The Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development

Issue 1: November 2013
The Fraser Mustard
Institute for Human
Development
Progress Update
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Welcome!
It is our great pleasure to share with you the first ever year in review newsletter from the Fraser Mustard
Institute for Human Development (FMIHD).
Our goal at FMIHD is to improve the life-long health and well-being of children by focusing on understanding
and enhancing their early development. In this newsletter, we invite you to read about the many steps we have
taken in the past year towards realizing this vision. From innovative new education programs and cutting-edge
research initiatives to high-profile international events and ventures into community outreach, we hope that
this newsletter offers a glimpse into the amazing progress that we have already made at FMIHD, and keeps you
up to date about our future aspirations. We have also included in this issue a tribute to the late Dr. James Fraser
Mustard (1927-2011), an eminent Canadian scientist and fierce advocate for improving early
human development. Dr. Mustard’s vision was the inspiration for FMIHD, and we are honoured to dedicate the
Institute to his legacy.
Warm regards,
Stephen J. Lye (Executive Director) and Marla B. Sokolowski (Academic Director)
Connaught Global Challenge
The Connaught Global Challenge Award of approximately $1 million is awarded
annually to an applicant who “brings together the university’s leading researchers
from multiple disciplines, as well as innovators and thought leaders from other
sectors to heighten the university’s contribution to important issues facing society.”
The award was used to establish the Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development, and has allowed the
Institute to launch a series of research activities aimed at
understanding the relationship between children’s earliest experiences and
their well-being throughout the course of life.
About FMIHD
Our Goal
A growing body of evidence suggests that the first 2,000
days of life play a pivotal role in priming individuals
for long-term health and wellness. It is crucial to discover the optimal developmental trajectories for young
children in order both to prevent serious disorders, and
to foster the best possible continuing health, learning
and social functioning. FMIHD aims both to discover
the ways in which early childhood development molds
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our long-term well-being, and to determine the most
effective interventions to optimize the long-term effects
of this sensitive period.
Our Research
FMIHD pursues evidence-based studies across many
fields. For example, researchers focus on the interplay
between genes and environments (social, nutritional,
cultural and economic) on a child’s development; the
impact of adversity during early life on brain develop-
ment and a child learning and behavior and on interventions in families and individuals that promote healthy
development and well-being. FMIHD works with
children and families from advantaged and disadvantaged communities, with key populations such as
aboriginal children and youth as well as children in
low-income countries, so that all children everywhere
can reach their full potential.
Commitment to Change
In order to promote long-term health and wellness,
FMIHD is motivated by a desire to effect real change in
the ways our children are raised. We are committed to
ensuring that the knowledge generated in our research
programs is effectively disseminated to those who need
it. To this end, FMIHD values active involvement with
community partners, and seeks to engage directly with
Transdisciplinary Approach
those who can use its research in real world settings,
The scope of this task requires a breadth of exper- including policy-makers, educators, social workers and
tise from diverse academic disciplines. FMIHD inte- clinicians.
grates these branches in a transdisciplinary approach Commitment to Education
that transcends traditional academic and professional
boundaries. At FMIHD, leading researchers in educa- FMIHD recognizes the importance of inspiring new
tion, biology, and psychology, among others, ensure that generations of researchers. Through its novel collabthe complex issues surrounding human development orative education programs, FMIHD will prepare
are examined from all relevant perspectives.
future researchers to further its mandate of studying
and enhancing the developmental trajectories of
children to prepare them for better health, learning,
and social functioning throughout their lives.
Education and Training
An important element of FMIHD’s vision is to create a robust education program in human development at both
graduate and undergraduate levels, with the ultimate aim of inspiring a new generation of skilled and dedicated
researchers. The Institute has made significant leaps in the past year in realizing this vision.
The Mats Sundin Fellowship in Developmental Health
The University of Toronto and the Karolinska Institute
in Sweden have a long history of fruitful collaboration.
This tradition was reinforced in 2012, when a generous contribution by Maple Leafs legend Mats Sundin
helped establish a new Fellowship in Developmental
Health. Through this highly selective program, two
postdoctoral fellows, from Toronto and Stockholm, respectively, will participate in an exchange program to
study the relationship between early experience and
disease. Dr. Stephen Matthews states that “these elite
Sundin fellows will help advance our understanding of
this complex relationship and assist our efforts to build
trajectories towards health and away from disease.”
