Transformational Platforms

Summary

Leads: Dr. Lisa Walker (TOH/OHRI), Dr. Jason Berard (OHRI)

The Neurocognitive Testing Service (NCTS) is a BHI supported platform that provides centralized access to expertise in neurocognitive research/testing services in support of the collaborative efforts of BHI researchers. Such services include the following:

• Education & training on cognitive outcomes
• Planning & support at all research stages
• Test selection & procedural support
• Neuropsychological & cognitive assessments for research
• Data management, analysis, and test interpretation
• Knowledge dissemination

Contact person for more information: 

Dr. Jason Berard - Clinical Research Program Manager. 

613-737-8899 x 75078 

[email protected]

Summary

Lead: Dr. Baptiste Lacoste (OHRI)

BHI is accessing advanced brain-heart optical imaging technology through the Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) Core Facility.

Located at in Roger Guindon Hall at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, the TEM Core Facility provides unique imaging (JEOL JEM-1400Flash) and tissue processing solutions. 

The TEM Core Facility provides training for use of the instruments and offers full sample preparation/processing services.

Learn more here. 

Contact person for more information: TEM Core Team ([email protected])

Summary

Leads: Dr. Michael Rudnicki (OHRI), Dr. Theodore Perkins (OHRI)

The Ottawa Bioinformatics Core Facility provides biological data analysis support, specializing in high throughput sequencing experiments. Based out of the OHRI, this platform provides support with analysis, scientific computing, and training. BHI researchers will have support securing digital imaging data storage and improving data management, data multi-centre analysis, RNA-seq analysis and bioinformatics or RDM training for project personnel.

Learn more here.

Contact person for more information: Gareth Palidwor, Bioinformatics Core Facility Manager

[email protected]

Summary

Leads: Dr. Erin Mulvihill, Dr. Katey Rayner, Dr. Adam Shuhendler, Dr. Ben Rotstein (uOttawa/UOHI)

The Brain-Heart Preclinical Imaging Core (PCIC) platform provides infrastructure and expertise to acquire images and perform analysis to understand the fundamental pathogenesis of connected brain and heart conditions. These services are conducted through MRI, ultrasound, optical imaging, irradiation, fUS, and PET. 

The PCIC is a state-of-the-art facility housed within the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Medicine, RGN building, and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. The PCIC offers end-to-end services including consultation, protocol development, generating pilot data, data collection, and training.

For more information please visit:

• https://www.uottawa.ca/research-innovation/preclinical-imaging-core
• https://www.ottawaheart.ca/researchers/resources-and-services/core-facilities-and-infrastructure/pre-clinical-imaging

Contact person for more information: Pre-Clinical Imaging Core (PCIC) [email protected]

Summary

Leads: Dr. Ruth Slack (uOttawa), Dr. Katey Rayner (UOHI), Smitha Paul (uOttawa)

The Brain-Heart Animal Surgery & Care Coordinator platform provides seamless and efficient management of animal care and housing, breeding, genotyping, surgical processes, and animal transfer between sites (RGN, UOHI) that will provide consistency, protocols, and SOP for all animal studies. This approach will coordinate tissue distribution and data collection through the DMP (Data Management Portal), including key information that researchers need to know about accessing the platform if they are not already collaborating and are interested in doing so.

Contact person for more information: 

• Smitha Paul [email protected]
• Yubing Liu [email protected]

Summary

Leads: Dr. Dean Fergusson (OHRI) 

The Ottawa Methods Centre (OMC) at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute is a leading clinical research center in Canada, with 17 years of experience supporting research. The OMC provides expertise in methodological, statistical, and implementation sciences across nine service lines. Research supported by the OMC has significantly impacted fields such as critical care, emergency medicine, infectious diseases, and perinatal health. OMC trialists are leaders in innovative trial designs, particularly in pragmatic trials and cluster randomized trials, which evaluate health service delivery models and promote evidence-based practices in healthcare. The team consists of nearly 40 scientists and research staff.

