Health e-News

Stay informed: University and Faculty COVID-19 news

As the situation continues to evolve, McGill University and the Faculty of Medicine will continue to provide updates to keep our community informed.
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Message from VP-Dean Eidelman – A period of renewal

Welcome back, everyone, to the McGill Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

We begin the Fall session against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, a situation we never would have imagined a year ago. Thank you, profoundly, for your extraordinary ingenuity and efforts to adapt to this reality. While the situation will remain challenging and require ongoing collaboration and adaptation, our educational programs are up and running because of your perseverance.
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ON THE AGENDA – Faculty Council Meeting, Tuesday, September 22

This is to remind you that the next Faculty Council meeting takes place Tuesday, September 22, 2020, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. The Faculty Council meeting is open to all members of the Faculty, including students and residents, and will be recorded. The agenda and supporting documents are now available on the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences website.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) update – September 16, 2020

Message from Fabrice Labeau

Yesterday, the Government of Quebec moved Montreal from Level 1 (green) to Level 2 (yellow) under the progressive regional alert and intervention system for COVID-19. Level 2 indicates a rise in cases and is an early warning to encourage stricter compliance with public health directives.
The Direction régionale de la santé publique (DRSP) has indicated to us that no change in McGill’s operations is needed at this time. All available on-campus spaces—including Teaching Hubs, Study Hubs, and workspaces—have been designed to ensure the safety of our campus community.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) update – September 1, 2020

Message from Fabrice Labeau

The Fall semester is upon us, and it promises to be unlike any other in McGill history. Thank you to all faculty and staff for all your hard work in planning a rewarding learning experience for all our students, whether they will be joining us on our campuses, or engaging virtually from around the world. Thanks as well to all the students who participated in last week’s Town Hall. It was great to see so much engagement and so many great questions about the Fall semester.
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Announcement on Fall 2020 Convocation ceremonies

Message from the Principal

Convocation is a significant milestone, and an important celebration for both our graduating students and our community. Unfortunately, in light of current government and public health directives governing large gatherings, as well as travel restrictions into and out of Canada, we have decided against proceeding with in-person Fall Convocation ceremonies this year.
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Call for Nominations – 2020 Canadian Women in Global Health List

The Call for Nominations for the 2020 Canadian Women in Global Health (#CWIGH) List is now open! The 2020 CWIGH List will build off the 2018 List, highlighting and showcasing Canadian women leaders working at home or abroad, who are working to promote health and health equity for people around the globe.
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Passionate about medicine and research?

The MDCM-PhD program will hold its annual open house on Thursday, September 24 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. This year, the event will be fully online via Zoom. Dr. Eisenberg will speak about the program and introduce the guest speaker, Dr. Lysanne Campeau, an accomplished physician-scientist who is a urologist at the Jewish General Hospital, an Assistant Professor at McGill, and a clinical researcher at the Lady Davis Institute. The open house will conclude with mini-sessions led by current MDCM-PhD students.
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$12.5 million awarded to Montreal team to study Parkinson’s Disease

A group of scientists at University of Montreal, The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital), and McGill University has been awarded a major research grant of over $12.5 million from the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative over the next three years to study Parkinson’s disease. ASAP’s implementation partner The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research issued the grant.
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Researchers develop online support for patients with prostate cancer and their caregivers

Psychological health and physical activity can take a backseat to more immediate health concerns following a cancer diagnosis. The shuttering of in-person support programs due to COVID-19 has made it even more difficult for patients and caregivers to get support. Researchers at McGill University and St. Mary’s Research Centre are finding that an online support program for patients with prostate cancer and their caregivers is a feasible solution to this problem.
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Nip it in the bud: New study will attack SARS-Cov2 where it multiplies

Steroid drugs are anti-inflammatory medicines that are used to treat a wide range of conditions, and one of them – oral or intravenous dexamethasone – was found effective in improving the survival of patients with severe COVID-19. Could other drugs from the same family show potential to treat milder cases of COVID? A team of researchers at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) believes so. On September 14, 2020, they started testing the efficiency of ciclesonide, an inhaled and nasal steroid drug currently used for asthma and nasal rhinitis.
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COVID-19 Immunity Task Force launches serological study using antenatal samples

Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) announced its support for a study of antenatal serum samples (using blood samples from standard tests from expectant women). This $3.1 million investment will help track trends in the level of SARS-CoV-2 infection amongst pregnant women in all provinces and territories of Canada. It will provide a pan-Canadian picture of population infections arising from the first wave of novel coronavirus infection, as well as an indication of when the virus might have entered Canada.
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Mutation leading to biological changes may play role in cancer

A new study from McGill University’s Goodman Cancer Research Centre (GCRC) has revealed significant biological changes in mice expressing an activated, mutant form of the Estrogen Receptor alpha (ER alpha), shedding new light on the role of this important gene in development and cancer. 
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Bartha Maria Knoppers awarded 2020 Till & McCulloch Award

Congratulations to Bartha Maria Knoppers, Director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy at McGill University, who has been named the 2020 Till & McCulloch Award recipient for her exceptional ethical, legal and social implications paper in Science entitled, Biotechnologies nibbling at the legal “human”.
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MUHC OPTILAB receives prestigious triple ISO certification — A first in Quebec

The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) is proud to announce that its multi-site laboratory OPTILAB Montréal-CUSM is the first of the 12 OPTILAB clusters in Quebec to receive ISO accreditation (ISO 15189:2012, ISO 22870:2016, and CAN/CSA-Z902-15 when applicable) from the Bureau de normalisation du Québec and Standards Council of Canada (SCC). This accreditation attests to the high standards that OPTILAB Montréal-CUSM has achieved in all of its labs, a significant team accomplishment during a global pandemic when lab results are in great demand.
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Building a career in clinical and regulatory affairs

The first cohort of trainees from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre will complete a novel training program in Clinical and Regulatory Affairs next month. Called the CRA Experience, the program is designed to help them develop the skills and expertise to transition into a variety of clinical and regulatory career paths in the life science sector.
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