January 30, 2026
A total of 47 projects led by UBC researchers were awarded $35.1 million in combined funding through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant: Fall 2025 competition.
- UBC researchers are leading 38 projects awarded Project Grants totaling $34.2 million
- Nine projects led by UBC researchers were awarded Priority Announcement Grants totaling $0.9 million
On a national level, CIHR approved a total of 421 research grants, for a total investment of approximately $413 million. In addition, 83 priority announcement grants were funded for a total amount of $9.7 million and 17 supplemental prizes were awarded for a total of $450,000.
UBC Links and Features
- Dr. Daniela Palombo awarded CIHR funding for research on pregnancy loss, memory, and mental health (Department of Psychology)
- UBC Medicine researchers awarded more than $30 million from CIHR (Faculty of Medicine)
- Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences researchers receive CIHR funding for transformative health research (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences)
UBC-led Project Grants
- Principal Investigator(s): Abdulai, Abdul-Fatawu (Nursing), Norman, Wendy V. (Family Practice)
Trauma-Informed Care Guidelines for Virtual Abortion Services (TICG-VAS)
- Principal Investigator(s): Bingham, Brittany (Social Medicine)
Investing in Matriarchal Power, Access, Care and Traditional Wellness (IMPACT)
- Principal Investigator(s): Blakney, Anna (Michael Smith Laboratories / School of Biomedical Engineering)
Engineering Longer-Lasting RNA Therapeutics for Treatment of Blood Disorders
- Principal Investigator(s): Brubacher, Jeffrey (Emergency Medicine)
Circumstances of Active Transport Injuries
- Principal Investigator(s): Brubacher, Jeffrey (Emergency Medicine)
The Toxic Drug Study: Clinical and toxicological profiles of people with unregulated drug poisoning.
- UBC Principal Investigator(s): Campbell, Kristin (Physical Therapy);
Other Principal Investigator(s): Neil-Sztramko, Sarah (McMaster University)
Does tailored referral support increase the reach of the Breast Cancer Endocrine Fitness (BE-FIT) program
- Principal Investigator(s): Fast, Danya (Medicine)
Other Principal Investigator(s): Chadi, Nicholas (CHU Sainte-Justine); Hadland, Scott (Harvard Medical School)
Adapting, Producing, and Testing a Youth Overdose Prevention Toolkit Through Community-Based Participatory Methods
- UBC Principal Investigator(s): Hanley, Gillian (Obstetrics & Gynaecology); Cowie, Scott (Surgery); Stuart, Heather (Surgery)
Other Principal Investigator(s): Mah, Sarah (McMaster University); Nenshi, Rahima (McMaster University); Serrano, Pablo E. (McMaster University)
Expanding opportunistic bilateral salpingectomy to laparoscopic cholecystectomy to prevent ovarian cancer: A feasibility and safety trial
- Principal Investigator(s): Hedtrich, Sarah (School of Biomedical Engineering)
In Situ Gene Editing to Rescue Genetic Skin Diseases
- UBC Principal Investigator(s): Hoekstra, Femke (Medicine); Pammett, Robert (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences); Pawlovich, John (Family Practice) Cressman, Sonya (Digital Emergency Medicine)
Other Principal Investigator(s): Best, Bev (Stellat'en First Nation); Holyk, Travis (Carrier Sekani Family Services); Howard, Trish (First Nations Health Authority);
Transforming access to medications in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities: Implementing and evaluating virtual pharmacist care and drone delivery services
- Principal Investigator(s): Jan, Eric (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
Translation initiation via factorless internal ribosome entry site mechanisms
- Principal Investigator(s): Keeling, Patrick (Botany)
Functional reduction of mitochondria in apicomplexan parasites
- Principal Investigator(s): Lacaille, Diane (Medicine)
Emulating randomized controlled trials to assess the effectiveness and safety of semaglutide in inflammatory arthritis and type 2 diabetes
- Principal Investigator(s): Leung, Janice (Medicine)
MAPping Lung DiseasE Through Social Epigenetics, Exposures, and Disparities (MAPLE-SEED) Study
- Principal Investigator(s): Loewen, Peter (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences)
Advancing precision stroke prevention through real-world adherence science
- Principal Investigator(s): Mckay, Heather (Family Practice)
Alleviating waitlist woes: Implementing and evaluating a health-promoting program for people awaiting hip and knee replacement surgery for osteoarthritis
- Principal Investigator(s): Nelson, Brad (Medical Genetics)
Supercharging cancer immunotherapy using clinician-controlled cytokine receptors
- Principal Investigator(s): Page, Brent (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences)
Novel therapeutics for neurodegeneration - Targeting NUDT5 in Alzheimer's Disease
- Principal Investigator(s): Pavlidis, Paul (Psychiatry / Michael Smith Laboratories)
Large-scale multimodal genomics meta-analysis to gain insight into brain gene regulation
- Principal Investigator(s): Plotkin, Steven (Physics & Astronomy)
A platform for developing rationally guided, broadly neutralizing antibodies for future pandemics, using SARS-CoV-2 as a model
*conditional award at time of announcement
- Principal Investigator(s): Purcell, Sarah (Medicine / UBC Okanagan School of Health and Exercise Sciences)
Characterizing the role of combined hormonal contraceptives on appetite and energy balance in the context of weight loss and maintenance
- Principal Investigator(s): Robinson, Wendy (Medical Genetics)
Placental genetic and epigenetic changes linked to congenital heart defects
- Principal Investigator(s): Rossi, Fabio (School of Biomedical Engineering / Medical Genetics)
Investigating the role of muscle stromal cells in pancreatic cancer cachexia and associated myosteatosis
- Principal Investigator(s): Rossi, Fabio (School of Biomedical Engineering / Medical Genetics)
Setting the homeostatic inflammatory environment: role of the Tak1-NFkb pathway in mesenchymal stromal cells.
