Right.
Dr. Tremblay?
Evidence of meeting #23 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was virus.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #23 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was virus.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3 p.m.
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
If we had treatment, that would be good too. Unlike HIV, a virus that enters the host genome and then stays within the person, this is an RNA virus. It's wimpy compared with viruses like HIV. If we could have a good antiviral that could reduce its replication and render it much less virulent within the person, that could help too. Outside of that, though, it's going to be social distancing.
3 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Committee members have often been directed to public health agencies and publicly available data for up-to-date information. Is that the same information that researchers are using?
I have very little time, so yes or no is probably fine.
3 p.m.
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Yes.
3 p.m.
Full Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Medical Microbiologist and Epidemiologist, CHU Sainte-Justine, As an Individual
Yes. We have nothing more.
3 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you so much to all of you brilliant minds for being here today and for sharing just a little bit of your wealth of knowledge.
Dr. Wright, in your conversation with MP Van Bynen, you talked a little about how the COVID-19 pandemic could contribute to the rise of AMR. On the other side of that coin, are there any aspects of the response to the pandemic, such as increased infection prevention or control measures in hospitals and in other settings, that might help to combat the rise of AMR?
3 p.m.
Director, Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research and David Braley Centre for Antibiotic Discovery, McMaster University, As an Individual
That's a really good point. We don't know the answer yet. Everything is theoretical. On the one hand, we're concerned about selecting for more drug resistance, but on the other hand, because everyone is all of a sudden washing their hands properly and wearing masks while out and about doing their grocery shopping, the amount of contact that people would normally have with other organisms is decreasing. So the jury is still out.
Inside of hospitals, they will always be nervous about drug resistance, but out in the community, I think we might actually see a decrease. As I said, though, the jury is still out.
3:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Well, I'll tell you, I'm a politician, and I haven't shaken a hand since March 11. So you 're absolutely right.
Sticking with the hypothetical, Dr. Wright, let's say the worst was to happen and the virus never goes away. It becomes endemic in our communities. How would you change how people prepare for a second or third wave? If hand sanitizers create a future risk, what would you recommend to keep our citizens safe?
3:05 p.m.
Director, Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research and David Braley Centre for Antibiotic Discovery, McMaster University, As an Individual
I think we're doing it right now. We've shown how to do it. We're getting very good at the new normal, which is the physical distancing between people to avoid these things. As I said before, hand sanitizers aren't necessarily a problem if they're alcoholized. People washing their hands, washing door handles, and all sorts of things that are happening much more in our institutions than they used to is the way to prevent the infection.
As Dr. Tremblay said, short of a new drug cocktail that you could take preventively if you were exposed—probably our first way out, by the way, will be not a vaccine but some collection of drugs that we'll be able to deal with—I think it will be the new normal for all of us. It's happening to us. I mean, I'm in my basement; I'm not at work.
3:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Dr. Mossman, your research is fascinating. Congratulations on your grant. At what stage are you in your research right now? I don't think you had an opportunity to fill us in on where you are today.
3:05 p.m.
Acting Vice-President, Research, McMaster University, As an Individual
We're really interested in understanding the pathogenesis of this virus, so we're starting to learn what cell types the virus can actually enter in and replicate in—what cells are permissive. We're looking at immune cells in particular, so we're starting to understand a lot about just the biology of the virus.
Also, then, part of the lab is very interested in comparing human cells and bat cells, because bats, of course, can carry all of these viruses and not get sick. We're starting to understand those very small changes.
Because bats are mammals, their immune system is very similar to ours, and we're starting to understand what those very small changes are. Now we're going to work with colleagues to try to come up with mechanisms, be it drugs or small molecules, so that we can change the human system into the bat system so they would be protective.
3:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Last week, we had Canada's chief science adviser, Dr. Mona Nemer, at our committee. She talked about the importance of promoting open science.
Dr. Mossman, you've talked a bit about that, but I'll go to anyone else who would like to answer. What specific steps have researchers or universities taken in order to share that data?
3:05 p.m.
