Organization: Univ of British Columbia

Cangene Corp to fund Alzheimer’s research

Cangene Corp has signed an MOU with the Univ of British Columbia to develop the research of Dr Neil Cashman, science director of PrioNet Canada and holder of the Canada Research Chair in neurodegeneration and protein misfolding at UBC. Winnipeg-based Cangene became interested in Cashman’s work when a research team led by Cashman discovered a…

PrioNet researchers find link between prions and ALS

Researchers associated with PrioNet Canada have discovered a key link between prions and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (als) or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The research team from the Univ of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute found that the SODI protein exhibits prion-like properties and participates in a process called template-directed misfolding. The discovery is…

Bioniche opens animal vaccine production facility

Bioniche Life Sciences Inc has opened Canada’s largest livestock vaccine manufacturing facility using $25 million in repayable loans from the federal and Ontario government’s The Animal Health and Food Safety Vaccine Manufacturing Centre, located at the firm’s headquarters in Belleville ON, is a scale-up facility and the first milestone in a planned $100-million project (R$,…

New Global Virus Network has Vancouver node

Vancouver’s Brain Research Centre (BRC) will be home to the neurovirology division of the Global Virus Network (GVN), a new independent organization involving 25 countries ratified in an early March meeting in Washington. GVN is dedicated to creating an international network of virus experts to identify new and emerging viruses, build collaborative research alliances, train…

CIFAR renews two research programs

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) has renewed two of its research programs in genetics and economics and social sciences. The programs received $6 million over five years after undergoing peer review after five years of operation. The Genetic Networks program is led by Dr Brenda Andrews, Univ of Toronto, while the Social Interactions,…

BCKDF provides UVic with $13.3M for ocean research

The Government of British Columbia is providing $13.3 million for ocean research at the Univ of Victoria for the refitting of and the research vessel Tsekoa II and an expansion of the VENUS undersea sensor network. The BC Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF) will provide $8.9 million towards the refitting of the former Coast Guard vessel,…

Oceans research program launched at UBC

The Univ of British Columbia and The Nippon Foundation (NF) of Japan have launched the NF-UBC Nereus – Predicting the Future Ocean program to study the world’s oceans and monitor the impact of human activity on seafood resources. The $13-million, nine-year research program is being financed by the NF and will involve partnerships with several…

NSERC announces 2010 Synergy Awards

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) has announced the winners of this year’s Synergy Awards for Innovation, given to exemplary university-industry collaboration. Each university researcher receives a $200,000 research grant while participating companies can hire an NSERC Industrial R&D Fellow for two years with NSERC picking up the company portion of the salary.…

Health research award winners announced

The 9th annual Canadian Health Research Awards have been jointly presented by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Prix Galien Canada. Prix Galien made its awards to Dr Julio Montaner (Univ of British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS) for ongoing innovation in the development and delivery of HIV treatment, and Janssen-Ortho for a…

UBC/CDRD license tech platform to Covidien

Mansfield MA-based Covidien (formerly Tyco Healthcare) has licensed a new drug-delivery platform invented by Univ of British Columbia researcher Dr Pieter Cullis and developed in collaboration with the Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD). Cullis, director of UBC’s NanoMedicines Research Group, used CDRD’s in-house facilities and expertise to perfect the new technology which is…