Researchers at the University of British Columbia and its clinical academic
campuses have earned more than $26.5 million to fund facilities and
equipment for six projects, from the federal Canada Foundation for
Innovation (CFI).
CFI today announced a Canada-wide investment of $422.3
million to support 86 projects at 35 Canadian universities, colleges,
hospitals and not-for-profit research institutions.
“Our researchers are
to be congratulated for their determination to advance new knowledge
by acquiring sophisticated technologies and equipment,” says
John Hepburn, UBC Vice-president, Research. “Establishing this level
of research infrastructure also goes a long way toward attracting
and retaining the best investigators.”
Funded projects include:
The Centre for Drug Research and
Development, funded for $8 million, will help commercialize research
by maturing academic discoveries into high-value candidate drugs
that will attract investors. By developing, formulating and testing
therapeutics and diagnostics, the centre, which will serve all B.C.
research universities and associated institutions, will bridge the “commercialization
gap” or
lag between identifying new therapeutics and getting them to market.
A
Translational Research Facility at the Brain Research Centre at UBC
Hospital, a part of Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute,
received $6.8 million. Technology at the facility will be used to characterize
the molecular mechanisms underlying brain disease and to develop
new diagnostics and therapeutics for patients.
A Quantum Materials Spectroscopy Centre was funded for more than
$6.4 million. The centre will be located at the Canadian Light Source
— a source of brilliant light beams that allows scientists to view
the microstructure of materials — at the University of Saskatchewan.
The new funding will help UBC and other researchers probe low
energy electronic properties of solids and develop new electronic
technologies.
A Centre for Understanding and Preventing Infection
in Children (CUPIC) received $3.2 million. UBC researchers will focus
on innate immunity in children and new information will help diagnose
and treat children with severe infection and contribute to development
of preventive strategies. The centre will be located in a new Translational
Research Building, funded by B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation
and the Provincial Health Services Authority, at the Child and Family
Research Institute on the campus of the Children’s and Women’s Health
Centre of B.C.
A Centre for Microscopy of Intermolecular and Cellular
Dynamics has been funded for $1.6 million. The UBC centre will provide
high-resolution, three-dimensional, structural information about
cells and molecules. Sophisticated microscopes, tomography, and imaging
systems will help researchers analyze dynamic processes in living
cells and support discoveries in biotechnology, health and the environment.
A
Tunable UV and Soft x-ray Laser Source for Coherent High-resolution
Spectroscopy has received almost $375,000. The UBC facility will
be used by researchers in medicine, biology, physics, and chemistry.
The small-scale laser will serve as a tabletop source — competitive
with beam lines at synchrotrons — and will allow scientists to rapidly
develop and test new spectroscopy techniques.
The CFI support represents
40 per cent of required funding. UBC researchers will apply to the
provincial government for a matching 40 per cent and remaining support
will come from private sources and industry.
CFI is an independent
corporation created by the Government of Canada to fund research
infrastructure to strengthen the capacity of Canadian universities,
colleges, research hospitals, and on-profit research institutions
to carry out research and technology development that benefits Canadians.
UBC
researchers earned more than $65 million from CFI for 142 projects
and attracted $485.6 million in overall research funding in 2005/06.
Backgrounder
Centre for Drug Research and Development
CDRD will build a shared and
dedicated facility to advance early state health-related discoveries
through core activities of drug discovery, design and synthesis,
screening, testing, and drug formulation and evaluation. The facility
will also provide a new research and training model to build and broaden
the pool of highly qualified personnel in drug discovery and development.
CDRD is a non-profit society that enables B.C. researchers to focus and
amplify their drug discovery and development efforts and commercialize
technology. For more information on CDRD visit www.cdrd.ca.
Researcher: Microbiology and Immunology
Prof. Robert Hancock, Canada Research Chair in Pathogenomics and
Antimicrobials
Translational Research Facility of the Brain Research Centre
The Translational Research Facility will directly advance lab research
towards improved therapeutics for patients, thereby translating our
research at the bench-side into care for patients at the bedside.
Specifically, the facility will enhance and accelerate research and
development to improve our understanding of brain diseases; develop
strategies to prevent brain diseases; clinically develop and evaluate
new therapies to treat these diseases; and create economic wealth
by generating spin-off companies. The centre is a partnership of
UBC and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, the research
body of the health authority.
Researcher: Prof. Max Cynader Canada
Research Chair in Brain Development and Director, Brain Research
Centre
The Quantum Materials Spectroscopy Centre (QMSC)
To achieve new electronic functionalities for the next generation
of material-based devices, the QMSC will be established at the Canadian
Light Source for the design and exploration of novel complex materials.
This national centre includes spin- and angle-resolved photoemission
spectroscopy beamlines for probing the electronic structure, a dedicated
materials preparation facility, and integrated theoretical support.
The QMSC will advance Canada’s role in furthering the quantum theory
of solids and developing technological advances in fields such as
electronics, telecommunications, computer science, and biomedicine.
Researcher: Asst.
Prof. Andrea Damascelli, Physics and Astronomy Dept.
Canada
Research Chair in Electronic Structure of Solids
Centre for Understanding
and Preventing Infection in Children (CUPIC) CUPIC will be the only
centre in Canada, and possibly the world, with an integrated focus
on innate immunity and infectious disease in children. Science at
CUPIC will be translated into clinical interventions and, in turn,
clinical observations will inform scientific investigation. Infrastructure
includes labs and a tissue and microbe bank to give researchers in
Canada and internationally access to human pathogens for study. CUPIC
will serve as an incubator for technology development, knowledge
translation and health promotion for children in Canada and the world.
Researcher: Dr. David Speert, Division Head and Prof. of Pediatrics
Centre for
Microscopy of Intermolecular and Cellular Dynamics
This new funding will allow biomedical researchers at UBC
to view living cells at an unprecedented level of detail. The new centre,
to be based in UBC’s Bio-Imaging Facility, will comprise three major
high-end instruments: a spectral imaging confocal laser scanning
microscope to analyze molecular interactions; a live cell real time
confocal imaging system to analyze dynamic events in living cells;
and a transmission electron microscope equipped for tomography that
creates virtual 3-D models of cell structures.
Researcher: Botany Prof. Geoffrey Wasteneys, Canada
Research Chair in Plant, Cell Biology, Academic Director of the UBC
Bio-Imaging Facility
Tunable UV and soft x-ray laser source for coherent high-resolution
spectroscopy
This project involves a small-scale, low-cost, high-flux source capable
of producing tunable coherent photons that span wavelengths from
the extreme ultraviolet into the soft x-ray region, with high resolution.
Housed at UBC’s Advanced Materials and Process Engineering Laboratory,
this new laser-based system will be an ideal tool for the most advanced
photoelectron spectroscopy experiments, metrology of nanoparticles
and other techniques such as holography, microscopy and nanolithography.
Commercial applications range from design of specific and targeted
drug delivery methods to development of next generation integrated
electronic circuits.
Researcher: Asst. Prof. David Jones, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
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