All in for every kid

In 2024, BC Children’s Hospital (BCCH) launched the Clinical Trials Super Hub. Through clinical trials since then, BC children have accessed a revolutionary medication for severe eczema. Teenagers suffering from chronic daily headaches had the chance to enroll in an innovative trial exploring the efficacy of CBD. And families managing a rare blood disease received at-home therapies rather than visiting the hospital every few weeks. By supporting the research capacity at the Hub, donors help us bring the world’s most advanced therapies to our hospital while empowering our teams to contribute to medical advances for kids everywhere.

Kids who survive cancer through bone marrow transplants can face a serious complication called chronic graft-versus-host disease, where transplanted immune cells attack the body. It affects one in six children and can be fatal or severely debilitating. Dr. Kirk Schultz, an investigator at BC Children’s, became the first researcher to identify biomarkers in a simple blood drop that can predict this complication months before it occurs. His biomarker panels were patented in 2024: the world’s first blood-based test designed to detect the condition in children. Catching it early can help to prevent or mitigate its effects, which can be lifelong.

The Translational Genomics Hub (TGH) is a vital research platform within the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute (WCHRI) at the University of Alberta. Its purpose is to remove barriers for the Stollery community—including researchers, trainees, and clinicians—and accelerate the use of advanced genomics to confirm rare disease diagnoses. Funded by the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation, TGH enables the development of new therapies for prenatal and childhood conditions. In the past year alone, the TGH supported 24 patient cases, leading to new diagnoses, expanded drug access, and significant scientific contributions through the discovery and publication of new genes.

Donor support for the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation directly sustains the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute (WCHRI) Pediatric Clinical Trials team. Embedded in the Stollery Children’s Hospital, this team facilitates hundreds of clinical trials annually, distinguishing the Stollery as one of the few Canadian sites equipped to conduct high-stakes Phase 1 (first-in-human) pediatric trials. This past year alone, the team managed five Phase 1 studies, providing life-saving and life-improving therapies to children facing complex genetic and neurological conditions.

Medical advances have dramatically improved the chances of surviving childhood cancer. But cancer remains the leading cause of disease-related death among young Canadians. A new donor-supported research collaboration at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba is dedicated to improving care and outcomes. PROMISE – Pediatric Research in Oncology in Manitoba: Innovation, Science, Excellence – brings together scientists, clinicians, kids, and families. Drawing expertise from many fields, PROMISE researchers work with patients to improve treatments and help more children become cancer-free. One focus is managing long-term side effects of treatment, which affect about two-thirds of patients.

As many as 60 per cent of the 140,000 kids treated at Health Sciences Centre (HSC) Children’s Hospital each year are Indigenous. In an effort led by Dr. Melanie Morris, the first Indigenous pediatric surgeon in Canada and the first lead of Indigenous Health at HSC Children’s, the hospital is collaborating with Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and health care experts as well as children and families from Métis, Inuit and First Nations communities to create the Indigenous Community Healing Space, the first centre of its kind in a Canadian children’s hospital. Donor support is helping to make this initiative possible, creating an environment designed to make Indigenous children feel safe and respected, including by enabling access to traditional medicines, ceremonies, and culturally relevant supports.

Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer. When a child is diagnosed, they typically undergo surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible, and then begin a standard treatment of radiation and chemotherapy. The latter therapies can cause painful side effects. Dr. Nirav Thacker, a pediatric oncologist at CHEO and researcher at the CHEO Research Institute, is leading the first-ever clinical trial exploring new approaches to childhood brain cancer treatment. His groundbreaking study investigates using immunotherapy alone to treat glioblastoma, potentially sparing children from the harsh side effects of radiation and chemotherapy.

For the one to three per cent of children living with a rare genetic disorder, getting a diagnosis can take years – a gruelling journey for families. CHEO’s ThinkRare algorithm is changing that. This world-first AI tool identifies children who may have an undiagnosed rare genetic disease and refers them for further testing. Its diagnostic rate of 71 per cent far surpasses the 33 per cent achieved through conventional pathways. One child was diagnosed at just five months old. CHEO now aims to expand ThinkRare across Canada and internationally, bringing faster answers and better care to families everywhere.

