Science and Research Committee on Dec. 5th, 2022

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses here for the second hour of the meeting.

Dr. Rouleau, you're the director of the Neuro, or the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, whose mission is to help understand the brain. Your institute conducts research while also providing care to patients. It also teaches the next generation of neuroscience physicians and researchers. In addition, the Neuro is the first institute in the world to fully embrace the principle of open science.

Can you tell us more about how open science principles are reflected in what your institute does?

[Guy Rouleau]

That's an interesting question.

To put everyone on the same page, the philosophy of open science is to quickly share all data, knowledge and materials generated.

It would take me more than six minutes to explain it all, but briefly, we've created tools to be able to share information of all kinds and from different sources. We worked with patients to develop an ethical framework so that we could share patient data and information. We've created a biobank that contains all this information, but also biospecimens that are available to any researcher for the purpose of studying diseases.

We've done a great deal of educating internally to make sure people buy into the principles around open science. In addition, we've been working to convince other Canadian neuroscience institutes to adopt open science. Three Canadian institutes have now adopted it, but no others have anywhere in the world. So it's an area where Canada is ahead of everyone else.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Do you believe that getting researchers to embrace open science more broadly could have a transformative or catalyst effect, particularly in the pursuit of ambitious projects?

[Guy Rouleau]

Absolutely.

We saw what happened with COVID‑19. When it hit, people decided quickly that everyone was going to openly share the data and all the information. It wasn't perfect, because some people didn't share their data, but the vast majority did, and that played a huge role in finding ways to prevent or treat the disease rapidly.

It will certainly accelerate the discovery and development of new treatments in medicine and many other fields.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Can you tell us if there are any other specific challenges or difficulties related to implementing this approach? Why have other institutes not bought into it yet?

[Guy Rouleau]

It's the dream of making lots of money. Historically, universities got patents and were supposed to issue licences to generate profits. In reality, it didn't work, because universities do research and train students, but they're not designed to generate profits. Businesses have the expertise in that area.

The biggest hurdle is probably that people don't want to share the fruits of their research because they think if they keep it to themselves, they can develop products and make money. However, a study has shown that in Canada, the revenue from open science and open patents exceeds the revenue from all licensing. I've seen data showing that for every new company founded, there are 3,000 patents registered. So it's a very inefficient system.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much, Dr. Rouleau.

In your field, which is neuroscience, are there any projects that would benefit from an ambitious program strategy? I mean making significant investments to ensure sustained research efforts with the goal of solving a problem or making a major discovery.

[Guy Rouleau]

I see two possibilities.

The first is neurodevelopment. We're beginning to understand neurodevelopmental diseases better and better and we can design treatments. We're seeing the very beginnings of this approach. In this field, an ambitious program would help us find treatments for several forms of autism, developmental disabilities, and so on. For example, we could treat someone with one of those conditions so that they have a regular IQ and can contribute to society. That type of thing could be promising.

The second possibility involves treatments for dementia. In Canada, a lot of investments are being made in dementia research. An ambitious program would allow us to find Canadian treatments for these very significant diseases.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

We had Yoshua Bengio of the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute appear recently. Do your two institutes currently have any partnerships?

[Guy Rouleau]

Yes, we have a tremendous amount of partnerships. I've recruited people who only work there. One of our neurology residents is doing a doctorate with him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. Rouleau, I'm sorry to interrupt. I really have the worst job. I have to interrupt these interesting remarks.

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, would you like a written response?

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

No need, Madam Chair, he's answered my question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you.

Now, dear colleagues, we will go to Mr. Cannings for six minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you again for being here.

Some of you I'm seeing for the first time in real life—I've been on Zoom with you—so it's good to have you here.

I'm going to continue on with Dr. Rouleau.

Canada does have this deep history in neuroscience. As you said, we have a strong international presence in that field, and McGill seems to be the centre of that. You talked about the collaboration that Canada is also strong at. I'm just wondering how broad that is across the country and how important it is. When I worked at UBC, there were studies on spinal cord research in zoology where I was.

I'm just wondering how broad those collaborations are and how connected Canadian researchers are versus being connected to more international labs outside of Canada.

[Guy Rouleau]

There is a lot of excellent neuroscience research being done in many places in Canada. McGill is strong—I thank you for mentioning that—but so are universities in Toronto, Calgary, Halifax and many other places.