Learn more here

Contact person for more information: Julia Chehaiber - [email protected]

Summary

Leads: Drs. Bill Standford (OHRI), Hanns Lochmuller, Alex MacKenzie, Ruth Slack, Peter Liu (OHRI/CHEO/uO/UOHI)

To generate more faithful models of human disease, the BHI will engage in developing robust protocols for organoid vascularization and innervation through the Ottawa Human Pluripotent Stem Cell (hPSC) Facilitybased at OHRI. The hPSC platform provides human physiologically-relevant models of disease generated from patient derived tissue (iPSC reprogramming) that can produce any cell type of the body (directed differentiation) as well as generate complex tissues (organoid differentiation). Compounded with our ability to efficiently engineer isogenic controls, the hPSC presents an extremely promising tool for research and therapeutic discovery and preclinical testing. The HPSCF offers services such as reprogramming, genome engineering, direct differentiation, and differentiation of organoids. 

Learn more here

Contact person for more information: [email protected]

Summary

Lead: Dr. Dean Fergusson (OHRI), Manoj Lalu (OHRI)  

The Office for Patient Engagement in Research Activities (OPERA) is part of the OMC and is the designated primary patient-oriented research methods centre in Ontario for the Ontario SPOR Support Unit (OSSU). OPERA leads The Ottawa Hospital’s research and methodological support for engaging patients, families, caregivers and community members in clinical research.  In partnership with The Ottawa Hospital Patient and Family Engagement Program, OPERA works with investigators and research teams to identify patient partners for research and provide ongoing support and advice. In addition, OPERA supports patient-oriented research through consultations, training, resources, and methodological research to advance the body of knowledge around patient engagement in research. OPERA has worked with dozens of investigators to support projects on topics as diverse as advanced consent for study participation in stroke, emergency care for acute heart failure, traumatic brain injury, atrial fibrillation, as well as risk of cancer after cryptogenic stroke.

Learn more here

Contact person for more information:  Julia Chehaiber [email protected]

Summary

Leads: Dr. Jean-Claude Béïque, Dr. Katalin Tôth, Dr. Richard Naud (uOttawa)

The NeuroCardioAI platform of the BHI seeks to implement cutting edge hardware and analytical technologies to capture the dynamic and bidirectional interactions between the heart and the brain. Specifically, it seeks to develop multi-modal physiological recordings, along with corollary AI-based approaches to meaningfully and flexibly analyze high-content, multi-dimensional data. The foundational physiological and imaging data acquired by the NeuroCardioAI Platform will be openly available on the CNMDP.

Contact person for more information: Jean-Claude Béïque [email protected]

Summary

Leads: Dr. Katey Rayner (UOHI), Dr. David Cook (uOttawa)

This platform integrates advanced multi-omics technologies to identify the earliest mechanistic changes underlying neurological and cardiac diseases. Capabilities include single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, ATAC-seq, metabolomics, and targeted and shotgun proteomics through StemCore and uOttawa core facilities. Together, these approaches provide a comprehensive framework for biomarker discovery and early disease mechanism mapping.

Contact person for more information: Gareth Palidwor, Bioinformatics Core Facility Manager [email protected]

Summary

Lead: Dr. Alex Mackenzie (CHEO)

By combining advanced image analysis with multidimensional cellular profiling, this platform allows researchers to simultaneously examine diverse cellular features, dynamics, interactions, and molecular localization to support large-scale drug discovery and therapeutic screening. Screening capabilities include:

Selleckchem FDA-approved Drug Library L1300 (3,105 compounds)

Curated FDA-approved blood–brain barrier penetrant and clinically safe compound library (250 compounds)

Access to an in-house bank of more than 210,000 compounds for customized screening applications, informed by prior screening results and published literature

Contact person for more information: Alex Mackenzie [email protected]; Stephen Baird[email protected]; Leo Gutierrez[email protected]