The unique training provided through this exchange Mats Sundin and Dean Catharine Whiteside of the Faculty of
Medicine display Sundin’s iconic number 13 in celebration of the
program will be instrumental to the success of this launch of the prestigious fellowship.
research.
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Graduate Education
FMIHD has established a working group to develop
a Graduate Training Program in Human Development to advance the vision of the Institute – that
experience in early life has consequences for life long
health, learning and social functioning.
An important component of this Training Program
will be a collaborative graduate program in Human Development, which is currently being shaped
by FMIHD’s academic steering committee. The
program will incorporate many of the successful
elements from existing undergraduate courses in
human development, including a core course that
emphasizes problem-based learning and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries. Graduate students will also be invited to attend seminars focusing
on human development, and to participate in an
annual retreat where they
can present their work,
discuss ideas, and interact with
other students and professors.
The graduate program will
embrace FMIHD’s commitment to transdisciplinarity and
welcome students from a broad
range of academic areas. We
estimate that this collaborative
program will be operational by September 2014.
In the future, FMIHD hopes to retain a subset of
exceptional students from this program and offer a
more intensive “specialist” training program.
Undergraduate Education
There have also been efforts to ensure diversity
in the backgrounds of students: the current first-year
course, for instance, welcomes students from all
disciplines, including arts, sciences and social
sciences. In this way, the undergraduate learning experience reflects FMIHD’s goal of facilitating
interaction among different disciplines and moving
beyond conventional academic silos.
The Honourable Margaret McCain and Dr. Joel Levine
and have been instrumental in constructing FMIHD’s new
problem based learning curricula.
In the past year, FMIHD has made great strides in
both designing and implementing new undergraduate courses in human development at the University of
Toronto. Courses are currently being taught to
first-year and fourth-year students at both the
Mississauga and St. George campuses of U of T, as well
as at George Brown college for those training to be early
childhood educators.
The courses are based on an innovative curriculum,
crafted by Dr. Joel Levine, Dr. Fraser Mustard, and
The Honourable Margaret McCain, that encourages
problem-based learning and collaborative work among
students rather than traditional lectures.
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FMIHD is thrilled to report that early feedback from both students and professors has been
outstanding. The teamwork and collaboration among
students has been described as “magical.” FMIHD is
excited to continue to develop and improve upon this
undergraduate education initiative in the coming years.
FMIHD is also currently working with Aga Khan
University (AKU) campuses in Pakistan and Kenya in
an effort to create an interactive online course in
human development. The project, spearheaded
by Dr. Levine, will bring together fourth-year students
from the U of T and students from the AKU through
a shared online community to wrestle with issues surrounding human development. FMIHD is enthusiastic
about the possibilities for this groundbreaking program.
Research
FMIHD aims to engage in original research focusing on the interplay between genes and environments (social,
nutritional, cultural and economic) in order to illuminate the developmental pathways that affect long-term health
and well being. We have taken steps to coordinate the full-scale launch of this ambitious research project.
The Ontario Birth Study and TARGet Kids!
The Ontario Birth Study (OBS) is an ambitious and
exciting new research initiative established in 2011
and led by Dr. Alan Bocking. The goal of the study is
to help researchers and clinicians better understand
pregnancy, the health of mothers and babies, and
ultimately, the importance of early life experiences
on childhood and later life health and well-being (i.e.
socializing, learning and interacting). The program is
open to all pregnant women admitted to prenatal care
at Mt. Sinai hospital over the age of 18, and researchers
hope to enroll over 1000 women this year.
Drs. Stephen Lye and Alan Bocking are two of the many devoted
The study will focus on both genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the health and wellbeing of children and mothers. This dual focus will
help shed light on how our experiences “get under
our skin” to influence the effects of our genes. For
example, researchers will investigate the role that nutrition, an environmental factor, plays in either promoting or inhibiting certain genetic predispositions. This
knowledge will eventually help us figure out the best
possible conditions for early human development, as
well as the most effective interventions to mitigate the
effects of poor early environments.
The OBS will be used as a resource in various collaborations, many of which will be made possible by the
support and transdisciplinary talents of the Fraser
Mustard Institute for Human Development.
First, there are plans to connect the data to
TARGet Kids! (The Applied Research Group
for Kids), a research study involving children in
Toronto that seeks to link early childhood
environments to lasting health problems, such as
obesity, micronutrient deficiencies and developmental problems. Dr. Jonathon Maguire, a pediatrician
at St. Michael’s hospital and an Assistant Professor in
researchers investigating the importance of early life experience
through the Ontario Birth Study.
both the Department of Pediatrics and the Institute of
Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, is a lead
researcher on the project. As an active member of
FMIHD, Dr. Maguire will facilitate smooth interactions among OBS, TARGetKids and FMIHD.
