New podcast episode with Dani Renouf

 

 

 

 

This episode of our podcast, CNTN Spotlight, features a conversation with Dani Renouf, a dietitian in Vancouver, British Columbia. During this interview, Dani how she got involved in research, the role that patient partners play in her research, how the support she received from research Dr. Michelle Wong was instrumental in progressing her research and her recent Kidney Foundation of Canada award to fund her study, Describing Gut Microbiota in People with Chronic Kidney Disease.

Click here to listen to the podcast or find the CNTN Spotlight podcast on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcast.

If you would like to share your latest research results, upcoming trial or research program with the nephrology community, email Alicia (amurdoch@cansolveckd.ca).

 

 

ACT seeking post-doctoral fellow

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Patient Engagement Committee of the Accelerating Clinical Trials Consortium is hiring a post-doctoral fellow for 2 years.

 

The successful candidate will work daily as part of the ACT Consortium Patient Engagement Working Group to lead several key projects that will contribute to and support patient engagement in clinical trials across Canada. The ACT Consortium’s Patient Engagement Working Group brings together patients, caregivers, clinicians, and researchers with expertise in patient engagement in clinical trials. Patient engagement in clinical trials refers to partnering with patients and caregivers (often called “patient partners”) at various clinical trial steps.

 

The Post-doctoral Fellow will work to understand the current landscape of patient engagement in Canadian clinical trials (including existing resources and frameworks) and undertake a needs assessment to determine gaps/areas of need to support patient engagement in the design and conduct of clinical trials in Canada.

 

For more details or to apply, please visit https://www.ohri.ca/Careers/Details.aspx?CareerID=2957

Celebrating Success: Two CNTN endorsed trials selected for funding by CIHR’s ACT Consortium

Congratulations to the two nephrology trials selected for funding by the Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) Consortium!

 

The objective of this request for applications was to fund partnerships with Canadian-controlled biotechnology companies and ACT/AEC Network clinical trialists. The consortium received 30 applications and selected 6 projects for funding up to $400,000 each.

Each proposal underwent a targeted peer review process where each application was reviewed by a total of 10 independent reviewers – 5 reviewers with experience in clinical trials and 5 reviewers with experience in biotechnology.

We are proud to announce that 2 of the 6 projects selected were endorsed by CNTN.

 

Dr. Michael Walsh, 
Dr. Peter Margetts, 
Dr. Pavel Roshanov – EQUAL Dialysis: Evaluation of Qidni Urea And metabolite cLearance in maintenance Dialysis

Biotech: Qidni

 

Dr. Matthew James, Dr. Neesh Pannu, Dr. Daniel Muruve – PONTIAC: Prevention of Nephrotoxin-induced AKI with Cilastatin Trial

Biotech: Arch Biopartners Inc. 

 

 

You can see the full list of awarded trials here

The ACT Consortium was established to advance and facilitate the implementation of high-quality, high-impact randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to improve global health. For more information on the consortium, visit www.act-aec.com.

Pragmatic Trials Training Program

 

In January 2023, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) directed over $31M in support of seven clinical trial training platforms.  Western University received $3.7M to develop the HDRN Canada Pragmatic Trials Training Program through the leadership of Dr. Amit Garg, Nominated Principal Investigator, and Associate Dean, Clinical Research, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University.

Now the team is pleased to announce that applications to the HDRN Canada Pragmatic Trials Training Program are being accepted. This two-year virtual pan-Canadian program will provide training to advanced learners across three streams: (1) future trial leaders (faculty-level trainees), (2) postdoctoral fellows, and (3) highly qualified personnel (employed in the public and private sectors). Funding will be made available to successful applicants across all three streams to facilitate their engagement in the program.

The application forms are available HERE.

Applications will be accepted until Friday, December 22, 2023 (5:00 PM Eastern).

The program will commence on April 15, 2024.

As described in the program overview, there will be an emphasis on experiential learning (for future trial leaders and postdocs in the program) through the development of a pragmatic trial protocol. Further, the program is aiming for highly qualified personnel employed by HDRN Canada member organizations to be involved, when possible, in a project-based learning experience. These projects will further HDRN Canada’s ability to support pragmatic trials research in the long-term. (Note, however, that the highly qualified personnel stream is not restricted to applicants from HDRN Canada.)

HDRN Canada is a distributed pan-Canadian network that supports multi-regional data access for transformative and world-leading health data use, working to shape a data future that better supports health and health equity.  HDRN Canada supports researchers in accessing multi-regional data housed in data centres across the country through its Data Access Support Hub (DASH). 

 

EnAKT LKD Trial Results are In!

 

Patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) have the best chance for a longer and healthier life if they receive a kidney transplant. However, due to several barriers, many eligible patients today will never receive a kidney transplant.

