During human clinical trials, a large percentage of candidate drugs fail because they are unsafe or ineffective. Even when preclinical cell and animal studies seem positive, problems occur because drugs tested with these models are often not predictive of what happens in humans. Many drugs, including non-cardiovascular drugs, target ion channels of the heart (membrane proteins through which heart cells conduct electrical currents), which can potentially result in lethal arrhythmias.

Bend Beauty is a Halifax based company involved in the research, development, and marketing of oral natural health products for use in skin-care and anti-aging. Bend?s core product, Anti-Aging Formula, is a mixture of the active ingredients fish oil, borage oil, lutein, zeaxanthin, and vitamin D3. An eight-week human clinical study demonstrated this product increases skin?s resistance to sunburn. However, the mechanisms that are responsible for this photo-protective effect at the cellular level remain unknown.

Patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD) may develop motor complications caused by Levodopa, the current drug used for treatment. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an alternative surgical treatment where electrodes are implanted in a specific brain region to deliver current to surrounding brain tissue which helps to alleviate motor symptoms of PD. Presently, there is a limitation to how the current is being delivered to the targeted brain region. Current steering (CS) is a novel DBS technique, unique to Boston Scientific systems, that accounts for this limitation.

The proposed project will use classical animal models to investigate the therapeutic effects and associated side effects of extracts from the whole plant of different strains of cannabis. The targeted medical conditions include pain and chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). Our data and results will play a key role in pre-screening of cultivars to obtain best candidates suited for particular medical conditions, or that have lower side-effect liability.

The cannabinoid class of medications are widely used to treat disease or alleviate symptoms such as spasticity and pain associated with MS. However, the exact molecular mechanisms by which they exert their beneficial effects remain unknown. Recent research and clinical trials demonstrated that cannabinoids may not only alleviate the symptoms of MS, but may also slow the disease progression and delay the onset of symptoms.

Mobile health (mHealth) strategies hold a great promise to enhance treatment outcomes while mitigating health care costs (Hayes et al., 2014). It allows health care providers to tailor treatments to each individual based on their lifestyle. The primary objective is to involve COPD patients and their health care providers in the development of a mobile health infrastructure that aims to improve COPD management.

The Canadian Mental Health Association states that all Canadians will indirectly be affected by mental health at some time in their lives through a family member, friend, or colleague and that 20% of Canadians will be affected personally. Most conditions are treated with pharmaceuticals that often come with unwanted side effects. Many patients have starting looking for alternatives from “big pharma” medications and in this search have found medical marijuana to be helpful.

Zinc deficiency during the post-weaning period is known to cause adverse health outcomes such as impairment of growth and diarrhea. Zinc supplement seems to critical in achieving positive growth responses, but a high dose of zinc is concerned to be toxic and cause a large amount of zinc excretion, resulting in environmental pollution. Thus, the purpose of this project is to investigate the effects of a lower dose of zinc supplement, coated zinc oxide, on growth performance and gut health in weanling animals.

Preterm neonates ill-adapted to the extra uterine environment are prone to increased inflammation in multiple organs and the proinflammatory interleukine IL-1b has been closely implicated in brain injury associated with preterm birth (PTB). One major adverse neuronal outcome for PTB survivors is the greater propensity to develop ischemic brain lesions long after birth. Here, we hypothesize that the neural vasculature of premature infants becomes maladapted to appropriately respond to hypoxic-ischemic stress.

The proposed project will use classical animal models to investigate the therapeutic effects and associated side effects of extracts from the whole plant of different strains of cannabis. The targeted medical conditions include pain and chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). Our data and results will play a key role in pre-screening of cultivars to obtain best candidates suited for particular medical conditions, or that have lower side-effect liability.