About Maritime Intestinal Research Alliance
We are the Maritime Intestinal Research Alliance (MIRA), a centre of excellence in Gastroenterology (GI) research. We are located within IWK Health in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where we work in partnership with Dalhousie University. As the only tertiary children’s hospital serving the Maritime Provinces, our pediatric IBD clinic is the sole referral centre for pediatric inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) for these three provinces.
Our patients come from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and sometimes Newfoundland and Labrador. We accept new referrals from family physicians, pediatricians, or nurse practitioners for patients less than 16 years of age.
For over ten years, MIRA Peds and its investigators have been leading research projects and collaborating with research centres both nationally and internationally. As a research team, some of our areas of research interest are:
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Advancing our understanding of the role of the gut microbes (the microbiome) in IBD, with a particular focus on nutrition and the gut microbiome.
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Improving treatment options for children with IBD through drug and nutrition trials.
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Developing and validating outcome measures and disease activity indices which can be used in clinical and research settings to assess disease-related outcomes. We have a particular focus on patient-reported outcomes (PROs).
The MIRA Peds research faculty are comprised of dedicated clinicians who bring a variety of research interests from their diverse academic backgrounds. Physicians, registered nurses, dietitians, social workers, psychologists, booking clerks, and research and administrative staff all play an integral role in our research. Our interdisciplinary focus is a reflection of the multifaceted research that is needed to appropriately address the complex problems of pediatric gastroenterology.
Feel free to explore our website, including the profiles of each of our team members. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information about our research and operations.