Focus on Impact

The Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) is grounded in our partnership with you — our community. Our mission is better health care through research and education. And our greatest strength is our people who, like you, are committed to making a difference.

While this year came with its challenges, we also witnessed remarkable progress across a number of fronts. We continue to lead and make important discoveries in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, furthering knowledge of how to manage it, and examining the associated social, physical and mental health implications of the virus. Ours is a team effort with CSM researchers, scientists, donors, alumni, staff and students working tirelessly and collaboratively across our global community to effect change.

Our impact in other areas is growing as well. As you’ll read, a research team led by Dr. S.R. Wayne Chen, PhD, is making exciting breakthroughs with the potential to prevent and reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Elsewhere, CSM researchers are using data science and advanced analytics to improve our understanding of cancer risk, detection and treatment. Work that’s being done now is preparing us to take full advantage of new opportunities to meet the cancer challenge when the Calgary Cancer Centre opens in 2023.

Leading research in Canada’s battle against colon cancer

Cumming School of Medicine researchers are gathering data from more than 20,000 participants in one of the largest research projects in Canada designed to improve early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer. By investigating the characteristics that could personalize the way Canadians are screened for this cancer, they hope to develop the next generation of screening tests.

Colorectal cancer is expected to be the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canada in 2020, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. It is the second leading cause of death from cancer in men and the third leading cause of death from cancer in women.

“Our goal is to improve screening for colorectal cancer and, ultimately, patient outcomes,” says Dr. Robert Hilsden, MD, PhD, (MSc ’96, PhD ’01) research director of the Forzani and MacPhail Colon Cancer Screening Centre at UCalgary’s Foothills campus. “First, we want to better understand who is at high risk for colorectal cancer and who is not, so we know who needs to be screened and how best to do it. Second, we want to improve the screening experience to maximize participation.”   

The data collected from patients includes biospecimens (blood, urine, normal colon tissue) and detailed information about each participant’s medical history, lifestyle, physical activity and diet.

“More than ever before, this research is allowing us to use data science and advanced analytics to understand cancer risk,” says Dr. Darren Brenner, PhD, the associate research director of the centre. “From this work we can develop and advocate for improved policy, practice and personal change to bend the curve and reduce the cancer burden in Canada. The work has the potential to save lives and have a positive economic impact, as we reduce the need to access the health-care system.”

Both researchers are members of the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute and the O’Brien Institute for Public Health.

Improving treatment for glioblastoma patients

Niacin, a B-vitamin you see on grocery store shelves, may help glioblastoma brain cancer patients live longer when paired with chemotherapy and radiation. A new five-year clinical trial is looking at how this vitamin, also known as vitamin B3, may kick-start the body’s own defences to fight this cruel disease.

Glioblastoma cells are stubbornly resistant to treatment, and patients usually succumb to the highly aggressive brain cancer less than two years after diagnosis. Niacin has been shown to reboot immune cells, prompting them to attack stem cells that fuel the growth of the tumours.

A 2020 study by Dr. V. Wee Yong, PhD and Dr. Susobhan Sarkar, PhD, members of the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute and the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, found that mice with glioblastoma lived nearly four times longer when receiving niacin with chemo and radiation – up from 40 days to 150 days.

A new clinical trial, led by the Clark H. Smith Brain Tumour Centre’s Dr. Yong and Dr. Gloria Roldan Urgoiti, MD, (PGME ‘14) is looking at whether niacin can be added to temozolomide chemotherapy
and radiation therapy. The first step is to see if patients experience unexpected toxicities. After confirming that it is safe and finding the adequate dose, the clinical trial will continue to see if niacin controls the tumour when paired with temozolomide chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

“This is a story of homegrown bench-to-bedside collaboration that seeks to improve the prognosis of a deadly brain tumour,” says Yong, who is the Canada Research Chair in Neuroimmunology. “I am excited for this trial and the potential it has to help patients.”

The trial is moving forward with funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Alberta Health Services, the Alberta Cancer Foundation Kvisle Fund and the generosity of the Ronald and Irene Ward Foundation through the Hotchkiss Brain Institute.

Coping with cancer during the pandemic

Living through a pandemic is stressful for all of us. Adding the uncertainty and anxiety of a cancer diagnosis to your list of unknowns makes this an even more unsettling time.

Enbridge Research Chair in Psychosocial Oncology, Dr. Linda Carlson, PhD, (BSc ‘91) is leading a team of Canadian researchers studying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of cancer survivors.

The team from the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG) Supportive Care Committee has spearheaded a study of more than 1,000 survivors across the country diagnosed with cancer in the past ten years.

The 2020 study, titled “Living With Cancer in theTime of COVID-19,” asks participants to complete a series of surveys covering the impact of the pandemic on their mental health and quality of life, including stress levels, worries, depression, changes in cancer care and any positive changes that may have resulted from the pandemic.

“When the pandemic started, we knew this was going to affect cancer patients in many different ways,” says Dr. Carlson. “We
just didn’t know in how many different ways. Some things are potentially positive for patients because they can get care at home and travel less, but there are drawbacks, too. Treatments and surgeries were delayed, and there was a lot of talk about being
at higher risk of death or complications if they were to get COVID.”

The researchers hope the data will expose the full impact of the pandemic on this potentially vulnerable group and help
direct  strategies to better support cancer survivors through this exceptionally difficult period in history.

Working and studying from home during the COVID-19 pandemic has increased our exposure to radon: a radioactive gas which is the second leading cause of lung cancer, after smoking.

Charbonneau Institute researchers Drs. Aaron Goodarzi, PhD, and Cheryl Peters, PhD are working on a project to understand how residential exposure to radon gas during the global pandemic has influenced and may change future rates of lung cancer in Canada. 

