Groundbreaking Research in the Saint John Region: Dr. Thomas Pulinilkunnil’s Story

A local researcher and academic along with his team - Dalhousie Cardiac Research Excellence Wave have been awarded a Canadian Foundation for Innovation grant. The funding will facilitate a renovation of existing infrastructure at Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick (DMNB), as well as the research site at Dalhousie in Halifax to study heart failure - particularly heart failure in women, which is less studied, despite the rising occurrence.

Dr. Thomas Pulinilkunnil is a Diabetes Canada Scholar, biomedical scientist and Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, as well as Physiology and Biophysics at Dalhousie University and Adjunct Professor at the University of New Brunswick. He is also an Affiliate Scientist at Horizon’s Saint John Regional Hospital and DMNB. Dr. Pulinilkunnil recently spoke at the Parliamentary Health Caucus event in Ottawa – providing a synopsis of his research program in Saint John and discussing the biomedical research that assisted in advancing and accelerating discoveries in biology and research focused on metabolic health and diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart failure and cancer.

Everyday researchers around the world are working to develop and discover innovative solutions that will improve health outcomes, but you don’t have to leave the Saint John Region to discover groundbreaking research.

Dr. Pulinilkunnil arrived in Saint John more than a decade ago – shortly after DMNB was established, with the task of setting up a research department.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Dr. Pulinilkunnil’s mother was a nurse, and his father was in the Navy. He spent a lot of time in hospitals watching his mom work, which is where his passion for discovery biology and medicine first began. He shared how his inquisitive nature made him lean into research more than medicine to unravel the mysteries of biology and human health.

“I always knew that if you want to treat the disease, you need to understand it. And sometimes in medicine, you don't have that luxury, because time is everything, and you have to treat the person in a minimal time, because then you have to go to the next patient and the next,” he said. “I wanted to really learn and understand more about the disease to develop better treatment strategies.”

Following training at the University of British Colombia, Harvard and University of Alberta, Dr. Pulinilkunnil never imagined his first job would be building a research program from scratch. Fast forward 12 years and there is a strong culture of research taking place on the Tucker Park campus.

“There are so many tangible benefits to such a program,” explained Dr. Pulinilkunnil. “Not only are we training medical students who become physicians, but also, we are training the workforce comprising of BSc, MSc, PhDs, Postdoctoral fellows for various sectors - pharma industry, biotech companies, administrators, collaborators, consultants, and individuals in government organizations. We are training the leaders of tomorrow.”

He explained how the Tucker Park campus provides a unique experience to students where they can receive an undergrad at one university and walk across the street for medical and graduate school degrees from Dalhousie University, while having access to the largest acute care hospital in the province next door.

Dr. Pulinilkunnil shared how he is thankful for strong collaboration with partners like Research NB, UNB, NBCC, SJRH, UdeM and expressed the importance of continuous investment in research.

“To keep research sustainable, we have to be persistent, flexible and bold at all times, because research is an entity that is ever dynamic, always growing - it always needs capital,” he said.

If Dr. Pulinilkunnil was told he would be raising his family and running a research program on the east coast of Canada when he started his post-secondary education, he would have never believed it. But looking back at the last 12 years, he can’t imagine being anywhere else.

“I have lived in a lot of big cities before - Bombay, Boston, Vancouver, Edmonton, moving here really offered a change of pace,” he said. “I wanted to settle in a quiet city and Saint John fit that perfectly for us, plus, I am an ocean boy, and we are so lucky to be surrounded by the ocean.”