2025-26 Establishment Grant Recipients Are Driving a Culture of Innovation in Saskatchewan

This project will enhance substance use harms data infrastructure and analysis opportunities in Saskatchewan. The Mental Health and Addiction Information System (MHAIS) launched in 2017 to provide provincial and clinical data related to mental health and addictions care. However, research suggests that people who use substances either do not access formal health services, or these service engagements are occurring in the context of longer-term service relationships with community-based organizations that are external to the Saskatchewan Health Authority. As result, we cannot adequately understand substance use support pathways or provide a full continuum of care for people to address substance use related harms. This project will provide information to understand Saskatchewan Health Authority data pathways, community-based organization data harmonization opportunities, and align community leadership stakeholders, to start building the infrastructure and relationships for future data sharing and appropriate stewardship.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is a technique used to treat many fatal pediatric diseases; however, these transplants cause issues in the heart, lung, muscle, bone tissues and more. This treatment is not readily available in Canada. Our patient partner got treatment for their son in the USA because they were unable to receive timely treatment in Canada. We aim to develop an alternative transplant treatment that can be readily administered in Canada in any clinical setting. To the best of our knowledge, our research team is the only one in the world considering developing an alternative treatment that goes through the patient’s nose. If successful, other laboratories will likely adopt our approach because it is safer than other methods, and we would likely garner industry investments. Taken together, our project will improve the quality of life for pediatric patients and has the potential to benefit the Saskatchewan and Canadian economy.

There exists a teacher recruitment and retention crisis in many places across the country, resulting from increased class complexity and increasing expectations being placed on teachers to support the mental health of students. To address student wellbeing, school divisions have offered training opportunities for teachers on how to deal with student trauma and dys/regulation. Very little attention, however, has been paid to the individual, systemic, and structural forces shaping teachers’ wellbeing. Studies have been conducted in Australia and Portugal that show improvements in students’ wellbeing and academic performance when teachers have undergone a course focused on teacher wellbeing. Yet, no similar study has been conducted in Canada. This project will work alongside educational stakeholders in Saskatchewan to develop a contextually-relevant course focused on teacher wellbeing, and study the downstream impacts of that course on student outcomes, with the long-term goal of reducing attrition.

The nervous system relies on myelin sheaths to help neurons communicate efficiently. However, damage to myelin—called demyelination—can lead to problems with movement, sensation, vision, memory, and thinking. Saskatchewan has one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis, a disease where myelin loss causes these debilitating symptoms. Up to 70% of MS patients experience cognitive impairments, yet current treatments only slow disease progression and do not address cognitive decline. This study will use mouse models to explore how myelin repair differs across brain regions and test whether targeted stimulation of brain cell (neuron) activity can speed up myelin repair and restore cognitive functions. By modulating neuronal activity, we may trigger improved clearance of myelin debris, speed up new myelin production, and improve functional recovery. Findings from this preclinical study could offer new approaches for developing treatments and improving the quality of life for patients with demyelinating diseases.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is an understudied syndrome which affects 5 in 1000 Canadians and frequently results in altered brain development, social skills and behavior. The goal of this project is to establish the honey bee as a social animal model for FASD due to their highly developed, social behavior, similar to that of humans. Establishment of a honey bee model of FASD will support research efforts to understand the underlying causes and mechanisms of this disease, as well as identify potential treatments. To address the negative health impacts of FASD on Saskatchewan families, this research proposal will establish honey bees as an inexpensive, highly social animal model of FASD with future applications in screening of novel therapeutics for FASD.

Often invisible when things are going well, the public health system works tirelessly to protect and maintain population health. Unfortunately, in Canada, local public health systems are not well documented, and thus their impact is difficult to quantify. In this grant, I propose a series of research activities to formally understand the breadth of organizations involved in this vital sector, and to study how these organizations work together in Saskatoon.

Hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome is a severe respiratory disease caused by hantaviruses found in North and South America with a fatality rate of up to 40%. In Canada, the disease is caused by Sin Nombre virus, which is carried by deer mice, with most cases occurring in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Infection occurs after humans inhale the virus that is found in deer mouse urine, saliva, or droppings and the number of cases is rising due to climate change and impacts on rodent populations. There are no approved therapies or vaccines. Hantavirus disease is driven by blood vessel leakage and a strong inflammatory response that causes damage to the lungs, but little is known about the pathogenic drivers of disease development. Understanding what underlies hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome disease development will enable us to design better antivirals and immunotherapies and to provide early prognostic and diagnostic markers that can enable better treatment strategies.