Diversity in National Society Leadership and Podium Speakers in Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Background: Women and people of color are often underrepresented in medicine. This study examined the inclusivity and diversity of the recent history of the Canadian Association of Thoracic Surgeons (CATS) in both its executive committees and invited participation at its annual meeting.

Methods: CATS internal records and previous programs of CATS annual meetings were reviewed from 1997 to 2020.

An environmental scan of emergency medicine research support, training, and infrastructure across Canada.

Objective: Our study objective was to describe the Canadian emergency medicine (EM) research community landscape prior to the initiation of a nationwide network.

Methods: A two-phase electronic survey was sent to 17 Canadian medical schools. The Phase 1 Environmental Scan was administered to department chairs/hospital EM chiefs, to identify EM physicians conducting clinical or educational research.

An environmental scan of academic pediatric emergency medicine at Canadian medical schools: Identifying variability across Canada.

Objective: To complement our environmental scan of academic emergency medicine departments, we conducted a similar environmental scan of the academic pediatric emergency medicine programs offered by the Canadian medical schools.

Methods: We developed an 88-question form, which was distributed to pediatric academic leaders at each medical school. The responses were validated via email to ensure that the questions were answered completely and consistently.

CAEP 2016 Academic Symposium on Education Scholarship: Training our Future Clinician Educators in Emergency Medicine.

Objective: To develop consensus recommendations for training future clinician educators (CEs) in emergency medicine (EM).

Methods: A panel of EM education leaders was assembled from across Canada and met regularly by teleconference over the course of 1 year. Recommendations for CE training were drafted based on the panel's experience, a literature review, and a survey of current and past EM education leaders in Canada.

An Environmental Scan of Academic Emergency Medicine at the 17 Canadian Medical Schools: Why Does this Matter to Emergency Physicians?

Objective: We sought to conduct a major objective of the CAEP Academic Section, an environmental scan of the academic emergency medicine programs across the 17 Canadian medical schools.

Methods: We developed an 84-question questionnaire, which was distributed to academic heads. The responses were validated by phone by the lead author to ensure that the questions were answered completely and consistently.

CAEP 2015 Academic Symposium: Recommendations for University Governance and Administration for Emergency Medicine.

Objective: 1) To identify the strengths and challenges of governance structures in academic emergency medicine (EM), and 2) to make recommendations on principles and approaches that may guide improvements.

Methods: Over the course of 9 months, eight established EM leaders met by teleconference, reviewed the literature, and discussed their findings and experiences to arrive at recommendations on governance in academic units of EM. The results and recommendations were presented at the annual Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) Academic Symposium, where attendees provided feedback.

CAEP 2015 Academic Symposium: Current State and Recommendations to Achieve Adequate and Sustainable Funding for Emergency Medicine Academic Units.

Objectives: To describe the current state of academic emergency medicine (EM) funding in Canada and develop recommendations to grow and establish sustainable funding.

Methods: A panel of eight leaders from different EM academic units was assembled. Using mixed methods (including a literature review, sharing of professional experiences, a survey of current EM academic heads, and data previously collected from an environmental scan), 10 recommendations were drafted and presented at an academic symposium.

CAEP 2015 Academic Symposium: Leadership within the emergency medicine academic community and beyond.

Objectives: A panel of emergency medicine (EM) leaders endeavoured to define the key elements of leadership and its models, as well as to formulate consensus recommendations to build and strengthen academic leadership in the Canadian EM community in the areas of mentorship, education, and resources.

Methods: The expert panel comprised EM leaders from across Canada and met regularly by teleconference over the course of 9 months. From the breadth of backgrounds and experience, as well as a literature review and the development of a leadership video series, broad themes for recommendations around the building and strengthening of EM leadership were presented at the CAEP 2015 Academic Symposium held in Edmonton, Alberta.

CAEP 2014 Academic Symposium: "How to make research succeed in your department: Promoting excellence in Canadian emergency medicine resident research".

Objectives: To characterize the current state of Canadian emergency medicine (EM) resident research and develop recommendations to promote excellence in this area.

Methods: We performed a systematic review of MEDLINE, Embase, and ERIC using search terms relevant to EM resident research. We conducted an online survey of EM residency program directors from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) and College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC).

CAEP 2014 Academic symposium: "How to make research succeed in your department: How to fund your research program".

Objective: We sought to gather a comprehensive list of funding strategies and opportunities for emergency medicine (EM) centres across Canada, and make recommendations on how to successfully fund all levels of research activity, including research projects, staff salaries, infrastructure, and researcher stipends.

Methods: We formed an expert panel consisting of volunteers recognized nationally for their scholarly work in EM. First, we conducted interviews with academic leaders and researchers to obtain a description of their local funding strategies using a standardized open-ended questionnaire.

CAEP 2014 Academic Symposium: "How to make research succeed in your emergency department: How to develop and train career researchers in emergency medicine".

Objectives: We sought to 1) identify best practices for training and mentoring clinician researchers, 2) characterize facilitators and barriers for Canadian emergency medicine researchers, and 3) develop pragmatic recommendations to improve and standardize emergency medicine postgraduate research training programs to build research capacity.

Methods: We performed a systematic review of MEDLINE and Embase using search terms relevant to emergency medicine research fellowship/graduate training. We conducted an email survey of all Canadian emergency physician researchers.

Executive summary of the CAEP 2014 Academic Symposium: How to make research succeed in your department.

