Not if, but when. This was the refrain back in 2018 when—thanks to a $15 million gift from Montreal’s Doggone Foundation—the ş«ąúÂăÎč Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4) was established.
We knew that the next pandemic was coming, we just didn’t know when, says Dr. Don Sheppard, PGME’99, founder and director of MI4 (pictured). Nobody could have predicted with certainty that the pandemic would occur the very next year, providing MI4 with its first real-time test.
“The definition of performance anxiety is launching an initiative in infectious disease just before a pandemic hits,” Sheppard jokes. But any concerns he may have had about MI4’s baptism by fire were soon laid to rest. At ş«ąúÂăÎč, more than 400 people heeded an urgent call for more donations, this time to launch the ş«ąúÂăÎč Emergency COVID-19 Research Fund. This, in combination with other philanthropic support, notably more than $4 million, from the Hewitt family, the Trottier family and the Doggone Foundation, secured in partnership with the ş«ąúÂăÎč Health Centre (MUHC) Foundation, enabled MI4 to launch a coordinated pandemic response under the MI4 Emergency COVID-19 Research Fund.
With speed that attempted to keep pace with COVID-19, MI4 placed a call for projects on March 20, 2020, just three weeks after Quebec registered its first COVID-19 case. "We didn’t have the luxury of time," explains Sheppard, who is also chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at ş«ąúÂăÎč. "We gave researchers two weeks to write the proposals, allotted ourselves one week to review them and had the funding flowing within one month."
MI4 gave the green light to 67 of the 173 applications they received. The projects ranged vastly in both subject and scope and many extended well beyond the field of medicine. “These projects were truly interdisciplinary,” says Sheppard. “We funded lawyers to look at legal and ethical implications, psychologists to look into stress and family dynamics, and engineers to look at the detection of COVID-19 in wastewater.”
“The primary aim of all these research projects was impact,” explains Sheppard. “Each one had to move the needle in some way. We wanted to see clear deliverables after six months because there were just so many unknowns relating to COVID-19.” Some of the research projects have been truly transformational, helping inform public policy and save lives.
A simple seed grant to an assistant professor and a professor in the ş«ąúÂăÎč Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Drs. Mathieu Maheu-Giroux, MSc’06(Agr&Env), MSc’09 (Epidemiology), and David Buckeridge, allowed them to develop a mathematical model that is now used to determine the way hospital beds are monitored and distributed across the province. Maheu-Giroux, who is the Canada Research Chair in Population Modelling, was named in 2020 one of four co-winners of Radio-Canada’s Scientist of the Year prize for his efforts. The CoVivre project, led by Drs. Cecile Rousseau, MSc’94, a professor in ş«ąúÂăÎč’s Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry and a pediatric psychiatrist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital of the MUHC, and Alexandra de Pokomandy, MDCM’01, MSc’09, of the ş«ąúÂăÎč Department of Family Medicine, and in collaboration with Dr. Sarah Gallagher from Western University, is another example of MI4’s ambitious reach. The initiative addressed the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 has on different populations by acting as a facilitator and accelerator of community initiatives that aim to reduce infection and transmission. These focus on a range of concerns, from vaccine hesitancy to mental health and discrimination. “It’s been an incredibly powerful project that has supported communities throughout the province,” explains Sheppard. “CoVivre is now making an impact Canada-wide in partnership with the CanCOVID network.”
Another project that has attracted much attention comes courtesy of a ş«ąúÂăÎč Civil Engineering professor, Dr. Dominic Frigon, BSc(Agr)’95, MSc’99, who developed and validated tools for screening COVID-19 in wastewater systems. “You can detect spikes in COVID-19 in building wastewater long before it hits clinically, so this project provides a great early warning of an outbreak,” explains Sheppard. “In addition, it doesn’t require active participation—everyone who flushes the toilet is sending their sample.”
This project has since led to funding through Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ), which highlights an important secondary goal of the Emergency COVID-19 Research Fund: return on investment (ROI). Many of the projects funded by MI4 have a high potential for ROI, which can be particularly attractive to donors because their generosity can be used as a lever to attract additional support, making the entire project more impactful.
At MI4, even the infrastructure projects generate ROI. The Level-3 biosafety labs located at the MUHC and ş«ąúÂăÎč were converted to COVID-19 research labs through the Emergency COVID-19 Research Fund. They have since received $2.4 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), helping the labs achieve a leadership role in CoVaRR-Net—a pan-Canadian study monitoring the emergence of variants. “A relatively small investment up front has now positioned us as leaders in biosafety,” says Sheppard.
This scenario is playing out across many of the projects supported by the MI4 Emergency COVID-19 Research Fund. “Follow-on grants now total over $12 million,” explains Sheppard. “That means for every dollar that was invested, these projects have brought in $3 dollars in additional funding from a range of sources. This is what turns innovative ideas into transformational projects.”
With thanks to all those who have given in support of MI4’s pandemic response.