USask co-leads of first-ever nationwide One Health training program

A new national training program co-led by the University of Saskatchewan (USask) to prepare and train researchers to identify and prevent the threat of disease against animal and human populations has received federal support.  

The Canadian One Health Training Program on Emerging Zoonoses (COHTPEZ), a first-of-its-kind program in Canada, received $2.7 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).  

The program was co-designed with input from experts at various government and not-for-profit bodies, as well as from academic and research institutes like USask, Dalhousie University, the University of Guelph, the University of Montreal, the University of Toronto and York University.  

The concept of “One Health” is one that understands and investigates how the health of people, animals and the environment are interconnected and reliant on each other.  

The new COHTPEZ six-year training program will combine the learned experiences of researchers across Canada from the COVID-19 pandemic with the research expertise of a wide range of academic training. The goal of the program is to build the next generation of skilled experts to take on future health challenges, and provide mentorship and opportunities for researchers to continue developing a modern One Health-based skillset.  

"This new national training program on One Health and Zoonosis will fill critical gaps in our workforce to tackle emerging zoonotic pathogens and help prevent the next pandemic. Our program will train Canadian scholars over the next six years in the areas of high containment research, health and sustainability, vaccine and therapeutics development, and surveillance and epidemiology,” said Dr. Arinjay Banerjee (PhD), scientist at USask's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), adjunct professor of veterinary microbiology in USask's Western College of Veterinary Medicine, and a co-lead of the USask One Health Signature Area of Research.

“We will leverage resources from across multiple Canadian institutions, including VIDO at USask to build a collaborative and interdisciplinary training platform in Canada." 

The program is one of five supported by the CIHR's Health Research Training Platform initiative.