Integrating research into patient care brings hope and builds trust, new head of Ottawa Hospital Research Institute says

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As a surgical oncologist and cancer researcher, Dr. Rebecca Auer knows research is sometimes the only hope patients have.

“And I can tell you, waking up with hope is much better than waking up without hope,” she says.

Bringing more of that hope to patients will be top of mind when Auer becomes executive vice-president of research and innovation at The Ottawa Hospital and CEO and scientific director of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in July.

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Auer, who has been director of cancer research at the hospital since 2018, says she shares the vision of hospital leaders that research must be integrated into all levels of care.

“I believe research is care, and when I say that I mean that patients deserve an opportunity to participate in research,” Auer said. “We have a responsibility to give patients the opportunity to participate in research if they choose to.”

She takes on the new work in July 1, replacing the hospital’s outgoing research leader, Dr. Duncan Stewart.

Auer has already helped make changes at the hospital that integrate research into health care by reducing barriers. That includes The Ottawa Hospital’s global tissue consenting and collecting program, which is designed to ensure all patients have the opportunity to help scientists gain necessary access to human tissue samples that are critical for making new discoveries.

Most patients undergoing surgery at the hospital are now asked, as part of the consent process, whether they would give some tissue for research if it is not needed for diagnostic purposes. The program has helped broaden the number of patients participating in research. During a pilot, 97 per cent of patients agreed to participate.

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“I am proud to have brought that forward, and now it is actually being looked at by other organizations to see if they can implement the same kind of thing,” Auer said. “Most of my patients have said they are happy to do something that would help somebody else, so I think it feels like the right thing to do for many patients.”

The hospital also runs a large program of what are known as pragmatic trials, in which patients are asked, based on verbal consent, to answer questions about therapies to help health officials gain more information about which is better for patients. Allowing verbal consent means more patients participate, bringing more information to health professionals.

Auer believes that integrating research into patient care has the added benefit of helping to build trust among patients by bringing them into the process.

Auer has publicly spoken out about the need to revamp Canada’s “outdated” clinical trials system at a time when there is an explosion of new therapies so that more cancer patients can benefit. Reducing barriers and modernizing the clinical trials process are key to that, she says.

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She takes over as head of research at the hospital at a time of rapid change in science and technology, from innovations sparked by the ability to sequence the human genome quickly to game-changing therapies to the possibilities of artificial intelligence.

The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute has a strong track record of transformative research and innovation, including a made-in-Canada approach to CAR T cell therapy, led by researcher John Bell. CAR T is a type of cancer immunotherapy treatment that genetically alters immune cells (called T cells) to enable them to locate and destroy cancer cells more effectively.

Auer calls the research and ongoing clinical trials “an example of how we can do better in Canada if we have a made-in-Canada approach.” Having the ability to evaluate groundbreaking therapies with a “Canadian lens” should make them more accessible to Canadian patients sooner, she said.

Auer has made planetary health part of her approach to research, something she wants to see expand. Under her leadership, the research institute’s cancer labs eliminated more than 182 kilograms of plastic waste by switching to re-stockable pipette tips and eliminated more than 272 kilograms of plastic by switching to glass media bottles. It also saved the equivalent of 11 households of energy every day by changing the temperature of their freezer to -70 C from -80 C, among other things.

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“I would like to see the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute join the race to net zero,” Auer said. “Who is better to drive environmental sustainability than the people who are supposed to be caring the most about the health of the human population?”

Hospital President and CEO Cameron Love said Auer’s leadership and dedication to patient care “make her ideally positioned to strengthen and grow research and innovation at (The Ottawa Hospital).”

“Research has to be central to everything we do,” Auer said. “I don’t think we should do this so we can be the No. 1 research institute in Canada or so that we can have more stories and fundraising. I think we should do this because it is the best care we can offer to our patients.”

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