Acting Vice-President, Research, McMaster University, As an Individual
Aside from many of our researchers now putting their findings online before or during the process of peer review, there are now many mechanisms to put your research online. McMaster has also signed an open COVID IP pledge, which will say that for any findings that we find, the intellectual property will be available for a period of time, such as a year, just to ensure that people can use our findings. It's about the greater good rather than any sort of monetary or commercial value.
3:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
That would be a big change since 2003 with SARS, right?
3:05 p.m.
Acting Vice-President, Research, McMaster University, As an Individual
Absolutely.
May 25th, 2020 / 3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all our presenters today for their opening comments.
I want to talk a bit about the research grants that are available out there.
Dr. Mossman, you talked about your funding and how that's being provided by the CIHR.
Dr. Wright, you are very grateful for the funding you're getting, according to your testimony here.
Dr. Tremblay, you congratulate the government for the money that it put toward research, although you've mentioned that short-term funding opportunities have the only available research dollars and you see no more future announcements for funding.
The committee, back on April 14, heard that the CIHR, in collaboration with the provinces, was able to invest $54.2 million to support COVID-19. On April 23, our committee heard that an additional $115 million in funding was allocated as part of a $1.1-billion national medical research strategy for COVID-19.
In hearing from all of you today, some of you are grateful for the funding you're receiving, others not so much.
Dr. Quach-Thanh, you mentioned that it is difficult to obtain grants from the CIHR. I'm just a bit confused here. Some of you are happy with the research dollars and others are not. How many more billions of dollars do we need in order to satisfy the researchers in Canada?
I'll start with Dr. Quach-Thanh, please.
3:10 p.m.
Full Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Medical Microbiologist and Epidemiologist, CHU Sainte-Justine, As an Individual
Well, as researchers, I think we would always want more money to fund research. I think you knew the answer to that question by asking it.
I think it's the variety of research that is currently happening that makes it so difficult for other good research to be funded. If you look at the scores currently, you can see that some grants that have scored above 4.0, which is amazing, are not even funded.
I understand the competition. I understand all of that, but it depends on how the committees are seeing the importance of each question. As I said, prevention is usually not as sexy as a cure or as genetics. It's not as easy for all the topics to actually float to the surface, regardless of how well you write it. I can't tell you how much money we want. I can only tell you that we want more—
3:10 p.m.
Full Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Medical Microbiologist and Epidemiologist, CHU Sainte-Justine, As an Individual
It's a political decision. It's not ours to make.
3:10 p.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Yes, exactly.
What areas of research should be prioritized in your view?
3:10 p.m.
Full Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Medical Microbiologist and Epidemiologist, CHU Sainte-Justine, As an Individual
If I was talking for myself, I think I'd say I want infection prevention to be highlighted.
I think all the domains actually need to be funded. The problem is you never know what research done today will help you tomorrow. When people developed and invented the laser they didn't know what they were going to do with it. At one point in time it became trendy and people were able to use it. To be able to tell you now what needs to be funded is impossible. I think the research community just needs to keep an open mind to all the projects that are coming up, including very obscure, basic science projects, you could say, where you don't see an applicability today but which could be the need of the future.
3:10 p.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Yes, thank you for that.
Dr. Tremblay, can you give us a better idea of the limitations and advantages of short-term funding? Do you have some examples to share?
3:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
The advantage of short-term funding is what you've seen so far, money given right away to test new drugs and start the vaccine development process. That was very important and was done. What is useful in long-term funding is what you do next. For example, we need to know the durability. We need to be able to prepare for a new pandemic. How do we monitor the viral illnesses, the zoonosis that comes from animals to humans over time? There was a push for research during SARS-CoV and then afterwards nothing more. The research was left in the middle of the development for a vaccine. That was never completed because it was not popular anymore then and it was not à la mode.
You need both. You need infrastructure that will allow us to be prepared for any kind of viral illness that can come and that will be useful for all researchers, and you also need to have specific, multidisciplinary research programs that can lead to collaboration and eventually to innovation.
Just to be correct, there hasn't been a billion dollars put into research for this pandemic. It's the $150 million. Just to fund one clinical trial is $5 million. To give you an idea of how little you can fund for $150 million, if you have 10 clinical trials for vaccines, then a third of your money is gone and you haven't started looking at infection prevention, more basic immunity or other stuff. Unfortunately, you don't go far with $150 million.
