This past year, we saw what McGillians are made of.
We saw researchers focus their attention on the fight against COVID-19. We saw students use their McGill training and commitment to community to track outbreaks and resupply food banks. We saw graduates launch volunteer initiatives to help frontline workers make it through the day. And McGill faculty and staff worked tirelessly to support remote learning and distribute emergency funds to students in need.
The common thread in these stories? The unfailing generosity and resilience of a community of faculty, staff, students and alumni that, time and again, shows up for any challenge.
Stepping up for students in need
When the pandemic hit, students needed help right away. When parts of the economy shut down, many lost part-time jobs and could no longer afford basic living expenses. Others scrambled to buy remote learning equipment or pay for last-minute flights home.
Determined to help, the McGill community contributed to the new Student Emergency Support Fund in large numbers, with gifts of all sizes. “The support from donors in such a short time has been incredible,” said Scholarships and Student Aid Office Director Cara Piperni, BCom’94, in April 2020, as hundreds of thousands of dollars poured in. “It is amazing to see how the kindness of people really comes out in times like this.”
Since March 2020, over 3,600 donors have given more than $1.6 million to areas of critical need for students. This includes gifts of $100,000 from loyal McGill donors, the Marcelle and Jean Coutu Foundation and John and Marcy McCall MacBain, as well as an anonymous gift of a similar size.
José Hernandez Romero, a doctoral candidate in music performance from Venezuela, is one of the many students who have received an emergency bursary – more than 1,500 requests by students for aid have been fulfilled so far. “Donor support has made all the difference to me this year,” says Romero, explaining that the Fund covered his living expenses for the entire summer, allowing him to stay in Montreal and concentrate on his thesis.
Investing in life-saving research
Long before COVID-19 had a name, researchers at the donor-funded McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4) knew that the next pandemic was coming and were ready to react swiftly. In early 2020, the MI4 team set up an Emergency COVID-19 Research Funding (ECRF) Program in partnership with the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Foundation and with the help of three key donors: the Hewitt Foundation, the Doggone Foundation and the Trottier Family Foundation.
This funding “was critical in catalyzing the rapid response of MI4 researchers to the COVID-19 pandemic,” says MI4 director Dr. Don Sheppard, MedResident'99, Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. The ECRF helped the team pivot existing operations and bring together teams determined to find solutions to the crisis.
One major initiative made possible by the ECRF is the MI4 Clinical Research Platform, an inter-institutional unit for testing promising COVID-19 therapies. Co-led by Drs. Marina Klein, MDCM’91, MSc’01, of the MUHC, and Christina Greenaway, MedResident’96, MSc’04, of the Jewish General Hospital, this platform gave all COVID-19 patients admitted during the first wave the chance to participate in a clinical drug trial.
The ECRF also allowed MI4 to launch a call for innovative research proposals in March 2020. Over 50 projects, with goals ranging from vaccine development to understanding the mental health impact of lockdowns, have received funding so far. “Many of these projects have already been completed and their findings have helped shape our medical and public policy responses to the pandemic,” says Sheppard.
Secure facilities to study the virus
One major challenge at the outset of the pandemic was ensuring that researchers could study the highly contagious SARS CoV-2 virus safely.
Luckily, McGill already had two Containment Level 3 (CL3) facilities – lab environments that meet stringent biosafety standards – examining tuberculosis, influenza and HIV. Dr. Marcel Behr, MSc'95, MedResident'95, Professor of Medicine and MI4’s co-director, immediately started thinking about repurposing these facilities for urgent research on the novel coronavirus.
He teamed up with Dr. Silvia Vidal, a professor in the Departments of Human Genetics and Microbiology and Immunology, who oversees the CL3 facility at the Bellini Life Sciences Complex.
Behr and Vidal's project received vital start-up support from the ECRF, which led to an additional $2.1 million in government grants. “We quickly adapted the labs, and in May 2020, we received the first batch of viral samples from laboratories in Quebec, Winnipeg, and Toronto,” says Behr, explaining that research at these sites is focusing on immune response, antiviral treatment and diagnostic tools.
“The greatest challenge we encounter at the moment is managing the requests to use our facilities, but it’s a good problem to have. We’ve gone from an idea at the beginning of the year to a state-of-the-art platform for groundbreaking research,” says Behr.
A homegrown COVID-19 test
After much hard work supported by donations, a team of 50 McGill researchers, led by Drs. Martin Schmeing, BSc’98, and Don van Meyel, succeeded in creating a Canadian version of the gold standard COVID-19 test.
Early in the pandemic, experts had warned that Canada was vulnerable to test kit shortages because of its reliance on international supply chains. “We wanted to help by making these tests domestically, making it possible for Canadians – including healthcare workers, students and everyday Canadians – to be tested on a larger scale,” says Schmeing, an associate professor of biochemistry. “MI4 supported us with seed funding…the Faculty of Science did likewise, and we got to work.”
The McGill-made test got the green light from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, and in July 2020, Schmeing and van Meyel’s team delivered 15,000 tests to the MUHC.
Van Meyel, who leads the Centre for Translational Biology, says this work “is helping to make sure that we control our own destiny in this country.”