National Preclinical Sepsis Platform: Developing a framework for accelerating innovation in Canadian sepsis research

Sepsis is the body's life-threatening response to an infection. It is estimated that sepsis affects approximately 40,000 Canadians each year with over a billion dollars in annual health care costs. Research in scientific laboratories (preclinical research) has been very helpful in describing how sepsis happens However, despite identifying many potential cures for sepsis in lab experiments, none have shown benefit when applied to treat sepsis in humans. There are many reasons to explain this lack of success. Notably, most preclinical research is being done in individual labs and is not coordinated with other researchers that are also studying sepsis. Many times, there are differences in how the experiments are performed that make it hard to compare results from one lab to another. Sometimes details from experiments are not even available for other researchers to study and review. Also, lab researchers may not always communicate directly with doctors treating sepsis in order to understand what specific problems should be urgently investigated, and what problems are interesting but will not change the outcome of medical practice. In order to address these issues and improve the lives of Canadians affected with sepsis, we are proposing a National Preclinical Sepsis Platform - a network of researchers, doctors, and other experts who will combine their efforts to tackle this problem together. The goal is to harmonize our approach to preclinical sepsis experiments in all the labs across the country, and work directly with all the necessary partners to ensure that discoveries from the lab will directly benefit patients. This grant will support our first in-person meeting that will include over 25 participants as well as a keynote address from an international sepsis expert. By the end of the meeting, we will have outlined an effective roadmap for future collaboration and established a new paradigm for preclinical sepsis research in Canada.