- Principal Investigator(s): Schultz, Kirk (Pediatrics)
Chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease Polyomic Profiling as Predictive Biomarker Patterns to Guide Therapy
- Principal Investigator(s): Sekhon, Mypinder (Medicine); Cembrowski, Mark (Cellular & Physiological Sciences); Griesdale, Donald (Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics / Medicine); Isac, George (Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics)
Multimodal Neuromonitoring during Normothermic Regional Perfusion in Organ Donors Determined Dead by Circulatory Criteria following withdrawal of life sustaining measures.
- Principal Investigator(s): Slaunwhite, Amanda (School of Population and Public Health)
"You can't teach what I know" - Building best practices and capacity for engagement of people with lived experience of incarceration in health research
- Principal Investigator(s): Socías, Eugenia (Medicine); Ti, Lianping (Medicine)
Characterizing the uptake and the health and economic impacts of evidence-based pharmacotherapy practices for alcohol use disorder
- Principal Investigator(s): Stirling, Peter (Medical Genetics)
Identification of novel DNA nuclease inhibition strategies
- Principal Investigator(s): Stringhini, Silvia (School of Population and Public Health)
Unequal Ageing Trajectories Across the Life Course: Environmental Pathways, Protective Factors, and Actionable Levers
- Principal Investigator(s): Sugioka, Kenji (Zoology)
Elucidating the Mechanism and Function of Cortical Flow in Wnt-dependent Asymmetric Cell Division.
- Principal Investigator(s): Sugioka, Kenji (Zoology)
Elucidating the Role of Adhesion in Actomyosin-dependent Establishment of Animal Laterality
- Principal Investigator(s): Tebbutt, Scott (Medicine)
Multi-omics plasma biomarkers for early detection of cardiac allograft vasculopathy in adult heart transplant recipients
- Principal Investigator(s): Tokuriki, Nobuhiko (Michael Smith Laboratories / Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
Molecular and Evolutionary Mechanisms of Carbapenemases in Class A beta-Lactamase Family
- Principal Investigator(s): Wang, Yuzhuo (Urologic Sciences)
PROX1 Drives Cell Lineage Reprogramming in Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer
- Principal Investigator(s): Weidberg, Hilla (Cellular & Physiological Sciences)
Understanding the role of Mge1's targeting sequence in mitochondrial stress signaling
- Principal Investigator(s): Wyatt, Alexander (Urologic Sciences); Chi, Kim Nguyen (Medicine)
Defining circulating tumor DNA kinetics as a treatment response biomarker in metastatic prostate cancer
- UBC Principal Investigator(s): Zhang, Wei (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences); Tseng, Olivia (Family Practice)
Other Principal Investigator(s): Kuo, I fan (Government of British Columbia)
The feasibility and costs of pharmacy models supporting rural and remote communities: A simulation study
See full list of Fall 2025 CIHR Project Grant awardees
UBC-Led Priority Announcements
- UBC Principal Investigator(s): Bansback, Nicholas (School of Population and Public Health); Zhang, Wei (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences)
Other Principal Investigator(s): Hsu, Amy (University of Ottawa); Magalhaes, Sandra (University of New Brunswick)
How Does Home Care Services Use Impact Downstream Healthcare Utilization and System Costs for Canada's Aging Population? A Cross-Provincial Longitudinal Cohort Study
Priority Announcement Area: Patient-Oriented Research
- Principal Investigator(s): Hunt, Michael (Physical Therapy)
Cartilage, biomechanical, and clinical responses to a start to run program in masters aged individuals: Implications for long-term knee joint health
Priority Announcement Area: Female Athlete Health
- Principal Investigator(s): McClymont, Elisabeth (Obstetrics and Gynecology); Money, Deborah (Obstetrics & Gynaecology)
Long-Term Follow-Up Study of NOVA-HIV: Nonavalent HPV Vaccination in Women Living with HIV
Priority Announcement Area: HIV/AIDS and STBBI
- Principal Investigator(s): Palis, Heather (School of Population and Public Health); Barbic, Skye (Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy); Janjua, Naveed (School of Population and Public Health); Marchand, Kirsten (School of Population and Public Health); Mathias, Steve (Psychiatry)
Identifying service pathways to reduce overdose risk among youth: a multi-method, population-based, and co-design study
Priority Announcement Area: Human Development Child and Youth Health - Early Career Support
- Principal Investigator(s): Palombo, Daniela (Psychology)
Mental Health, Resilience, Memory and Memory Sharing in the Aftermath of Pregnancy Loss
Priority Announcement Area: Sex and Gender in Health Research - Advancing intersectionality in sex and gender science
- Principal Investigator(s): Turvey, Stuart (Pediatrics); Biggs, Catherine (Pediatrics)
Discovering new human inborn errors of immunity
Priority Announcement Area: Genetics
- Principal Investigator(s): Vallance, Bruce (Pediatrics)
Mid-Colon Goblet Cells: Primary Source of the Protective Colonic Mucus Barrier
Priority Announcement Area: Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes
- Principal Investigator(s): Wang, Yuzhuo (Urologic Sciences)
CHD7 as a key upstream chromatin regulator driving NEPC development and aggressiveness
Priority Announcement Area: Prevention and/or Early Detection of Cancer
- UBC Principal Investigator(s): Wu, Lyndia (Mechanical Engineering / School of Biomedical Engineering)
Other Principal Investigator(s): Ji, Songbai (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
Sex-specific biomechanical thresholds and cumulative risk models for sports-related brain injury
Priority Announcement Area: Female Athlete Health