Researchers at the University of British Columbia have been awarded $24.8m in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant program.
The CIHR Project Grant program is designed to capture ideas with the greatest potential to advance health-related fundamental or applied knowledge, health research, health care, health systems, and/or health outcomes. It supports projects or programs of research proposed and conducted by individual researchers or groups of researchers in all areas of health.
The Project Grant: Spring 2019 competition has approved 382 research grants, plus an additional 21 bridge grants, for a total investment of approximately $275M. In addition, 15 priority announcement bridge grants were funded for a total amount of $1,496,333.
UBC-Led Projects
Project Grants
Of the 382 research grants awarded, 36 were led by UBC researchers with a combined value of $24.2m:
- Extended Hours Adult Day Centres: Promoting Community-based Health and Social Care for People with Dementia and their Family Caregivers
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Jennifer L Baumbusch (School of Nursing) - Individualized pathways to recovery after stroke
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Lara Boyd (Faculty of Medicine) - Wildfire Smoke and Emergency Planning for First Nations People Living with Lung Disease in Remote and Rural British Columbia
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Patricia Camp (Faculty of Medicine) - Elucidating and disrupting the neural substrates of fear memory
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Mark S Cembrowski (Faculty of Medicine) - Role of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1) in triglyceride metabolism and heart health
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Susanne M Clee (Faculty of Medicine) - Hormonal Contraceptives and Risk of Pseudotumor Cerebri Syndrome in Women of Child Bearing Age
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Mahyar Etminan (Faculty of Medicine) - Tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) and Risk of Multiple Sclerosis
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Mahyar Etminan (Faculty of Medicine) - CVT in BC: Incidence, Diagnosis, Treatment Strategies and Prognosis of Cerebral Venous Thrombosis in British Columbia, Canada
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Thalia S Field (Faculty of Medicine) - Omics, Histopathology and AI: An Integrative Approach for Biomarker Discovery in Ovarian Cancer
UBC Principal Investigators: Dr. C. Blake Gilks (Faculty of Medicine), Dr. Ali Bashashati (Faculty of Applied Science) and Dr. Tim Salcudean (Faculty of Applied Science) - Correcting monogenic skin diseases in situ: Assessing the potential of topically applicable gene therapy
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Sarah Hedtrich (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences) - Folic acid supplementation in children with sickle cell disease: A double-blind randomized crossover trial
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Crystal Karakochuk (Faculty of Land and Food Systems) - Vascular differentiation
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Aly Karsan (Faculty of Medicine) - Morphogenesis of fungal pathogens
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Jim Kronstad (Faculty of Science) - Occupational health, safety and labour rights among street and indoor sex workers in the context of evolving laws and policing: Ethnographic and qualitative participatory-action research
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Andrea B Krüsi (Faculty of Medicine) - EXURCISe for improving URinary Continence in people with Spinal cord injury
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Tania Lam (Faculty of Education) - Metabolic regulation of immune defenses in newborns
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Pascal Lavoie (Faculty of Medicine) - Epigenetic regulation and function of species-specific imprinted genes: testing a new hypothesis for the evolution of imprinting
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Louis Lefebvre (Faculty of Medicine) - The role of histone methylation in guiding de novo DNA methylation in the male germline
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Matthew Lorincz (Faculty of Medicine) - Can Exercise Prescribed According to the International Scientific Spinal Cord Injury Exercise Guidelines Alleviate Chronic Pain in Adults Living with Spinal Cord Injury? A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Kathleen Martin Ginis (Faculty of Health and Social Development) - Treating advanced retinal degeneration - rebuilding multiple co-dependent retinal layers with stem cells
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Joanne Matsubara (Faculty of Medicine) - Bipolar Bridges: A Digital Health Innovation Targeting Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Erin Michalak (Faculty of Medicine) and Dr. Steven Barnes (Faculty of Arts) - Hypoxia-activated DNA repair inhibitors to improve cancer therapy