Over the past years, two things have happened.

One is that the Canadian Association for Neuroscience was created and has become a unifying force, with a very active meeting every year. It includes everybody who does neuroscience in Canada who wants to be part of it.

The second is something called the CBRS, the Canadian Brain Research Strategy group, which brings together at least 30 different institutions that are involved in neuroscience research in Canada. We meet regularly. We talk about the issues we have in common and what we need to do. Collaborations are established and many of the different researchers work together. I would say it is a very close group that works a lot together and works well together.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

You were talking earlier of the open science concept, and you said that seemed to be restricted to Canada, at least in neuroscience, or perhaps even smaller than that. How broad is that across the country? Is it shared by all these institutions, or is it just in McGill? How broad is that in Canada? I think you tried to answer why it isn't happening everywhere else in the world.

[Guy Rouleau]

I do think this notion of open science hits the Canadian philosophy, the way Canadians think—and I'm just saying what I think. We're much more socially driven and more wanting to work together.

I mentioned the University of Calgary's nurse science group, called the Hotchkiss Brain Institute. It has joined The Neuro. The Douglas Mental Health University Institute has also joined The Neuro. We have UBC, where the Mowafaghian is working towards adopting open science. The University of Western Ontario is working to adopt open science, as are multiple institutions in Toronto, including CAMH and the Baycrest university health network. Quebec City has expressed interest. Université de Montréal has expressed interest. Edmonton is on board.

It's really blossoming. Most, if not all, neuroscience research institutes and groups in Canada are coming on board. There is very little resistance. Once people do the education and once they understand, they come on board.

There's no such institution on the planet, anywhere in the world.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thanks.

I have 100 seconds. I'll turn to BioCanRx.

One thing about these treatments is they're quite expensive, I understand. I'm wondering what a moon shot would do. Where are we with that trend of bringing those costs down to make it easier for provinces to say they're going to cover those, and cover more? That does seem to be a big issue.

[Dr. John Bell]

Maybe I'll respond. In line with what Guy was just saying about the different models and new approaches, we believe it is a new approach for science, not only in discovery, as Guy was referring to, but also in translation. Rather than fill the coffers of companies, we feel a better approach is to use our treatments in Canada with not-for-profit types of entities that we create. Then we actually make sure the patients get treated, but also the money that goes into that sort of organization gets put back into science.

I think that complements the open science part that Guy was speaking about.

[Dr. Stéphanie Michaud]

There's an excellent opportunity for Canada to capitalize on its existing bone marrow transplantation centres. This is what we've done with the extension of our point-of-care manufacturing network, to roll out the manufacturing of expensive therapies, like CAR T cell, across the country. We're able to significantly lower the cost of this product, while at the same time capitalizing on existing infrastructure—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. Michaud, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Thank you, Mr. Cannings.

We appreciate, again, all of our witnesses.

We will now go to the five-minute round. We have Mr. Ruff tonight.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Chair, for having me.

I have a few questions, ideally for all three witnesses.

First off, I do want to point out, Mr. Rouleau, that I did take issue with your first point about everybody having a brain. You are talking to a bunch of federal politicians, and the jury is still out on whether or not we actually meet that requirement.

My specific question to you and to BioCanRx is with respect to a specific incurable disease right now, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, DIPG as it's known. Is there any progress there? Is there something here? I know you're both talking about the moon shot here and investment, but here's a disease that I know is impacting youth across the country, not in large numbers, but it is incurable. It's basically a death sentence for those families who find out.

I'm wondering where your research is on DIPG, specifically. Perhaps I could ask both Mr. Rouleau and BioCanRx.

[Guy Rouleau]

Maybe I can start.

I know this very well. There's a lot of research being done on that in Montreal and in Toronto. There is even a company that has been created. It has been created in the open space. It's called M4K, Meds for Kids, and it's working on development of a potential treatment for this disease.

It's a nice example of a rare, terrible disease where when we started understanding some of the biology, ideas appeared as to how to find treatments for this disease.

[Dr. John Bell]

Just to add to that, in California now, again using the CAR T-cell approach in this particular indication, they are seeing some promising activity in young kids suffering from it.

I think there are things happening, as Guy mentioned, and I think there are a lot of new opportunities, so it's time to be optimistic, although it's tough when you're right in the middle of it, for sure.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Is there anything we can do to speed it up or to help advance it?