Queen’s University biologist Virginia Walker and Queen’s SARC Awarded Postdoctoral Fellow Pranab Das have shown nanosilver, which is often added to water purification units, can upset your gut. The discovery is important as people are being exposed to nanoparticles every day.

Nanosilver is also used in biomedical applications, toys, sunscreen, cosmetics, clothing and other items.

“We were surprised to see significant upset of the human gut community at the lowest concentration of nanosilver in this study,” says Dr. Das. “To our knowledge, this is the first time anyone has looked at this. It is important as we are more and more exposed to nanoparticles in our everyday lives through different routes such as inhalation, direct contact or ingestion.”

To conduct the research, Drs. Walker and Das utilized another Queen’s discovery, rePOOPulate, created by Elaine Petrof (Medicine). rePOOPulate is a synthetic stool substitute, which Dr. Petrof designed to treat C. difficile infections. In this instance, rather than being used as therapy, the synthetic stool was used to examine the impact of nanoparticles on the human gut.

The research showed that the addition of nanosilver reduced metabolic activity in the synthetic stool sample, perturbed fatty acids and significantly changed the population of bacteria. This information can help lead to an understanding of how nanoparticles could impact our “gut ecosystem.”

“There is no doubt that the nanosilver shifted the bacterial community, but the impact of nanosilver ingestion on our long-term health is currently unknown,” Dr. Walker says. “This is another area of research we need to explore.”

The findings by Drs. Das and Walker, Julie AK McDonald (Kingston General Hospital), Dr. Petrof (KGH)  and Emma Allen-Vercoe (University of Guelph) were published in the Journal of Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology.

Queen’s University professor Wendy Craig, and York University professor Debra Pepler, co-scientific directors of the Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network (PREVNet), are unveiling a new toolkit for educators in conjunction with Bullying Awareness Week, Nov. 17-23.

Drs. Craig and Pepler and PREVNet worked with the Ministry of Education to create the new resource, Facts and Tools for Schools, which includes over 100 pages of information to support ongoing bullying prevention at Ontario schools. The tools are designed to provide evidence-based strategies to recognize, assess, prevent, intervene and develop a bully prevention policy in Ontario schools.

“We want educators to implement these tools in school settings to support work already ongoing,” says Dr. Craig. “We need to come together to address bullying and tools like this one developed by PREVNet is another important step.”

One highlight of the resource is a fact sheet defining bullying. It outlines what is bullying is, what the various forms of bullying are, the difference between bullying, aggression and teasing, and how educators can identify these three areas. There is also an emphasis on a whole school approach to promoting healthy relationships.

The theme of this year’s awareness week is Stand Up To Bullying.

“This is an important document and this is an important week to keep the discussion about bullying alive,” says Dr.Craig. “The week can act as a springboard to further the conversation about bullying. What is really important is what happens the week after Bullying Awareness Week and the months that follow. What we are doing is working but there is always room for improvement.”

To read more about Fact and Tools for Schools visit the website.

Queen’s University pathologist David Berman plays a critical, if little-seen, role in a patient’s journey from medical consultation to disease diagnosis.

“I’m the one who looks at the patient’s tissues under a microscope and determines, this is benign, this is malignant,” he says. “And if it’s malignant, I help answer important questions such as: does it need treatment and, if so, what kind? Or can this be left alone?”

As a clinician-scientist at the Kingston General Hospital Research Institute, Dr. Berman knows how difficult those decisions can be, especially in his research area of prostate cancer, where at least half of all diagnosed cases are harmless and don’t require treatment. And biopsies – surgical procedures that remove small samples of tumor tissue for analysis – aren’t always effective in distinguishing the harmful cancers from other, relatively harmless types.

“If we could find the biomarkers, or molecular clues, that would tell us which cancers are harmful, we could look for those features in blood or urine tests, and skip biopsies altogether,” he explains. “Blood or urine tests would be faster, less expensive, and less invasive, and ensure that those with the more harmful cancers get their diagnosis and treatment sooner.”