“Not being able to communicate was making Sofya panic,” recalls Rose-Hélène Sigouin, a speech therapist at CHU Sainte-Justine. Sofya, 10, was recovering from a spinal cord hemorrhage. After the team set up an electronic tablet with Bluetooth controls that let her express her needs and feelings, Sigouin recalls, “Her relief was palpable.” Undesignated funds help Sainte-Justine equip care teams with specialized communication tools for children who are unable to speak. By reducing anxiety, preserving some independence, and strengthening trust between children and caregivers, these tools improve both quality of care and patient well-being.

For children with life-threatening food allergies and their families, ordinary activities like school and visits to friends’ houses can be stressful: the risk of accidental exposure to allergens is always lurking. Montreal Children’s Hospital is working to ease these fears – and the very real danger that drives them – by offering state-of-the-art treatment for severe allergies using an innovative oral immunotherapy. Part of a wider research program that involves collaborations across Canada, the TOTAL (Therapeutic Objective is Tolerance in Food Allergy) Program has been shown to significantly increase participants’ tolerance to allergens, reducing the risk of severe reactions.

Some children are more likely to develop cancer because of inherited genetic mutations. Indeed, about 10 per cent of childhood cancers can be traced to a genetic “cancer predisposition syndrome” (CPS). At Montreal Children’s Hospital, donor support is helping Dr. Catherine Goudie lead research to better understand these syndromes and provide enhanced clinical support to affected kids and families. One important contribution of Dr. Goudie’s program is a free digital tool that uses algorithms to help doctors determine whether a child should undergo genetic evaluation for possible CPS.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, donor support helps the Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre purchase equipment for the province’s tiniest patients – those who receive care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The Janeway NICU has a fleet of 26 incubators that can be adapted to a range of medical needs, whether infants require a ventilator, specialized monitoring equipment, or other forms of support. The NICU also has special sleeper chairs to support parents, helping them rest and breastfeed delicate infants.

When caring for a critically ill patient, time is of the essence. Thanks to donors, specialists at the Alberta Children’s Hospital are using point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) to inform care in real time – gaining the capacity to make faster diagnoses with increased accuracy. This helps children begin treatments sooner, while avoiding exposure to radiation from X-rays. Until recently, ultrasounds were largely confined to Diagnostic Imaging. Today, a unique pediatric training and education platform called KidSONO is building staff’s knowledge, skills, and confidence to use PoCUS and helping to increase bedside use of this technology throughout the hospital. KidSONO is also. now being shared with children’s hospitals across Canada, helping train pediatric teams nationwide.

A new drug called Blinatumomab (“Blina”) has delivered the biggest advancement in pediatric leukemia care in 30 years, increasing the cure rate for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia from 85 per cent to 97 per cent. Patients receive Blina alongside their regular chemotherapy. Because Blina must be given as a continuous infusion over the course of 28 days, it’s administered through portable pumps carried in a backpack kids can wear at home or at school. Thanks to donor support for Hospital at Home, a first-of-its-kind program of Alberta Children’s Hospital,  the medication bag can be changed in the child’s home by an oncology nurse, avoiding hospital trips. 

Researchers at Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital are working to unlock the genetic causes of structural birth differences. Craniofacial and cardiovascular anomalies (and other less common conditions) affect about 600 babies born in Saskatchewan each year. With donor support, the team is analyzing genetic information from affected families, seeking to pinpoint genetic variants that disrupt early development. So far, they’ve identified two genes of interest. Understanding the root causes of health conditions through genetics paves the way for earlier diagnosis, more precise treatments, and better prevention strategies.

Canada’s children’s hospitals care for children with the most serious and complex conditions. In cases where even extraordinary care is not able to save a patient’s life, donor support for Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital Foundation helps to provide bereavement resources for families. In addition to guidance and support from bereavement specialists, the hospital provides literature, the option to engage in ceremonies such as Indigenous smudging, and the opportunity to create mementos: moulds of handprints and footprints, or special devices that play a child’s recorded heartbeat. Families report that these forms of care and accompaniment are meaningful as they begin to navigate an enormous loss.

