WINNIPEG — Dr. Eitan Yefenof, chairman of the new Institute of Medical Research (IMR) of Hebrew University, was here recently as part of a research partnership being developed between Canadian experts in the infectious diseases field and the IMR.
Yefenof was to meet with Dr. Frank Plummer, who is internationally known for his 17 years of research into HIV/AIDS in Kenya, said Sheryl Rosenberg, president of the local chapter of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University.
“My research is about using science to solve major global health problems. I am certainly not the only one who has spent time in Africa doing this [research], but I am unique in Canada in doing it for as long as I did in Kenya,” Plummer said in an interview.
Plummer is director general of the Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control in Ottawa; chief scientific adviser of the Public Health Agency of Canada; and scientific director general of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
The IMR is conducting research into some diseases that are of interest to Plummer’s team in Winnipeg.
“There are about 100 different people in the laboratory in Winnipeg working on research in infectious diseases, including one Israeli researcher, Dr. Yoav Keynan, who is working in the area of HIV and influenza,” Plummer said.
The IMR is the largest institute for medical research in Israel, with six departments, one of which is infectious diseases. Fourteen research groups examine infectious diseases that are transmitted virally, are bacterial induced or are parasitic.
“We have one group that is focusing on the West Nile virus and other groups that are working on developing vaccines against influenza, which are areas of interest to Dr. Plummer’s team,” Yefenof said. “These are areas of possible collaboration between our two countries.”
The IMR shares Plummer’s interest in trying to combat HIV. We have about 20 people researching HIV at our institute,” Yefenof said. “It is a virus, but there are many other factors involved in the disease, not all of which are known.”
Plummer noted that another general area of possible collaboration is research into “viral hemorrhagic fevers, which are very severe viral infections that cause bleeding and potential death.”
Yefenof said that the main goal of the IMR is to contribute to the international effort of combating diseases that have emerged over the past 50 years. The IMR is attached to the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, a leading teaching hospital in Jerusalem, so that its research has practical implications and accessible clinicians.
Yefenof, who is also chairman of the Lautenberg Research Center for General and Tumor Immunology at Hebrew U, said that one of the reasons IMR was formed “was to encourage interdisciplinary research among different medical departments as we believe this is needed to combat complicated diseases.”
The Winnipeg chapter of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University presents the Scopus Award to Plummer at its Celebration of Global Research gala dinner on May 14 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre. The event takes place exactly 60 years from the date that David Ben-Gurion declared the birth of the State of Israel at the United Nations.
The funds raised by the gala will be used to accelerate collaboration between researchers at the IMR and Winnipeg in the areas of HIV/AIDS, West Nile disease, influenza and tuberculosis, as well as the development of protective vaccines.
“We hope that Dr. Yefenof’s visit here will be the first of many opportunities for top researchers to move between Winnipeg and Jerusalem as they develop and share their expertise,” Rosenberg said.