OBS resources are also being used in a collaborative
effort with the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle to study issues surrounding preterm birth. This
project is made possible due to a grant from the Bill
and Melinda Gates foundation through the Global
Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS).
Finally, Dr. Alan Bocking has introduced a proposal
to link the OBS to AMPATH programs in Kenya in
order to support preterm birth research internationally.
The Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development
is a crucial partner in all of these collaborations, as it
will ensure the transdisciplinary sharing of information and resources across the university and affiliated
hospitals.
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Events
FMIHD has coordinated a series of high profile events in the past year. These events, which included the Institute’s
formal launch, a world-class international symposium, and a distinguished lecture series, have helped FMIHD to
inspire collaborations among researchers and to broadcast accessible information to the community.
Launch of FMIHD
On September 27, 2012, the Fraser Mustard Institute
for Human Development was formally launched at the
MaRS Discovery Centre in front of approximately 200
attendees. Dr. Cameron Mustard, Fraser’s son and a professor at the Dalla Lana school of Public Health, spoke
passionately about FMIHD’s connection to his father’s
aspirations:
“The University of Toronto’s commitment to establish
a transdisciplinary Institute for Human Development
resolved, for my father, one of the uncompleted tasks on
his to-do list. He had a vision that U of T could provide
international leadership in scholarship in this field.”
- Dr. Cameron Mustard
Dr. Cameron Mustard during the Opening event of the
Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development
Connaught Global Challenge International Symposium
From September 27-29 2012, FMIHD welcomed over 200 registrants from across
Canada and the US to a symposium entitled “Investing in Mothers and Children:
Developmental Trajectories, Health, Learning and Society.” The symposium featured
a world-class group of speakers with a diverse range of research interests, including
basic, biomedical and social scientists.
Participants extensively discussed the current state of research in early human
development, and considered how the field can move towards more collaborative, synergistic research models. The symposium provided a preview of the kind of
research that FMIHD hopes to champion in the coming years.
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FMIHD Lecture Series
Funds from the Connaught Global Challenge Award were used to launch a lecture series for the Institute.
The lectures, which were accessible to both academic and non-academic audiences, examined current issues
surrounding early human development. Lectures were hosted by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and
the Faculty of Medicine. Some of the renowned speakers invited by FMIHD are shown below, along with the title
of the talk they delivered:
Dr. Clyde Hertzman: How Society Gets Under the Skin
in Early Life: Is this the Beginning of a New Science?
Dr. Leeroy Hood: Systems Medicine and Emerging
Technologies: Catalyzing Proactive P4 Medicine
Dr. Robert Pianta: Elevating the Capacity of Classroom
Experiences for Promoting Students' Learning and
Development: Observation and Improvement of
Teacher-Student Interactions
Dr. Edward Melhuish: Let evidence lead the way:
Findings from the UK’s Effective Provision of
Pre-School Education Study
Dr. Ralph Greenspan: From Sleep to Attention, Flies
are More Like Us Than You’d Think
Dr. John Newnham: Developmental Origins of Health
and Disease (DOHaD) and the challenges ahead
Dr. David Barker: Preventing Chronic Disease by
Improving Human Development
Dr. Annette Karmiloff-Smith: Genetic and Environmental Vulnerabilities: The Importance of CrossSyndrome Comparisons
Dr. W. Thomas Boyce: What the Genes Remember:
How Stratification, Sensitivity and Stress Codetermine
Child Health and Development
FMIHD will be continuing its lecture series during the coming year and welcomes any input
regarding potential speakers and events.
Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development Contact Information:
OISE, University of Toronto
252 Bloor Street West, 7th floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 1V6
Website: www.humandevelopment.utoronto.ca
Email: [email protected]
Executive Director: Dr. Stephen J. Lye
Tel: 416 978 8325
Academic Director: Dr. Marla B. Sokolowski
Tel: 416 978 8325
Administrative Coordinator: Victoria De Luca
Tel: 416 978 8325
Advancement Contact: Selina Esteves
Tel: 416 978 0391
Email: [email protected]
To download the FMIHD brochure, please visit:
www.humandevelopment.utoronto.ca
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Community Outreach
Dr. Fraser Mustard often emphasized the need to close the gap between what we know and what we do. The
goal of FMIHD is not simply to do research, but also to ensure that children can actually benefit from it. Community outreach is a central task for the Institute in pursuit of this goal, and we are proud to say that we have
made important links to many groups in the past year.
