Health

Why is this research important to Alberta? Chronic wounds and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are major and growing healthcare challenges in Alberta, driving prolonged hospital stays, increased costs, and poor patient outcomes. Biofilm-associated infections affect most chronic wound patients and are difficult to treat with existing therapies. This project addresses a critical gap by developing a […]

Why is this research important to Alberta? Alberta is seeing a steady rise in thyroid cancer diagnoses, yet doctors often lack reliable tools to predict which tumors will behave aggressively. As a result, many patients undergo more surgery or treatment than necessary, increasing healthcare costs and affecting long-term quality of life. This project will: Evaluate

Why is this research important to Alberta? Alberta faces growing health and environmental challenges from chemical exposures caused by wildfire smoke, industrial emissions, pesticides, and pollutants. These exposures contribute to chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, increasing healthcare costs and reducing quality of life. Current monitoring methods are expensive and limited, restricting

Why is this research important to Alberta? Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer deaths in men. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening has a high false positive rate making it a controversial screening tool. There is an urgent need for a more specific diagnostic test to improve prostate

There are >500,000 bloodstream infections (BSIs) resulting in >90,000 deaths per year in North America. Every hour that elapses between the onset of BSI symptoms and the administration of appropriate antibiotics increases the risk of dying by 7%. Current diagnostic tools take 24–48+ hours to identify which antibiotics will be effective. During this time, clinicians

Kidney transplantation is the best treatment for patients with kidney failure. However, over 25% of kidney transplants in Canada fail within 10 years due to both rejection and other causes of injury. Currently, doctors rely on an old blood test called creatinine to monitor the health of the kidney organ, but it is known that

This project will develop, validate, and roll out an updated and expanded pharmacogenetic test panel that will predict the risk of 7 severe chemotherapy-induced adverse drug reactions (ADRs – also known as ‘side effects’) in pediatric oncology. This test panel is a practical solution for adopting and implementing a precision health strategy into pediatric oncology.

Pharmacogenetics (PGx) testing helps doctors tailor medications and doses based on a patient’s genetic profile, improving treatment outcomes and reducing side effects. Despite its proven clinical and economic benefits, PGx testing has not been widely adopted. This is partly due to challenges in standardizing how genetic test results are reported and integrating these results into

Infections due to multidrug-resistant infectious diseases are a growing, silent pandemic, causing millions of deaths worldwide. An estimated 14,000 Canadians died due to drug-resistant bacterial infections in 2018. Hospital-associated (also known as nosocomial) drug-resistant infections burden healthcare systems due to severe medical complications and death. Management of these infections is estimated to cost hundreds of