Enhancements of research platforms

MIRA partnered with the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) to support its study investigating how the pandemic affects both the physical and psychological health of adults as they age. By using the rich data from the CLSA to study COVID-19, we will develop a greater understanding of which factors appear to protect against or increase the risk of developing symptoms. As a result of this work and MIRA’s investment, this partnership has resulted in the CLSA’s ability to raise an additional $1.2 million from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) as well as an additional $4 million from Canada’s Immunity Task Force. This latter funding will support the collection of blood samples to measure how widespread SARS-CoV-2 infection is among men and women over age 50, and surveys that will be conducted with more than 20,000 CLSA participants will reveal more about the lives of those individuals since the onset of the pandemic. Together, this information will give us a more complete understanding of the transmission dynamics and the risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in aging adults. This collaboration and investment by MIRA contributes to making McMaster, as the custodian of the CLSA, one of the most comprehensive resources of longitudinal data on older adults and COVID-19.

MIRA has also supported the expansion and enrichment of the CLSA through collaborations with Metabolon Inc. and frailty biomarker analyses. To date, there has been little consensus on the biological mechanisms underpinning frailty. Frailty is known to result in mobility issues and the ability to perform routine tasks in older adults. Analysis of CLSA samples will allow researchers to identify metabolites that will help to improve early prediction of frailty, and also lead to further research on treatments addressing specific aspects of frailty.