MUHC foundation to pump $11 million into new research
Aiming to push the boundaries of science and clinical care, the foundation of the McGill University Health Centre announced Tuesday it will award a $100,000 annual grant to scientists who have won a competition for the most outstanding “out-of-the-box” research project. Although the U.S. National Institutes of Health routinely funds such high-risk, high-reward projects, the MUHC competition is believed to be the first of its kind in Canada, said Dr. Donald Vinh, a top scientist at the MUHC’s Research Institute. “It’s critically important,” Vinh said of the funding. “This kind of support allows us to take that risk and do avant-garde research.” Bruce Mazer, the research institute’s interim executive director, noted that the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and other funding bodies often take a conservative approach in awarding grants. But Vinh, who worked previously at the NIH, cited a statistic that 50 per cent of unconventional, patient-centred research in the U.S. results in clinical breakthroughs within five years of funding. He explained that some highrisk, high-reward projects could involve re-purposing existing drugs for new clinical applications like the treatment of genetic diseases of the immune system. Vinh and his colleagues recently discovered a new immune-system disease and identified the gene that causes it. With more than 400 scientists and 1,100 research trainees, the RIMUHC is Quebec’s largest hospital-based research institute. It has also partnered with scientists on projects in more than 50 countries. Among its scientists is Ana Beatriz Toledo Dias, who obtained her PhD in ophthalmology from McGill and her home university in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Dias manages a lab that not only conducts research into eye diseases, but helps diagnose ocular cancer early, saving eyes and saving lives. “Our salaries are paid for by grants and donations,” Dias said. “We work here to help patients with ocular melanoma. We try to prevent their eyes from being removed and to treat their cancer with fewer side effects.” The MUHC lab has become an international reference centre for ocular melanoma. Such is its renown that scientists from around the world often consult with Dias and her colleagues on ocular melanoma, a very rare form of cancer, with 30 new cases each year in Canada. Dias said her lab will probably enter the annual MUHC competition, which is being funded thanks to a $3-million donation by the Trottier Family and the R. Howard Webster foundations. The MUHC Foundation last year launched a $10-million research fundraising campaign by former endocrinologist Sylvia Cruess and her husband, Richard Cruess, who had practised orthopedic surgery. That campaign has to date raised $11 million.