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Andrew Minchinton (Faculty of Medicine) - Advanced MR Imaging of Perthes Disease to Improve Treatment
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Kishore Mulpuri (Faculty of Medicine) and Dr. David R. Wilson (Faculty of Medicine) - High-throughput in vivo functional characterization of Autism Spectrum Disorder associated genes using Caenorhabditis elegans
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Catharine Rankin (Faculty of Arts) - Imaging markers for tissue damage and disease progression in MS
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Alexander Rauscher (Faculty of Medicine) - Discovery of novel WNT signaling mechanisms from the study of human genetic disease in two animal models
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Joy M Richman (Faculty of Dentistry) - Targeting ovarian carcinoma using the cell surface glycoprotein podocalyxin
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Calvin D. Roskelley (Faculty of Medicine) and Dr. Kelly McNagny (Faculty of Medicine) - Tendon impairment in people with familal hypercholesterolemia: clinical and laboratory studies
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Alexander Scott (Faculty of Medicine) - Targeting PI3-kinase p110delta to treat Crohn's disease-associated intestinal fibrosis
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Laura M Sly (Faculty of Medicine) - The effect of a novel presenilin 1 mutation on Alzheimer's Disease pathogenesis
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Weihong Song (Faculty of Medicine) - Function of the Mediator complex in pancreatic islet cell maturation and maintenance
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Stefan Taubert (Faculty of Medicine) and Dr. Francis C. Lynn (Faculty of Medicine) - Using Antibiotics Wisely - Development of National Neonatal Intensive Care Unit-specific Antimicrobial Stewardship Plan
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Joseph Ting (Faculty of Medicine) - Islet macrophages: regulators of beta cell function in health and diabetes
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Bruce C Verchere (Faculty of Medicine) - Sex-based differences in cardiac function and cardiovascular disease risk in spinal cord injury
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Christopher R West (Faculty of Education) - Development, assessment and application of a new method for characterizing degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis in the symptomatic upright posture
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. David R. Wilson (Faculty of Applied Science) and Dr. John Street (Faculty of Medicine) - Multiphoton Photothermolysis Based Laser Therapy for Precision Treatment of Neovascular Eye Diseases
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Haishan Zeng (Department of Physics and Astronomy), Dr. Harvey Lui (Faculty of Medicine), Dr. Joanne Matsubara (Faculty of Medicine) and Dr. Sonia Yeung (Faculty of Medicine)
Bridge Grants
Two Bridge Grants were awarded to UBC researchers, totaling $200,000:
- Control of B cell receptor (BCR) spatial organization, BCR signaling, and B cell activation by proteins that regulate actin remodeling
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Michael R Gold (Faculty of Science) - Uptake, determinants, and gaps of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use among HIV-negative gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM) in Metro Vancouver, Canada
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. David Moore (Faculty of Medicine)
Priority Announcement bridge grants
UBC researchers received an additional $400,000 through priority announcement bridge grants:
- Genomic, Epigenomic, and Phenotypic Characterization of Oral Premalignant Fields for the Development of Actionable Prevention Strategies - (Project Grant - Priority Announcement: Musculoskeletal, Skin and Oral Health: Clinical Research - Oral Health)
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Catherine Poh (Faculty of Dentistry) - Development and application of a Multifunctional Nutrient-rich Composite Scaffold for Treatment of Complex Wounds - (Project Grant - Priority Announcement: Musculoskeletal, Skin and Oral Health: Clinical Research - Skin Health)
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Aziz Ghahary (Faculty of Medicine) - The effect of exogenous beta-hydroxybutyrate supplementation on glucose control in type 2 diabetes - (Project Grant - Priority Announcement: Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes)
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Jonathan P Little (Faculty of Health and Social Development) - Bipolar Bridges: A Digital Health Innovation Targeting Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder - (Project Grant - Priority Announcement: Data science, management and stewardship)
UBC Principal Investigator: Dr. Erin Michalak (Faculty of Medicine)