Ontario Government
Aga Khan Foundation Canada (AKFC)
Public Health
World Health Organization (WHO)
FMIHD has established
AKFC supports sustainable
contacts within the Onimprovements in the qualitario government, and has
ty of life of poor, marginalheld meetings with Deputy
ized communities in Asia and
Ministers and Assistant
Africa, and aims to enhance
Deputy Ministers from the
Canada’s leadership in world
Ministry of Health and Long
affairs. FMIHD hopes that
Term Care and the Ministry of Education. We hope
involvement
with AKFC
that these connections will provide a more direct link
will provide opportunities
between research and policy, and help close the gap to make more connections to the community and
between knowledge and action.
develop additional partnerships.
FMIHD has met with representatives from Peel Public
Health, and is currently planning a second meeting to
review the Ontario Birth Study and discuss the sharing of resources. FMIHD has participated in meetings
with leaders from Public Health Ontario to discuss the
importance of a human development agenda in the
Public Health system.
Healthy Kids Panel
The Healthy Kids
Panel comprised
a group of experts
assembled by the
provincial government tasked with making recommendations to reduce childhood obesity. FMIHD contributed to the panel, which recently published report
entitled No Time to Wait: The Healthy Kids Strategy
(March 2013). We hope that this interaction will set
the stage for future links to the community through
provincial government.
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The Fraser Mustard
Institute is currently
contributing to a new
initiative hosted by
the WHO to prepare a
plan for a new program
focusing on the importance of early-life
to life-long health,
learning and social
functioning.
FMIHD
joins UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank, USAID, and others as a collaborator in this
program. The ultimate goal is to develop programs
that can impact children in low and middle income
countries. FMIHD is also working with the WHO
to have the Institute established as an official WHO
Collaborating Centre.
Remembering Fraser Mustard
We would like to take a moment to remember
the life and legacy of Dr. James Fraser Mustard
(1927-2011). Dr. Mustard was born on October 16, 1927 to Allan Alexander and Jean Ann
Mustard. He attended University of Toronto
Schools as a child, developing a knack for problem solving that would later help to define his
career, and was awarded his M.D. from the
University of Toronto in 1953. During his time in
university, Dr. Mustard emerged as a star football
player, earning the nickname “Moose” Mustard
from his peers. His long-time colleague and friend
Marian Packham fondly describes the lasting influence of football on Dr. Mustard’s career, noting his
constant efforts to bring his associates “onside,” and
his exasperation at individuals who “dropped the
ball.”
Following medical school, Dr. Mustard travelled
to Cambridge, and received his Ph.D. in 1956
for his work on arterial disease. His subsequent
research in the area was illuminating, with perhaps his most noteworthy contribution to the field
being the discovery that aspirin can help to
prevent heart disease and strokes. In 1966,
Dr. Mustard assumed the role of Chair of Pathology as one of the founding faculty of McMaster’s
Medical School; later became Dean and Vice-President of teh Faculty of Health Sciences. In 1982,
Dr. Mustard founded the Canadian Institute for
Advanced Research (originally CIAR, now CIFAR),
envisioning an environment where leading researchers from around the world could collaborate to tackle difficult questions. Many colleagues credit the
ultimate success of the Institute to Dr. Mustard’s
endless perseverance and commitment to his vision.
Dr. Mustard stepped down as president of CIFAR
in 1992, and the remainder of his life was devoted
whole-heartedly to improving early human development in Canada. In 1999, Dr. Mustard, together
with the Honourable Margaret McCain, published
a report entitled The Early Years Study - Reversing
the Real Brain Drain. The report was instrumental in propelling the subject of early child development into the national and international spotlight.
Dr. Mustard’s continuing efforts to support early
human development were tireless: he co-authored
two more Early Years Studies, the last of which
in collaboration with Kerry Mccuaig of OISE’s
Atkinson Centre.
Dr. Mustard passed away in November, 2011,
following a short battle with cancer. One of his
final projects was the conception and creation of
the Institute for Human Development at the University of Toronto. We continue to be inspired by
Dr. Mustard’s compassion, innovation, and determination in his campaign to help children across
Canada, and we are honoured to dedicate the Fraser
Mustard Institute for Human Development to his
legacy and memory.
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