CIHR funding tops $8 million for Western University research

Congratulations to the successful recipients of operating grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). It was a highly competitive process with nearly 23 hundred submissions. Thirteen research projects at Western University received funding totaling more than eight million dollars, and if you add in three projects through Lawson Health Research Institute, the funding in London comes to over $10 million.

Two grants, each worth over a million dollars, will go to research projects at Western's Brain and Mind Institute. The funding allows Adrian Owen to continue his ground-breaking research on patients in a vegetative state, and Stephen Lomber to further his work on hearing loss and brain plasticity.

The projects at Western, primarily at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, cover a wide spectrum of health issues including deafness, pancreatic disease, cancer, and assisted reproductive technologies.

In total, the CIHR awarded 453 grants across the country totalling $238 million dollars over the next six years.

The London recipients are:

• Greta Bauer (Epidemiology and Biostatistics) $323,834 over 4 yrs. to investigate ways to account for biological sex and social gender in population health studies
• Sean Cregan (Robarts Research Institute) $715,269 over 5 yrs. to study oxidative stress and neurodegenerative disorders
• Jody Culham (Psychology) $641,710 over 5 yrs. to study brain areas and hand movement
• Paula Foster (Robarts) $381,453 over 3 yrs. to study breast cancer metastasis
• Amit Garg (Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics ), $917,071 over 5 yrs. to study kidney donor safety
• Mansour Haeryfar (Microbiology and Immunology) $895,740 over 5 yrs. To study T cells and cancer
• Richard Kim (Medicine, Physiology and Pharmacology, Oncology) $737,601 over 5yrs. to study how drugs are cleared by the liver
• Dale Laird (Anatomy and Cell Biology, Physiology and Pharmacology) $712,744 over 5 yrs. to study pannexins and their role in skin, skeleton health
• Lorelei Lingard and Stella Ng (Medicine) $134,404 over 2 yrs. to study school based health support for children with disabilities or chronic conditions
• Stephen Lomber (Physiology and Pharmacology, Psychology)$1,015,854 over 5 yrs. to study hearing loss and brain plasticity
• Adrian Owen (Psychology, Physiology and Pharmacology) $1,031,710 over 5 yrs. to further his studies on vegetative states
• Robert Petrella (School of Kinesiology, Family Medicine, Medicine, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation) $356,548 over 3 yrs. to study aerobic exercise for older adults with cognitive impairment
• Christopher Pin (Paediatrics, Physiology and Pharmacology) $654,280 over 5yrs. to study pancreatic disease
• Sisira Sarma (Epidemiology and Biostatistics)-$467,529 over 4yrs. to study primary care reforms and patient outcomes
• Keith St. Lawrence (Medical Imaging, Medical Biophysics) $459,168 over 4 yrs. to investigate ways to improve neurological outcomes in intensive care
• Andrew Watson (Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Physiology and Pharmacology) $631,825 over 5 yrs. To study embryo health and assisted reproductive technologies

More information is available by clicking here.