Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common disease in middle-aged and older Canadians attending primary care practitioners. As the Canadian population ages and with increasing obesity, OA will become an increasing burden for individuals and the health care system. Given the potential of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) data for surveillance of the population that is at high risk of or is diagnosed with OA, we will apply text mining method to investigate this problem further.

Following the study of spinal cord transected (SCT) rat models being treated by fesoterodine fumarate (antimuscarinic drug) to prevent neurogenic detrusor overactivity, bladders of all 30 animals were conserved. It was observed that an early fesoterodine fumarate administration at the time of transection modulates bladder overactivity. However, the exact mechanism of action is not known and should be investigated further focusing on detrusor muscarinic receptor modifications in order to support clinical trials with humans.

Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) has become the leading cause of hospital acquired nosocomial diarrhea worldwide. The prolonged hospital stays associated with CDI has enormous impact on the healthcare systems in terms of costs and patient outcomes. While treatment of CDI is an important area for ongoing research, prevention efforts will need to be enhanced to interrupt CDI transmission.

There has been an increased use of freeze-drying in the pharmaceutical industry over the past few decades. This step converts a liquid product into a solid one without compromising its integrity, thus prolonging its shelf life. The monitoring and optimization of this process is commonly done by trial-and-error, leading to product quality control issues. Therefore, the implementation of new monitoring tools in this process could allow a better understanding and control.

This project will refine an existent technology developed by us for freeze-drying biological and medical solutions to produce powders. Freeze-dried bio-medical powders are used in pharmaceuticals as well as for food. The technology we will refine in this project is called atmospheric spray freeze drying (ASFD) and has the potential to be faster and more economical than current methods and to work for a wider variety of substances than allowed for by current methods. In this project, we will refine the monitoring and control components of the ADFD technology.

NATURE AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
Patients who suffer from addiction to opioids often experience depression. Furthermore, data concerning the use of effective medication to treat depression in patients addicted to opioids is insufficient. Desvenlafaxine is an antidepressant that has been approved in Canada to treat depression within the general population.

Decision-making frameworks for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) have become a major topic in developed nations in recent years. Indeed, the quest for more rational and transparent HTA decision led many jurisdictions to investigate the use of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) as an alternative decision-making framework. In Canada, the development of a MCDA framework for HTA decision-making is in its infancy. Indeed, to our knowledge, only one MCDA framework has been proposed and tested in the country.