Scholars program means for me,鈥� she says, 鈥渋s being part of this incredible network of highly established people working at the forefront of their own research themes 鈥� and understanding how I could develop my research theme either by collaborating with other people who are either new in the field or already established.鈥�

She鈥檚 also excited about the Global Scholars leadership and communication training. As part of the application process, candidates were asked to explain their research to people from other disciplines. 鈥淚t鈥檚 obvious why my peers are interested in the microbiome,鈥� says Maurice, 鈥渂ut why should people in the social sciences care about it?聽 That was extremely valuable for me. It got me out of my comfort zone and pushed me to think about the next big thing. If you want to move things forward, you have to interact with people from a variety of fields.鈥�

O鈥橠onnell calls that interview exercise 鈥渇ascinating,鈥� and looks forward to more leadership training throughout the next two years.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just not something that universities often offer to junior faculty,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 something that I think will be crucial to my success. Modern day science requires leaders in their fields to communicate broadly and effectively to diverse audiences. You need to be able to engage with the public 鈥� but in a reasonable way, not in a sensational way. For my own work, I鈥檓 acutely aware of the irony of telling women not to get stressed about being stressed. You have to communicate in a measured manner.鈥�

He points to the great advances made in cardiovascular research, beginning with the Framingham Heart Study, a longitudinal study that began in 1948. 鈥淭hat study coined the term 鈥榬isk factor,鈥欌�� he says. 鈥淣ow, a doctor can take several risk factors 鈥� your cholesterol levels, whether you smoke, your blood pressure 鈥� and use that to predict the likelihood of a coronary event over a five- or 10- or even 15-year period. We can鈥檛 do that in mental health, yet, but that鈥檚 where we want to get to: identifying the biological, the psychological and the psychosocial factors, that could be entered into a prediction algorithm to identify those most at risk.

鈥淏ut for my research to have that kind of impact, I will need to interact and communicate with policy makers and the people who will effect change at the policy level. With this dedicated leadership training component, I don鈥檛 have to learn those skills on the fly, and I鈥檒l be able to more effectively communicate with a variety of audiences and ensure a much wider impact.鈥