Congratulations to the BC Children's and BC Women's investigators who were awarded funding through the highly competitive Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant Fall 2019 competition. Our research community received more than $8 million in new research and bridge grants.
Many of the investigators who were successful in this competition benefited from the expertise of Dr. Dawn McArthur, Director, Research & Technology Development. On behalf of BCCHR, we would also like to thank Ms. Rita Jekabsons, Senior Research Development Coordinator; Ms. Marissa Gibbard, Research Coordinator, Evidence to Innovation Theme; Dr. Robine Donken; and Dr. Beth Payne for their dedication and support.
Overall, projects at BC Children's and BC Women's had a success rate of 28 per cent, compared to the national average of 17.6 per cent. While a number of projects were not funded in this competition, many received high rankings. As such, the Research & Technology Development Office team is already assisting with resubmissions for the Spring 2020 competition.
Congratulations to:
Dr. Laura Arbour and Dr. Leigh Swayne (University of Victoria) – Childhood Diseases – Project: “When Rare Becomes Common: The impact of the AnkB p.S646F variant on heart disease in a Northern BC First Nation.” $1,384,650 / 5 years.
Dr. Jan Dutz – Childhood Diseases – Project: “Phototherapy to modulate regulatory T cells and prevent autoimmune disease.” $100,000 / 1 year (Bridge Grant).
Dr. Nichole Fairbrother – Women’s Health Research Institute – Project: “Perinatal Anxiety Disorder Screening Study.” WHRI Co-investigators: Dr. Arianne Albert and Dr. Patricia Janssen. $100,000 / 1 year. (Bridge Grant)
Dr. Jan Friedman and Dr. Inanc Birol (Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre) – Evidence to Innovation – Project: “Long-read sequencing and bioinformatics analysis to identify cryptic genetic mutations in patients with undiagnosed intellectual disability.” BCCHR Co-investigator: Dr. Indhu Shree Rajan Babu (Supervisor: Dr. Friedman). $1,063,351 / 3 years.
Dr. William Gibson – Childhood Diseases – Project: “Functional Studies of Coding Variants in Polycomb Repressive Complex Found in Humans.” BCCHR Co-investigator: Dr. Sharri Cyrus (Supervisor: Dr. Gibson). $612,000 / 5 years.
Dr. Gillian Hanley and Dr. Tim Oberlander – Women’s Health Research Institute and Brain, Behaviour & Development – Project: “A population-level linked data study of the long-term developmental impacts of prenatal antidepressant exposure.” $359,552 / 4 years.
Dr. William Honer, Dr. Kristina Gicas (Supervisor: Dr. Honer) and Dr. William Panenka – Brain, Behaviour & Development – Project: “Neuropsychiatric complications of co-morbid illness in people living in homelessness or precarious housing.” BCCHR Co-investigators: Dr. Alasdair Barr, Dr. Donna Lang and Dr. Allen Thornton. $1,235,475 / 5 years.
Dr. Philipp Lange – Childhood Diseases – Project: “Tumour microenvironment mediated cell surface shedding creates unique targets and markers.” $952,425 / 5 years and $25,000 / 1 year (Prize: Early Career Investigator in Cancer).
Dr. Christopher Maxwell – Childhood Diseases – Project: “Mechanisms that impact the cell division axis and phenotype for BRCA1-mutant mammary epithelial cells.” $837,675 / 5 years.
Dr. Wendy Norman, Dr. Bonnie Henry and Dr. Kimberlyn McGrail (University of British Columbia) – Healthy Starts – Project: "The CART Mife-Outcomes study: Relating Canada's unique mifepristone regulations to health system events, costs and access to abortion, using linked health administrative data." WHRI Co-investigators: Dr. Regina Renner, Dr. Laura Schummers, Dr. Sarah Munro (Supervisor: Dr. Norman), Dr. Janusz Kaczorowski, and Cheryl Davies. $524,024 / 4 years.
Dr. Wendy Robinson – Healthy Starts – Project: "Genetics and epigenetics of sex differences in placental and fetal development." BCCHR Co-investigator: Dr. Carolyn Brown. $604,350 / 5 years.
Dr. Aline Talhouk and Dr. Jessica Mcalpine – Women’s Health Research Institute – Project: "Pre-operative Risk Stratification in Endometrial Cancer to Inform Surgical Management." WHRI Co-investigator: Dr. Gillian Hanley. $263,925 / 3 years.
Additional Partnered Grants:
Dr. Amanda Howard and Dr. Gregory Haljan (Fraser Health Authority) – University of British Columbia (School of Nursing) – Project: "Unplanned Hospital Readmission Following Critical Illness Survival: An Investigation of the Survivor-Family Dyad."
Dr. Teresa Liu-Ambrose and Dr. Liisa Galea – University of British Columbia – Project “Sex Matters: Understanding Sex Differences in Exercise Efficacy on Brain Health in Mild Cognitive Impairment.” WHRI Co-investigator: Dr. Cindy Barha (Supervisors: Dr. Liu-Ambrose and Dr. Robin Hsiung).
Dr. Steven Miller and Dr. Ruth Grunau – The Hospital for Sick Children – Project: "Healthy brain growth in preterm children for optimal function: do males and females differ?" BCCHR Co-investigators: Dr. Rollin Brant and Dr. Anne Synnes.
Dr. Robert Olson (University of British Columbia), Dr. Alison Allan (London Health Sciences Centre), Dr. David Palma (London Health Sciences Centre), Dr. Stuart Peacock, and Dr. Scott Tyldesley – BC Cancer – Project: "A phase III randomized controlled trial and economic evaluation of Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR) for Comprehensive treatment of OligoMETastatic (1-3 metastases) cancer: SABR-COMET-3."
Dr. Kate Shannon and Dr. Charlotte Loppie (University of Victoria) – Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity (BC) – Project: “Towards Equitable Sexual Health Care in BC: Centring the Voices of Cis and Trans Feminine Youth and Young Women in Policy and Practice.”
Dr. Kiran Soma – University of British Columbia – Project: “Effects of added sucrose on hormones, neural circuits, and behaviour.” BCCHR Co-investigator: Dr. Angela Devlin.