“The trend toward working from home has been slowly increasing over the past decade. But those numbers have shifted dramatically in 2020 due to the widespread changes caused by COVID-19,” says Dr. Goodarzi, the Canada Research Chair for Radiation Exposure Disease. “We are currently analyzing the impact of this sudden change.”

The first phase of this Canadian multi-year project revealed an overall 13.1 per cent jump in residential radon exposure between March and November of 2020. As Canada experienced its second and third waves of COVID-19 infections, the team has been working to understand what populations are most vulnerable to these changes – now, and after the pandemic subsides.

This research, supported by the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, is particularly important in Alberta, as the Prairie provinces are home to the second-highest radon-exposed population on this planet. This project builds on Goodarzi’s work through Evict Radon, a multidisciplinary team of scientists committed to solving Canada’s large and worsening radon gas exposure problem.

Learn more about this work, including how you can test for radon and remove it from your home, by visiting: https://evictradon.org

A philanthropy-fueled database is proving its value and attracting national and international attention, including for some highly encouraging new research on survival rates for Albertans prescribed a well tolerated, pill-form treatment for a specific form of lung cancer.

The study, published in February 2021, looks at real-world outcomes for 92 patients from the provincial Glans-Look Database with Stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer. The study tracked their experience taking an ALK-inhibiting drug between 2014 and 2019.

While side-effects and timely access to treatment can sometimes get in the way of outcomes promised by a clinical trial, this study confirms the drug worked well and was safe for these Alberta patients.

“The exciting thing was that we found the experience in the real world was as good as we hoped,” says Dr. Gwyn Bebb, MD, PhD, a professor and member of the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute. “When you have people with lung cancer who can go back to work and look after their families, that is a very reassuring result.”

All the patients in the study were ALK-positive, meaning some unknown triggers prompted a chromosome carrying their ALK gene (anaplastic lymphoma kinase) to break off and fuse with another one. Roughly 40-50 Alberta patients are diagnosed with this form of lung cancer each year.

The study found that their median overall survival was four years – roughly four times longer than those treated with chemotherapy. Without treatment, Stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer patients often succumb to the disease within four to eight months.

Capturing this kind of real-world evidence relied on the depth of data secured by the UCalgary/Alberta Health Services Glans-Look Database – one of few of its kind and the envy of cancer researchers across Canada and around the world. Named for Albertan cancer patients and philanthropists, Jon Glans and Jim Look, this platform has collected detailed province-wide lung cancer outcomes data for close to 10,000 patients since 2008.

More than 75 per cent of pediatric cancer survivors develop long-term health and psychological difficulties after their cancer therapy, including anxiety and depression. As adults, survivors are less likely than their peers to graduate high school or hold a job.

New research through the Button Family Initiative in Pediatric Psychosocial Oncology & Survivorship, is being undertaken to address these difficulties.

Researcher Dr. Fiona Schulte, PhD, a member of  the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute and Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI), is leading a study to examine the health and psychosocial functioning in patients receiving care at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Long-Term Survivor Clinic (LTSC). This study will collect and compile existing and new data from questionnaires taken by patients and survivors across their lifespans – enabling researchers to find patterns and design interventions to address problems early on.

“Through a greater understanding of the common late effects, health concerns, health behaviours and psychosocial functioning in young men and women who attend the clinic, we can improve the current services for patients, and – working with them – develop new services to meet patient’s needs,” says Dr. Schulte.

Survivors receiving care through the Alberta Children’s Hospital LTSC are followed throughout their lifetimes, providing a unique opportunity for rich data collection. Collected and housed on-site, this database will provide the infrastructure to enable work well into the future. Researchers with specific questions will be able to mine this database to find correlations, leading to deeper understanding and better care.

There is no other place in North America that can support such a robust study. This research, made possible by CIBC and friends and family of volunteers Jim & Tracey Button, helps position UCalgary and our city as a leader in this field.

“The spinal cord acts as a communication line allowing the brain to send signals to tell the body such as when and how to move, as well as how to control vital functions, including blood pressure,” says Phillips. “This communication line is broken after a spinal cord injury. We created the first platform to understand the mechanisms underlying blood pressure instability after spinal cord injury, which allowed us to develop a new cutting-edge solution.”

That solution was developed by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and engineers from the Libin Cardiovascular Institute, the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and the McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health, all part of the UCalgary RESTORE Network.

RESTORE – which stands for REsearching STrategies fOr Rehabilitation – was created to enhance the recovery and lives of patients living with SCI, stroke, and other movement impairments by evaluating and discovering new treatments. RESTORE is supported by a generous gift from the estate of Edith Rodie in partnership with the Calgary Health Foundation.

In the study, targeted electrical stimulation of the spinal cord was used to stabilize blood flow throughout the body, allowing vital organs to maintain an appropriate supply of blood. “People feel more alert, are able to be upright and in their wheelchair without losing consciousness, and over the long term we think this may reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke,” says Dr. Sean Dukelow, MD, PhD, clinician scientist and co-author on the study. Dr. Dukelow leads the RESTORE Network.

Gill was the first patient in Calgary to participate in this research. Next is a series of clinical trials to test the device further
and bring it to the community, planned for Calgary and Switzerland and expected to begin later this year.

Based on their findings, Dr. Phillips and the team will work with industry partners to develop a neuro-stimulation system dedicated to the management of blood pressure in people with SCI.

“It’s exciting to see the science help push things forward,” says Gill. “I’m excited that Calgary will be one of the sites for a clinical trial. Research made a positive effect on my life and I’m glad others will benefit, too.”

Gill continues to work as part of the Calgary Adult Bariatric Surgery Clinic and is now the director of the Alberta Obesity Centre.