McIntyre Burnham: Epilepsy Researcher
Prashant Jairaj
McIntyre Burnham is at the forefront of the battle against epilepsy. He is a Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Toronto, and an epilepsy researcher. After receiving his Ph.D. in Psychology from McGill, Dr. Burnham moved on to the Pharmacology Department at the University of Toronto in 1974, after studying as a post-doctoral fellow at the Montreal Neurological Institute.
How he actually got started on epilepsy however, was almost by accident: "I was actually working on problems of the neural basis of instinctive behavior while in grad school, but it wasn't working out as well as I wanted," Burnham recounted while we sat in his office at U of T, the outside labs and halls bustling with his colleagues as well as researchers from other fields. "My friend though, was actually working on a new model within the field of epilepsy research called the 'Kindling Model'. That caught my interest; and I started from there."
Dr. Burnham has come a long way from that moment of decision. Now President of Epilepsy Ontario, as well as past President of the Eastern Association of Electroencephalographers, he also holds the Bahen Chair of Epilepsy Research, and is Director of the University of Toronto's Epilepsy Research Program. However, his passion still lies within the confines of his own lab where he and the team he supervises are conducting research on new drugs to help control seizures. In particular, Dr. Burnham has been focusing on three possible treatment methods for epilepsy, including drugs that mimic the anti-convulsant effects of the female hormone progesterone and ACTH, as well as the effects of the Ketogenic (high fat, low carb) diet on children with intractable seizures. In fact, Dr. Burnham is fairly optimistic about the potential of these and other new treatment methods currently under development.
"I think we may be close to finding a cure. We have been in our labs studying things that might stop intractable epilepsy, so called medical-alternatives that we try when drugs fail. The ketogenic diet is one of them, seizure surgery is one of them, another one is nerve stimulation, and deep brain stimulation is the fourth."
"Deep brain stimulation is the newest treatment," he continues, "and although they've been trying it for years, it's only become scientifically acceptable recently. In the same way we put an electrode into a rat brain, we put an electrode into a human brain, and stimulate the brain directly. Some reports are positive, but it's still too early to say, and is still very much experimental."
Researchers in Canada like Dr. Burnham who are searching for an answer to epilepsy are making tremendous strides in their findings. However, there are many roadblocks on the path to getting the most effective treatment out on the market, including some that have nothing to do with science and everything to do with business and politics. "A great barrier for researchers is drug companies, who claim that the market for epilepsy and seizures is saturated. From a drug company's point of view, they ask themselves, 'can we make a profit out of so-and-so drug'. We can show them our new drugs, but we can't conceivably afford to have it developed ourselves since it costs a hundred million dollars."
"If it's true that one of our new compounds is good for complex-partial seizures, and if a drug company were willing to pick it up, it would probably be a safe guess to say that in 10 to 12 years, there would be a drug that is a cure for complex partial seizures. But what drug companies do is consider the market ten years down the road, and they're not convinced that the new drugs that could help fight seizures can, in ten year's time, make back the hundred million dollars it would cost them to produce."
The roadblocks are not limited to drug companies, but society as well. Although much progress has been made in accepting epilepsy within the social structure in the past fifty years, Dr. Burnham still believes we have a long way to go.
"Things are getting better but I still don't think it's good. People with seizures still face tremendous discrimination. If they have seizures in public they face discrimination, and even if it's well controlled, there is a feeling of fear that they might have a seizure in public."
"There have been numerous instances where companies would fire people with epilepsy, although they would claim it was for legitimate reasons. What needs to happen is people need to get used to them and lose that aspect of fear, and if that actually happened, a lot would change."
Prashant is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto obtaining a specialist honours degree in psychology.