His research is focused on doing just that. A recent recruit to the Queen’s Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine and KGH from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Dr. Berman is leading a team of scientists across Canada who are studying a large number of genes that will form the foundation of new tests for prostate cancer. The group will study prostate cancer samples from two patient groups in Kingston and Montreal, looking for specific molecular features, such as the modification, gain or loss of particular genes.

The goal of this work, funded by Movember and Prostate Cancer Canada, is to develop new and better tests that help clarify decision-making for men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer, and improve their quality of life.

“There are some features for these tests that look really promising,” he says. “We’re hoping to identify tests that will tell us at the time of biopsy whether the patient’s cancer is harmful.”

He’s happy with his progress so far, in part because of some distinct advantages in his research environment in Canada, he says. The first is Cancer Care Ontario’s patient registry, a computerized database that provides researchers with a wealth of scientific data about cancer diagnosis, treatment and outcomes for all Ontario cancer patients. “It’s an advantage of Canada’s single-payer health care system,” he says. “Johns Hopkins didn’t have anything like this.”

He also credits the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, literally next door, in the Queen’s Cancer Research Institute. “Having the clinical trials group on site means we can take research to the next level by doing a patient trial.”

Dr. Berman was one of 14 researchers across Canada jointly awarded a five-year, $5 million Movember Team Grant from Prostate Cancer Canada. The team, called PRONTO, is focusing on rapid development of novel diagnostic markers for early prostate cancer.

This story is the third in a series on the KGH Research Institute and the clinician-scientists recruited to work in the centre. 

Queen’s University announced today that the NCIC Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG) has developed and will lead an international clinical trial of a new class of cancer drug aimed at curing non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients who have had surgery and chemotherapy for disease confined to the lung. The academic-led trial will impact lung cancer patients following standard treatment.  Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in North America and is the leading cancer killer in both men and women.

NSCLC accounts for 80-85 per cent of all lung cancer cases.

The new drug, MEDI4736 (AstraZeneca), is one of a new class of pharmaceuticals that helps the body’s immune system recognize and attack cancer. Drugs in this class have already been approved for use in patients with malignant melanoma.

“This trial will test a new drug from an emerging class of agents that doesn’t directly kill cancer cells but instead improves our own immune system’s ability  to fight and kill the cancer cells,”  says trial leader Glen Goss, an oncologist and clinician investigator at The Ottawa Hospital. “This is a new way of fighting cancer and therefore we are moving these drugs into the earliest stage of lung cancer treatment to meet a major unmet need.”

The trial is being conducted internationally, with collaboration from the Intergroupe Francophone de Cancerologie Thoracique (France), the National Cancer Institute, Naples (Italy),   the Australasian Lung Cancer Trials Group &  National Health and Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Centre (Australia), the Spanish Lung Cancer Group, the Dutch Society for Pulmonology and Tuberculosis (NVALT), the Central and East European Oncology Group, the Korean Cancer Study Group and the National Cancer Centre Singapore.

“This is one of the most significant research funding announcements in the history of Queen’s,” says Principal Daniel Woolf. “It is very exciting, not only to know that this potentially life-saving research is happening right here in our midst, but also because it is allowing us to collaborate and build important relationships with researchers all over the world.”

“This trial is being completed internationally and includes academic physicians around the world,” says NCIC CTG director Janet Dancey. “This is the first trial in the world to test this new drug in the setting of early lung cancer treatment. We are always very grateful for ongoing support from the Canadian Cancer Society and Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute - without them, we would not be able to lead such critical cancer trials."

The trial will be open to 1,100 patients in Canada and around the world. Patients wishing to join the trial should speak to their oncologists about their treatment options. Approximately 25 institutions from across Canada will participate. Information about participation will also be available on clinicaltrials.gov and cancerview.ca