 

The EnAKT LKD Trial was conducted to determine if CKD program-wide use of a multicomponent intervention could help eligible patients complete key steps towards receiving a kidney transplant. The trial included 20,375 patients who received care in Ontario’s 26 CKD programs over more than four years. Unfortunately, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected intervention delivery, as CKD programs faced shifting priorities.

 

Acknowledging the complications brought by the pandemic, the trial team was unable to show the intervention increased access to kidney transplantation and living kidney donation, despite evidence of intervention uptake at the participating centres.

 

The intervention exhibited important strengths that could be used in future trials:

    • The trial resulted in a culture shift across participating centres where staff are committed to robust assessments of quality improvement initiatives.
    • The intervention was designed and implemented by diverse stakeholders, including administrators, healthcare staff, patients and nephrologists using new educational materials.
    • The extent of patient-partner involvement in the trial could pave the way for how we think about patient engagement in future trials. Patient partners played an integral role throughout the trial, including leading a key component of the intervention, the Transplant Ambassador Program.

While the team was unable to show this intervention increased access to kidney transplantation and living kidney donation, they are not giving up. They are deeply committed to addressing this complex and important problem.

 

 

ACT Portfolio Hospitals Identified

The Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) Consortium has chosen 20 community hospitals from across Canada to join the ACT consortium as part of the community hospital portfolio. Each hospital will receive funding equivalent to a 1.0FTE Research Coordinator for 3 years to assist with enrolment in various ACT networks trials. If you are running trials or would like run a trial at one of these sites, please email Alicia at amurdoch@cansolveckd.ca. We would like to support and promote nephrology trials at these sites.

Cambridge Cardiac Care (Cambridge, ON)


Cape Breton Regional Hospital (Sydney, NS)


Centre Hospitalier Régional de Lanaudière (St-Charles-Borromée, QC)


Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital (Moncton, NB)


East Kootenay Regional Hospital (Cranbrook, BC)


Grace Hospital (Winnipeg, MB)

 

Health Sciences North (Sudbury, ON)

Hôpital de la Cité-de-la-Santé (Laval, QC)

Hôtel-Dieu de Lévis (Levi, QC)

Humber River Health (North York, ON)

Kelowna General Hospital (Kelowna, BC)

Mackenzie Health (Richmond Hill, ON)

Medicine Hat Regional Hospital (Medicine Hat, AB)

Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (Nanaimo, BC)

Niagara Health (St.Catharines, ON)

Penticton Regional Hospital (Penticton, BC)


Queen Elizabeth Hospital (Charlottetown, PE)

Qikiqtani General Hospital (Iqaluit, NU)

Regina General Hospital (Regina, SK)

Windsor Regional Hospital (Windsor, ON)

 

For more information about the ACT consortium, visit act-aec.ca.

New podcast episode with Dr. Stigant

 

 

This episode of our podcast, CNTN Spotlight, features a conversation with Dr. Caroline Stigant, a nephrologist and climate activist in Victoria, British Columbia. During this interview, Dr. Stigant discusses environmentally sustainable kidney care, the committees of the CSN and ISN that have been developed to tackle this issue, as well as some of the research that she is conducting.

Click here to listen to the podcast or find the CNTN Spotlight podcast on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, I Heart Radio and Google Podcast.

If you would like to share your latest research results, upcoming trial or research program with the nephrology community, email Alicia (amurdoch@cansolveckd.ca).

 

 

 

Study looking for kidney, surgical or anesthesia HCP participants

Invitation to participate in a study to help identify research priorities for people with kidney failure after surgery

You are invited to participate in a study to identify research priorities for people with kidney failure having surgery, approved by the University of Calgary Health Research Ethics Board (REB23-0749, Principal Investigator Dr Tyrone Harrison) “Identification and Prioritization of Postoperative Outcomes in Research with Multidisciplinary Stakeholders and People Living with Kidney Failure”.

People with kidney failure have over 16 times more surgeries than the general population. Unfortunately, guideline recommended strategies to risk stratify surgical patients are not informed by patient priorities and perform poorly for people with kidney failure, making it difficult for clinicians to engage with patients in shared surgical decision making.

In this study, we want to engage with patients, caregivers, researchers, and healthcare providers to identify and prioritize which postoperative outcomes are important to research in this patient group, and to identify targets for future risk prediction models.

Your involvement in the study will involve the completion of approximately three or four 10-minute surveys as part of a Delphi process.

If you are interested in participating, please click this link https://survey.ucalgary.ca/jfe/form/SV_9mZmv4Ffety6LxY and we will be in contact with further information and an electronic consent process.

