Faculty of Medicine research received a $14.7M boost from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).
The grants announced on January 15 were part of the CFI’s Leading Edge Fund and New Initiatives Fund, which support infrastructure and state-of-the-art equipment for innovative science. A total of $215 million was awarded for 75 projects at 34 institutions across Canada. UBC researchers are leading nine of the funded projects and collaborating in a number of other initiatives.
Newly funded projects in the Faculty of Medicine:
Leonard Foster
Immune System Polymorphism and Host/Pathogen Interactions
Principal investigator: Leonard Foster, Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, $2.1 million
Vaccines are the most cost-effective medicine on the planet since they eliminate all the costs associated with treating a disease. Building on its expertise and prior success, the UBC team will develop new vaccines against diseases such as tuberculosis and salmonellosis and find new approaches to treating antibiotic-resistant bacteria and inflammation.
Marco Marra
Genomic Approaches to Personalizing Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment
Principal investigator: Marco Marra, Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics, $5.7 million
The UBC-led team will determine if evidence-based personalized medicine is more effective than the current system of managing cancer treatment. Researchers will explore the implementation of personalized cancer genomic medicine to improve treatment efficiency and efficacy, reduce toxicity, and inform more rational deployment of the limited available cancer management resources.
Molecules to Human: Enhanced Phenotyping for Discovery, Prevention, and Treatment of Heart, Lung, and Blood Vessel DiseasePrincipal investigators: Darryl Knight, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics, and Gordon Francis, Professor in the Department of Medicine, $2.5 million |
 Darryl Knight |
 Gordon Francis |
Diagnosed early, heart, lung and blood vessel disease can be prevented from becoming chronic illnesses. The UBC research team will investigate the mechanisms by which these diseases progress in order to catch their telltale signs and identify effective interventions and treatments in the face of Canada’s aging population.
Ivan Nabi
Super Resolution Microscopy: Breaking the Diffraction Barrier
Principal investigator: Ivan Nabi, Professor in the Department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences, $1.4 million
Super-resolution microscopy is a powerful tool to study molecules that control cell function and survival, which in turn helps researchers develop new therapies to treat diseases such as cancer and diabetes. The UBC team will build a pioneering instrument to enable super-resolution imaging deep within living tissue and organisms to understand how brain cells change during learning and memory and how these cells are affected by neurodegenerative disease.
Fabio Rossi
Systems Analysis of Single Stem Cells
Principal investigator: Fabio Rossi, Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics, $3 million
New infrastructure enabled by this grant will enable the UBC research team to apply the expanding power of genomics, proteomics and live-cell imaging to thousands of single cells at once, leading to an improved capability to predict drug responses and make personalized medicine a success. More immediate economic benefits are expected from the commercialization of new devices and reagents fuelled by the global expansion of this area of research.