Research Column

U of S triples its CIHR funding, getting $5.5m

By Kathryn Warden

Judging from our recent performance with federal health grants, health research at U of

S appears to be a patient on the mend. 

In the latest Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) competition, U of S has doubled its applications, doubled its success rate and more than tripled its total funding.

Our researchers garnered a total of more than $5.5 million for 12 research projects that could pave the way for new vaccines and shed new light on health problems as diverse as asthma, cancer, epilepsy, heart attack, and high blood pressure.

This new-found success spurred Saskatchewan Post-Secondary Education Minister Pat Lorjé to tell the Star-Phoenix she believes there’s “a rejuvenation taking place at the U of S and that’s because a lot of people have worked hard to turn things around.”

Eleven of 42 proposals for operating grants were approved — a 26-per-cent success rate. That’s double the U of S success rate in the last two competitions.

As well, $1.8 million was awarded under the CIHR Health Research Program of Excellence to VIDO Director Lorne Babiuk and his 10-member cross-Canada team to develop a family of needle-free vaccines that will potentially protect young animals and children from infectious organisms.

In all likelihood, the next round of awards under the Saskatchewan-CIHR Regional Partnership Program, which will be announced soon, will increase U of S health research awards to a level that will equal or exceed the national average of 30 per cent.

There’s also evidence U of S is expanding its health research beyond bio-medical science. Sociologist Harley Dickinson will receive $350,000 for his part in a $1.9-million U of A-led project into knowledge utilization and policy implementation in health care. And last month, CIHR announced it will provide $3 million for an Indigenous Peoples Health Research Centre to be located on both university campuses.

What accounts for the apparent turnaround in our health funding fortunes?

In part, it may be the internal grant review process which has brought a measure of quality control to the application process.

“This may be the first good evidence of the effect of that initiative,” said Michael Corcoran, Vice-President of Research. “We know this works in other places. We may need to even toughen up this process because we don’t want this success to be an isolated spike. We want this to be sustained.”

Corcoran also detects a renewed sense of optimism about the research climate on campus which he attributes to the leadership of President Peter MacKinnon in encouraging research.  

“People who may not have applied before may be seeing things turn around,” he said.

There’ve also been instances where researchers who’d been previously turned down by CIHR were successful in this round because they modified their proposals and applied again. “It may be that people were reluctant to do that in the past,” he said.

Corcoran is himself a case in point. His proposal for more than $350,000 to assess the anti-epileptic effects of a new generation of cannabis-like compounds was approved this round — his third attempt.

Of course, success in one competition does not constitute a trend. The real test of whether a corner has been turned will be the next few rounds of competition. 

What is certain is that the new money will generate more jobs for research associates, post-doctoral fellows, technicians and graduate students, helping to build a critical mass of research expertise. And the new research will bring new insights and cutting-edge knowledge to the classroom experience for students.

Other approved projects include:

• Luis Melo (physiology) and colleagues at Harvard Medical School will study how the activity of a particular protein they’ve discovered is regulated in heart attacks. This work will be invaluable in designing a safe and efficient gene therapy strategy for protecting the heart from damage due to heart attack.
• John Gordon (veterinary microbiology) will study how to reduce or eliminate symptoms and illnesses arising from allergic asthma, ideally by inducing ‘tolerance’ to the allergen.
• Philip Griebel (VIDO) will look into a new approach to inducing protective immunity in newborn infants, work that could improve vaccine delivery and better protect newborns against infectious disease, a major cause of death in newborns.
• Wei Xiao (microbiology and immunology) and his team will investigate how defects in several genes become cancer risk factors. The results could improve diagnosis and treatment for a variety of cancers.
• Peter Bretscher (microbiology and immunology) will study how the immune system decides whether or not to fight foreign invaders and how it chooses to fight them.
• Robert McNeill (pharmacology) will continue work on the discovery that two hormones, vasopressin and endothelin, interact in a unique way to increase blood pressure. This could help in the development of drugs for high blood pressure, a risk factor for stroke and heart disease.
• Jonathan Dimmock (pharmacy) is seeking to develop new anti-cancer drugs that are toxic to cancer cells but spare the normal tissue. His team will also work to develop new compounds that will permit kidneys, hearts and other organs to be transplanted without rejections by the host.
• Henry Tabel (veterinary medicine and microbiology) will investigate why our immune system is compromised or rendered ineffective when attacked by blood parasites such as African trypanosomiasis or malaria. His lab has identified an unusual white blood cell which may play a role in suppressing the immune response to infection. This work could lead to the design of more effective vaccines.
• Venkat Gopalakrishnan (pharmacology) will investigate mechanisms that may contribute to high blood pressure, such as the release of inflammatory agents from blood vessels. This may lead to new approaches in the clinical management of high blood pressure.
• Rui Wang (physiology) and his team will study a special class of ion channels in blood vessels to better understand how these channels act as a biological switch to relax blood vessels. The findings could help prevent and treat high blood pressure.