The Ontario government awards UHN over $3.8 million for cutting-edge research

The Ontario government is providing over $70.4 million to support the development of homegrown ideas, products and technologies. Of these funds, $3.8 million has been provided to help advance research and innovation at UHN.

The funds were provided through two competitive programs from the Ontario Research Fund: the Early Researcher Award, which helps exceptional early career researchers to build their research teams, and the Research Infrastructure program, which enables the acquisition of advanced research infrastructure to conduct world-leading research. The projects that received funding are described below.

Early Researcher Awards
Three early career researchers at UHN received awards to build their research teams and enable the following projects:

• Dr. Faiyaz Notta(link is external) will elucidate the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the development of pancreatic cancer using three-dimensional culture systems.
• Dr. Sonya MacParland(link is external) will identify new drug targets and therapeutic strategies to prevent long-term complications in liver transplant recipients.
• Dr. Mamatha Bhat(link is external) will define and target autoimmune liver disease.

Research Infrastructure Program
Funds were provided for the cutting-edge research required conduct the following two UHN-led projects:

Drs. Trevor Pugh(link is external), Rodger Tiedemann(link is external) and Suzanne Trudel(link is external) will advance research into multiple myeloma—a cancer that originates in the bone marrow and occurs in blood cells.

Dr. Sara Vasconcelos(link is external) will explore new regenerative medicine techniques for repairing damaged hearts using stem cells and engineered blood vessels.

“Driving research excellence and innovation is crucial as Ontario continues to defeat COVID-19 and lay the groundwork for a robust and long-term economic recovery,” said Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities. “Our government will continue to support ground-breaking research to advance new discoveries and innovation, while fostering a skilled labour force and promoting new business opportunities across the province.”

Thank you to the Ontario Government for supporting these innovative research projects, which have strong potential to bring new health technologies and treatments to Ontarians.

Source: Ontario.ca

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