 

Par la présente, nous vous invitons à participer à une étude qui vise à établir les priorités de recherche pour les personnes atteintes d’insuffisance rénale qui subissent une intervention chirurgicale. Cette étude, intitulée Détermination et hiérarchisation des résultats postopératoires dans la recherche en collaboration avec des intervenants multidisciplinaires et des personnes vivant avec une insuffisance rénale, a été approuvée par le comité d’éthique de la recherche en santé de l’Université de Calgary (REB23-0749, investigateur principal : DTyrone Harrison).

Les personnes atteintes d’insuffisance rénale subissent au moins 16 fois plus d’interventions chirurgicales que la population générale. Malheureusement, les stratégies recommandées par les lignes directrices pour stratifier les risques des patients qui subissent une intervention chirurgicale ne tiennent pas compte des priorités de ces derniers et sont peu efficaces dans le cas des personnes souffrant d’insuffisance rénale. Il est donc difficile pour les cliniciens de participer à une prise de décision partagée en matière de chirurgie avec les patients.

Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous souhaitons collaborer avec des patients, des aidants, des chercheurs et des professionnels de la santé afin de déterminer et de hiérarchiser les résultats postopératoires qui sont importants pour la recherche dans ce groupe de patients, et de définir des cibles pour de futurs modèles de prédiction du risque.

Votre participation à cette étude consistera à répondre à trois ou quatre sondages d’une durée de 10 minutes chacun réalisés au moyen de la méthode Delphi.

Si vous souhaitez participer à cette étude, veuillez cliquer sur ce lien https://survey.ucalgary.ca/jfe/form/SV_eLQtzzSMuPxIc5g. Nous communiquerons avec vous pour vous fournir plus de renseignements et vous indiquer la marche à suivre pour obtenir votre consentement par voie électronique.

Celebrating Success: Two CNTN endorsed trials selected for funding by CIHR’s ACT Consortium

Congratulations to Drs. Sam Silver, Amber Molnar and Ann Young and teams for being selected for funding by the Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) Consortium! Stream 1 for this request for applications was dedicated to novel trial designs. With a total funding pool of $1.5 million, 2 of the 8 trials selected were CNTN endorsed trials:

 

Dr. Samuel Silver (Kingston, ON; Queens University) and Dr. Amber Molnar (Hamilton, ON; McMaster University): Dial-Bicarb: The Dial-Bicarb Trial investigates dialysate bicarbonate levels
 

Dr. Ann Young (Toronto, ON; Unity Health Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital): KidneyCare Outreach: Vanguard phase of a population-based randomized clinical trial to strengthen kidney care delivery for patients at high risk of kidney failure

 

You can see the full list of awarded trials here

The ACT Consortium was established to advance and facilitate the implementation of high-quality, high-impact randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to improve global health. For more information on the consortium, visit www.act-aec.com.

Highlights from the 5th Annual CNTN Research Symposium

The 5th annual Canadian Nephrology Trials Network (CNTN) Research Symposium took place on May 10, 2023, bringing together patients, providers, and researchers in a celebratory gathering. The event, held at the Canadian Society of Nephrology AGM, served as a platform to honour the achievements of CNTN and explore its future trajectory, while also presenting opportunities for engagement.
 

This half-day symposium showcased a diverse range of educational presentations by esteemed kidney researchers. These researchers, through their diligent efforts, are making significant contributions to our understanding and treatment of kidney disease.  

 

Presentations included:
 

Dr. Bhanu Prasad: Decoding loin pain hematuria syndrome (View video)
Dr. Prasad presented his ongoing research on loin pain hematuria syndrome. His team’s recent work includes phenotype analysis and pedigree chartings in LPHS as well as genomics. His website, www.prasadbhanu.com, has more information on his research program.
 

Dr. Amélie Bernier-Jean: Evidence for Potassium restriction in hemodialysis (EvoKe-HD) pilot (View video)
“EvoKe-HD is a pilot randomized controlled trial to assess the feasibility and potential for efficacy of a novel dietary approach to hyperkalemia. Contrary to the traditional recommendations limiting the intake of high-potassium whole foods, such as fruits and vegetables, we propose to switch the focus to foods containing potassium that is readily absorbed by the body (high bioavailability), such as potassium from additives, processed meats, milk, fruit juices and sugary drinks.”
 

Dr. Adeera Levin: New investigator-initiated trial 

Dr. Levin presented an upcoming investigator-initiated trial of an investigational drug that will be starting early next year.  

 

Dr. Morteza Ahmadi: Qidni labs innovative dialysis machine
Dr. Ahmadi presented Qidni Lab’s nearly waterless and portable dialysis machine currently conducting first-in-human dialysis sessions. Able to run on rechargeable batteries with remote, cloud-based monitoring, this machine could provide dialysis for those living in rural or remote areas or who have no or limited access to dialysis. For more information on their trial and device, visit www.qidni.life