Shriners Hospitals for Children Canada and Children’s Hospital at LHSC Launch Landmark Research Program

One year after announcing a groundbreaking affiliation agreement, Shriners Hospitals for Children Canada and Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) are proud to announce a joint, pan-Canadian research initiative targeting rare childhood bone disorders.

In August 2024, the two institutions announced a groundbreaking five-year funding investment through collaboration with Shriners Children’s and Children’s Health Foundation. Following a competitive internal grant process, funding will support the Skeletal Tracking to Accelerate Research (STAR) Program, an ambitious effort to uncover the mechanisms behind rare bone diseases and improve care for children across Canada. The program will receive a $400,000 joint research grant funded over two years.

“This collaboration has shown us the power of what’s possible when two institutions with shared values and complementary expertise come together,” said René St-Arnaud, Ph.D., director of research at Shriners Hospitals for Children Canada. “We are proud to move forward with this first joint research program, which will serve children with some of the most complex and underserved bone conditions.”

Co-led by Leanne Ward, M.D. (Children’s Hospital) and Frank Rauch, M.D. (Shriners Hospitals for Children Canada), the STAR Program reflects the vision outlined in the 2024 affiliation agreement to expand access to specialized pediatric musculoskeletal care and research through strategic partnerships.

“We’ve designed this program to bring researchers and clinicians together in a way that directly responds to what families are telling us they need,” said Dr. Ward, pediatric endocrinologist at Children’s Hospital at LHSC and researcher at Children’s Health Research Institute (CHRI), a program of London Health Sciences Center Research Institute. “The STAR Program gives us the ability to study real-world patient challenges and move faster toward solutions that will make a difference in their care.”

The STAR Program is built around three pillars:

• The STAR Clinical Registry, a database to track and better understand the mechanisms and evolution of rare bone conditions in children, including genetic forms of rickets, skeletal dysplasias like achondroplasia, and bone fragility conditions (e.g. osteogenesis imperfecta)
• The STAR Demonstration Projects, which unite laboratory and patient-based research to explore new diagnostic methods and treatments
• The STAR Learning and Discovery Network, which facilitates ongoing collaboration, knowledge exchange and training between the two institutions

“This collaboration allows us to ask new questions about why these diseases behave so differently from one child to another,” said Dr. Rauch, pediatrician and director of the clinical biomedical laboratory at Shriners Hospitals for Children Canada. “By combining our clinical insights with powerful research tools, we’re building a foundation for discoveries that can lead to earlier diagnosis and more personalized treatments.”

The work will benefit patients like Gabriella, a current patient of Dr. Rauch at Shriners Hospitals for Children Canada, who currently lives with X-Linked hypophosphatemia (XLH), the most common inherited form of rickets, a disease that weakens bones. In the first joint project, scientists from both institutions will study and utilize advanced molecular genetics tools to track bone cells in which one of the two X chromosomes is inactivated. The team will test whether, in females who carry one healthy copy of the XLH gene, the disease develops because some bone cells randomly shut down the healthy copy, leaving only the faulty one active.

The initiative supports Shriners Hospitals for Children Canada’s broader national strategy to extend care and research into new regions. With this collaboration, the hospital will continue to grow its reach beyond Montreal – strengthening its presence in Southwestern Ontario and laying the groundwork for further partnerships that bring care closer to where children live.

The initiative also aligns with the work of CHRI as the third-largest hospital-based child and maternal health research institute in Canada, focused on preventing and treating diseases affecting infants, children and youth.

“Children’s Hospital and Shriners Hospitals for Children Canada are both deeply committed to advancing pediatric health and this collaboration is a natural extension of that shared mission,” said Craig Campbell, M.D., department head, Pediatrics at LHSC. “Together, we can accelerate research that delivers better treatments, better outcomes and brighter futures for young patients.”

As the STAR Program begins its initial two-year phase, both institutions anticipate expanding the registry and research efforts to include additional rare bone conditions and eventually opening the platform to collaborators across Canada.