The vision of the recently created Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) Academic Section is to promote high-quality emergency patient care by conducting world-leading education and research in emergency medicine. The Academic Section plans to achieve this goal by enhancing academic emergency medicine primarily at Canadian medical schools and teaching hospitals. It seeks to foster and develop education, research, and academic leadership amongst Canadian emergency physicians, residents, and students.

Crystal structures from the Plasmodium peroxiredoxins: new insights into oligomerization and product binding.

Background: Plasmodium falciparum is the protozoan parasite primarily responsible for more than one million malarial deaths, annually, and is developing resistance to current therapies. Throughout its lifespan, the parasite is subjected to oxidative attack, so Plasmodium antioxidant defences are essential for its survival and are targets for disease control.

Results: To further understand the molecular aspects of the Plasmodium redox system, we solved 4 structures of Plasmodium peroxiredoxins (Prx).

The Cryptosporidium parvum kinome.

Background: Hundreds of millions of people are infected with cryptosporidiosis annually, with immunocompromised individuals suffering debilitating symptoms and children in socioeconomically challenged regions at risk of repeated infections. There is currently no effective drug available. In order to facilitate the pursuit of anti-cryptosporidiosis targets and compounds, our study spans the classification of the Cryptosporidium parvum kinome and the structural and biochemical characterization of representatives from the CDPK family and a MAP kinase.

Structures of parasitic CDPK domains point to a common mechanism of activation.

We recently determined the first structures of inactivated and calcium-activated calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs) from Apicomplexa. Calcium binding triggered a large conformational change that constituted a new mechanism in calcium signaling and a novel EF-hand fold (CAD, for CDPK activation domain). Thus we set out to determine if this mechanism was universal to all CDPKs.

Molecular characterization of a novel geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate synthase from Plasmodium parasites.

We present here a study of a eukaryotic trans-prenylsynthase from the malaria pathogen Plasmodium vivax. Based on the results of biochemical assays and contrary to previous indications, this enzyme catalyzes the production of geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate (GGPP) rather than farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP). Structural analysis shows that the product length is constrained by a hydrophobic cavity formed primarily by a set of residues from the same subunit as the product as well as at least one other from the dimeric partner.

The Clp chaperones and proteases of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

The Clp chaperones and proteases play an important role in protein homeostasis in the cell. They are highly conserved across prokaryotes and found also in the mitochondria of eukaryotes and the chloroplasts of plants. They function mainly in the disaggregation, unfolding and degradation of native as well as misfolded proteins.

Structures of apicomplexan calcium-dependent protein kinases reveal mechanism of activation by calcium.

Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs) have pivotal roles in the calcium-signaling pathway in plants, ciliates and apicomplexan parasites and comprise a calmodulin-dependent kinase (CaMK)-like kinase domain regulated by a calcium-binding domain in the C terminus. To understand this intramolecular mechanism of activation, we solved the structures of the autoinhibited (apo) and activated (calcium-bound) conformations of CDPKs from the apicomplexan parasites Toxoplasma gondii and Cryptosporidium parvum. In the apo form, the C-terminal CDPK activation domain (CAD) resembles a calmodulin protein with an unexpected long helix in the N terminus that inhibits the kinase domain in the same manner as CaMKII.

Structure and function of a G-actin sequestering protein with a vital role in malaria oocyst development inside the mosquito vector.

Cyclase-associated proteins (CAPs) are evolutionary conserved G-actin-binding proteins that regulate microfilament turnover. CAPs have a modular structure consisting of an N-terminal adenylate cyclase binding domain, a central proline-rich segment, and a C-terminal actin binding domain. Protozoan parasites of the phylum Apicomplexa, such as Cryptosporidium and the malaria parasite Plasmodium, express small CAP orthologs with homology to the C-terminal actin binding domain (C-CAP).

Targeting a uniquely nonspecific prenyl synthase with bisphosphonates to combat cryptosporidiosis.

Cryptosporidiosis is a neglected disease without a wholly effective drug. We present a study demonstrating nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates (N-BPs) to be capable of inhibiting Cryptosporidium parvum at low micromolar concentrations in infected MDCK cells. Predictably, the mechanism of action is based on inhibition of biosynthesis of isoprenoids but the target enzyme is unexpectedly a distinctive C.

Genome-scale protein expression and structural biology of Plasmodium falciparum and related Apicomplexan organisms.

Parasites from the protozoan phylum Apicomplexa are responsible for diseases, such as malaria, toxoplasmosis and cryptosporidiosis, all of which have significantly higher rates of mortality and morbidity in economically underdeveloped regions of the world. Advances in vaccine development and drug discovery are urgently needed to control these diseases and can be facilitated by production of purified recombinant proteins from Apicomplexan genomes and determination of their 3D structures. To date, both heterologous expression and crystallization of Apicomplexan proteins have seen only limited success.

The design and synthesis of YC-1 analogues as probes for soluble guanylate cyclase.

Soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) is highly activated in the presence of both YC-1 (1-benzyl-3-(5'-hydroxymethyl-2'-furyl)-indazole) and CO. In this report, the design, synthesis, and activity (i.e.

Effects of nitroglycerin on soluble guanylate cyclase: implications for nitrate tolerance.

Soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) is a heterodimeric hemoprotein that catalyzes the conversion of GTP to cGMP. Upon binding NO to its heme cofactor, purified sGC was activated 300-fold. sGC was only activated 67-fold by nitroglycerin (GTN) and Cys; and in the absence of Cys, GTN did not activate sGC.