CANOPIE

The Canada Foundation for Innovation Grant is providing $3.1 million of a $9.1-million equipment upgrade for The Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC) with a newly formed Canadian Analytics Network for Outcome Prediction In Exposures (CANOPIE)—a collaborative project between the U of A, McGill University and the University of Calgary. The U of A will receive $2.6 million and McGill will receive $591,000. The Grant and it's purpose were recently highlighted in Folio.

This infrastructure grant will provide equipment that will support numerous studies. A priority among this research will be projects lead by grant Co-Lead and Neonatologist Dr. Matthew Hicks, whose team focuses on the health of mothers and infants. Dr. Hicks notes that eight per cent of pregnancies result in preterm birth, which is the leading cause of infant death, neurodevelopmental and respiratory morbidity—cerebral palsy, bronchopulmonary dysplasia and other chronic lung diseases—and child disability. “This infrastructure is not just creating a metabolomics profile of women who deliver early; it's about identifying who might benefit from intervention, and also whether there are potential therapies identified from the specific molecules we identify. The new equipment will also support samples analysis for the the Healthy Baby Brains project, in which cannabis use during pregnancy and outcomes in infants will be evaluated.

The infrastructure upgrades will also allow James Harynuk, co-applicant and TMIC node leader, and his team in the Department of Chemistry to better explore the “exposome”—the accumulation of all the exposures experienced by an individual from conception and the impacts of those exposures on health. James also works with Dr. Hicks on numerous projects.

Ultimately, “The driving hypothesis of CANOPIE is that through understanding links between exposures to toxins and health, we can improve the health of Canadians,” said Hicks.