Schulich Medicine & Dentistry researchers were awarded $14.2 million from CIHR to tackle health issues

Researchers at Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute have been awarded operating grants worth nearly $14.2 million in the latest competition from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).  Combined Western and Lawson had 20 projects approved, including one of only six large (over one million dollars) grants handed out in Canada.

Dr. Anthony Tang, a Lawson scientist and professor in the Department of Medicine at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry will receive nearly $3.3 million over five years for a study on heart failure called “Resynchronization/defibrillation for Ambulatory Heart Failure Trial in patients with Permanent AF (RAFT-PermAF)”

“Heart failure is the most common reason for hospital admissions of patients over the age of 65.  Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) using a specialized pacemaker, has been demonstrated to improve symptoms, and reduce hospitalization and deaths in patients whose heart failure involves sinus rhythm, an enlarged heart or abnormal sequence of contractions,” says Dr. Tang, who holds a CIHR Chair in arrhythmia management in heart failure.  “However, over one quarter of heart failure patients have an abnormal heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation. It is unknown whether CRT will benefit these patients.  This research is a multi-centre international study to determine if CRT will reduce hospitalization and mortality in these patients.”

CRT uses a specialized pacemaker to re-coordinate the actions of the right and left ventricles, increasing the heart’s efficiency.

Of the more than 25-hundred grant applications submitted across the country, 479 received CIHR funding for up to five years.   Schulich Medicine & Dentistry faculty who will be receiving funding include:

CIHR Competition Results

BROWN, Arthur
Robarts Research Institute
Investigating the role of SOX9 in recovery from spinal cord injury

CAIRNS, Ewa
Department of Medicine
The role of anti-homocitrullinated protein/peptide immune responsesin Rheumatoid Arthritis

CUNNINGHAM, Ian A
Robarts Research Institute
High-Performance X-Ray Detectors that Maximize Image Quality and Reduce Patient Exposures

DIXON, S. Jeffrey
Physiology and Pharmacology
Ion transport and signaling in skeletal cells: P2 nucleotide receptor function in bone

DRYSDALE, Thomas A
Pediatrics
The cellular basis of early cardiac morphogenesis

HOLDSWORTH, David W
Robarts Research Institute
Dynamic micro-computed tomography for pre-clinical musculoskeletal research

LI, Shun-Cheng S
Biochemistry
Characterizing the LeSH/LUSH superfamily of bacterial effector proteins in the pathogenesis of Legionnaires' disease

LING, Hong
Biochemistry
Translesion DNA Replication and its Regulation

LITCHFIELD, David W
Biochemistry
Control of Cell Proliferation & Survival: Pathological Rewiring of Regulatory Pathways by Protein Kinase CK2

LU, Wei-Yang
Robarts Research Institute
Regulation of Pulmonary Inflammation by Alveolar GABAergic Signaling

PARRAGA, Grace
Robarts Research Institute
Structure-Function Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Asthma

PENG, Tianqing
Lawson Health Research Institute
Calpain activation and diabetic cardiomyopathy

SHAW, Gary S
Biochemistry
Mechanisms of Membrane Repairand Trafficking by S100 Proteins

SPENCE, J. David
Robarts Research Institute
Intestinal microbiome and extremes of atherosclerosis: 1. TMAO

URQUHART, Bradley L
Physiology and Pharmacology
Drug Disposition in Chronic Kidney Disease

WEIJER, Charles E
Epidemiology and Biostats/ Medicine
The ethics of neuroimaging after serious brain injury