Social factors such as where we live, how easily we can access health care, and if we experience housing or food insecurity can directly affect our health. To provide the best care to all patients, SickKids works to understand and address these non-medical factors. With donor support, the Health Equity Data Initiative (HEDI) is gathering 100,000 patient and caregiver survey responses on topics like language preference, ethnicity, and family income. The data will help SickKids ensure patients and caregivers receive excellent care, including by supporting families in their preferred language and taking steps like covering transportation costs to make it easier for children to receive care.

The New Investigator Research Grants, supported by the SickKids Foundation in partnership with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, are a rare funding opportunity for early-career scientists pursuing cutting-edge research projects. The latest grant recipients are advancing children’s health by examining climate change impacts on child health, studying a salamander that can regenerate limbs and organs, and co-designing mental health interventions with newcomer families, to name just a few examples. By funding boundary-pushing projects that likely would not have been funded through traditional channels, partner-supported New Investigator grants play a vital role – helping to drive discovery while supporting the next generation of research leaders.

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Children’s Hospital cares for more than 1,000 premature and critically ill babies annually. A key part of that care is the Giraffe OmniBed, a specialized incubator designed to protect fragile infants. It creates a carefully controlled “microenvironment” that helps to stabilize infants while making it easier for families to bond with them. NICU newborns are highly sensitive to even small changes, and ambient disruptions can cause significant stress. The Giraffe OmniBed helps prevent this by regulating temperature, humidity, oxygen, light, and even noise, closely mimicking the conditions of the womb.

Proteins – tiny molecules that drive many processes in our bodies – can offer clues about what’s wrong when we’re sick. By analyzing proteins to understand the mechanisms of illness, doctors can arrive at better diagnoses and treatments. Thanks to donor support, Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre has become one of the first facilities in Canada to offer access to an innovative technology called OLINK. The technology can analyze more than 5,400 proteins using just one drop of blood. OLINK’s ability to work with so little blood is a huge benefit in pediatrics, since newborns and small children can’t give larger samples.

For many kids with lower-limb mobility challenges, practising walking movements is an important rehabilitation exercise. To help kids of different abilities gain the benefits of walking, the community support provided McMaster Children’s Hospital with a Trexo Plus robotic gait training device. This customizable exoskeleton holds users safely upright while a physiotherapist guides and monitors their movement using a tablet. Conventional gait training work requires a lot of hands-on support. The Trexo Plus reduces the physical demands on therapists, letting them focus on coaching and encouragement, and through its innovative technology, helps monitor progress and guide rehab plans.

In 2024, Canada created the National Autism Strategy and launched a new National Centre for Autism Collaboration (NCAC). Based at the Ron Joyce Children’s Health Centre (part of McMaster Children’s Hospital), the NCAC was founded to help realize “A Canada where Autistic people exercise their full rights and realize their full potential.” The collaboration is designed to link researchers, clinicians, caregivers/families, decision makers, and service providers, initiating an era of enhanced cooperation. By sharing insights and resources, NCAC seeks to help children and youth living with autism in communities across Canada gain access to better care, better options, and brighter futures.

Based at the IWK, Dr. Janet Curran, the inaugural Chair, and her team are advancing a range of projects, including the trial of a communication tool called ED-PATCH (Emergency Department Patient-Activated Transition from Care to Home). More than 90 per cent of people who visit an emergency department (ED) are discharged with information to guide their continued care at home. Effective communication between care teams and patients/caregivers is vital to the success of this transition. ED-PATCH is designed to help care teams improve the clarity and efficacy of this communication, to support health literacy and empowerment for patients and families.

The IWK participates in the CHILD-BRIGHT network, a national, patient-oriented collaboration centred around children with brain-based developmental disabilities. Founded in 2016 and connected to Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR), this active network includes 500 researchers, clinicians, decision-makers, youth, and parents – all focused on supporting brighter futures for children, youth, and their families. Flexible funding from donors helps the IWK to build and maintain the capacity to engage with collaborative initiatives like CHILD-BRIGHT. This work supports the sharing of knowledge and best practices, and helps to connect Nova Scotia families affected by brain-based disabilities to networks of insight and support across Canada.