Dr. Liton Furukawa stands at the forefront of ethical health research as a postdoctoral fellow and Research Ethics Review Officer at Royal Roads University, skillfully navigating complex ethical landscapes while fostering collaboration across diverse stakeholders. She leads this pioneering project as PI funded by the Increasing Capacity for Maternal and Pediatric Clinical Trials (IMPaCT) and Michael Smith Health Research BC.
Guided by Dr. Mary Bernard, Program Head and Research Ethics Board Chair, Dr. Furukawa is distinguished as one of only four IMPaCT-funded postdocs across Canada in 2025, uniquely representing British Columbia. As a multisensory intervention specialist and educational psychologist, she innovatively weaves music, art, and rhythm into transformative therapies for neurodiverse children.
Dr. Furukawa’s groundbreaking project is a BC-based initiative with promising international collaboration through matched funding, positioning it at the forefront of innovative autism and ADHD research. The project addresses a critical gap in current therapies that primarily manage symptoms without targeting the underlying causes, limiting long-term improvements in children’s social and emotional functioning. By pioneering an Interactive Multisensory Physical Movements model combined with traditional behavioral therapies, this research engages children aged 5-12 with ASD and ADHD through immersive, technology-driven activities that stimulate multisensory integration and full-body involvement.
In BC, Dr. Furukawa works as a PI integrating cutting-edge scientific tools – such as holography, eye tracking, and virtual reality – with established behavioral therapies to revolutionize the development of social skills and emotional regulation. This novel intervention aims to transcend conventional methods by offering a dynamic, engaging therapeutic experience tailored to the mental and physical needs of each child. Anticipated outcomes include marked improvements in social interaction, reductions in behavioral challenges, and enhanced participation in daily activities, promising to elevate the quality of life for affected children.
The impact of this research will extend beyond individual benefits, potentially transforming understanding and care provision for neurodevelopmental disorders within the BC health system. By demonstrating the efficacy of combining advanced technology with behavioral science, Dr. Furukawa’s project could set a new standard for personalized interventions that address core deficits rather than symptoms alone. This innovation holds the promise to reduce healthcare burdens, improve long-term outcomes, and inspire scalable, technology-empowered therapeutic models across Canada and internationally.
Violence against youth is a major cause of death in this age. Youth who have been victims of violence are more likely to be hurt by someone else again. Much of the research in preventing violent injuries in youth have focused on schools and community programs. This research study aims to see if we can prevent youth (age 12-17 years old) from being victims of violence by focusing on general pediatrician clinics. The research team will randomly allot youth to either receive their standard care or to also receive violence screening in their pediatrician appointment. We will then track the youth for the next year to see if they have had any injuries compatible with violence.
This project is jointly funded by a IMPaCT Health Research BC Training Award. This is a British Columbia based project. The Principle Investigator is Dr. Tanjot Singh, a pediatrician and early career researcher.
Dr. Lena Xiao, MD, MSc is a Pediatric Respirologist and Sleep Physician at British Columbia Children’s Hospital and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. She received the IMPaCT and Michael Smith Health Research BC 2025 Training Award for early career researchers to develop a pan-Canadian multicenter clinical trial protocol evaluating positional therapy for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea in children.
Obstructive sleep apnea causes recurrent upper airway blockage during sleep leading to low oxygen levels and unrefreshing sleep. Sleep apnea affects 1-5% of children and impacts physical, mental and psychosocial health. The main treatment is a surgery to remove the adenoids and tonsils, which are glands that block the nose and throat when swollen. However, many children still have sleep apnea after this surgery and will need to use a breathing machine called positive airway pressure therapy. The problem is that half of all children find breathing machines uncomfortable and cannot use them regularly. Other therapies called hypoglossal nerve stimulation, drug-induced sleep endoscopy directed surgery, and heated high flow are promising sleep apnea treatments but are expensive and hard to access. We need to identify cost-effective, simple, and comfortable alternative treatments that can help children with sleep apnea throughout Canada.
Many children with sleep apnea have more severe airway blockage when they sleep on their back called positional obstructive sleep apnea. A simple treatment could be a positional sleep belt, which is a chest-worn belt with cushions on the back to prevent a child from sleeping on their back. We are planning a randomized controlled trial across Canda evaluating whether positional therapy is more effective than beathing machines for treating positional obstructive sleep apnea in the home environment for children. This trial will provide important information about alternative therapies for sleep apnea in children.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are one of the most common bacterial infections in young infants. Many babies under one month of age are treated with antibiotics, but doctors are still uncertain about whether oral antibiotics work as well in newborns as they do in older children or adults. This is because a newborn’s digestive system is still developing, and that might prevent the body from properly absorbing the medicine—possibly leading to serious complications like kidney damage.
As a result, many infants currently receive long courses of intravenous (IV) antibiotics in hospital. This approach, while cautious, can be painful and stressful for babies and their families, and adds to hospital costs.
My project focuses on improving this situation. I aim to study how well oral antibiotics are absorbed in young babies, especially after they have received a few initial days of IV treatment. By collecting small samples of blood, saliva, and urine, we can measure how much of the oral medicine actually gets into a baby’s system. This is called pharmacokinetic (PK) research—it helps us understand how medicine moves through the body.
This knowledge could make a big difference. If we know that babies can absorb enough of the medicine through their mouths, we could safely switch many infants to oral antibiotics sooner—allowing them to go home earlier, reduce the need for painful procedures, and limit the risk of hospital-related complications.
I will work closely with a team of nurses, pediatricians, pharmacists, and medicine specialists to run this study safely and efficiently. We are also partnering with psychologists and parent advisors to understand the impact of treatment on families and how to improve future studies.
This project is supported by the IMPaCT program, which helps early-career researchers like me develop skills in designing and running clinical trials. Through this support, I aim to help make antibiotic use safer, more effective, and more family-friendly for our youngest patients.
Human milk is the best food for babies in the first 6 months of life. Certain medical conditions can stop families from using human milk for a period of time, a devastating event for many parents. Chylothorax is a post-operative complication from open-heart surgery where long-chain fats accumulate in the chest. The first line treatment is to remove long-chain fats from the diet to allow the body to heal for a period of up to 6 weeks. This therapy currently involves stopping all human milk and switching to a low-fat medical formula in BC. However, our team has created a method to defat human milk in a home setting without specialized equipment. Our study is looking at the safety and ease of using this home-based method with families and children that develop chylothorax. Using defatted human milk protect the benefits a baby receives from human milk and will preserve the family role in feeding.
