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Advancing Research
Landmark funding spurs growth across the organization
UHN received a historic $119.9 million for research funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) in August. This significant accomplishment will allow us to move forward on a number of research initiatives. It is a unique opportunity to create pioneering research platforms integrated across our labs and clinics, helping us continue to make a global impact.
The grant will fund new equipment across seven research themes—signaling, clinical studies, stem cells, medical imaging, immunity, biomarkers and drug discovery. It also includes support for research-focused construction projects at our three main research institutes—the Toronto Western Research Institute, the Ontario Cancer Institute, and the Toronto General Research Institute.
New centres for hepatitis and cancer research
A multidisciplinary team of investigators, led by UHN’s Dr. Jenny Heathcote, was awarded a $2-million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US this past year. The grant will create a new Clinical Centre for Chronic Hepatitis B at TWH, and will be a significant resource for researchers locally and nationally. One of the Centre’s key roles is to support the establishment of a database that will connect a network of up to 10 Hepatitis B centres across North America. UHN is the only clinical centre outside the US to receive NIH funding in 2008, and we are anticipating exciting new research growth in this area.
The Ontario Cancer Institute is now home to the newly created Campbell Family Cancer Research Institute, thanks to a generous donation of $37.5 million from the Campbell family. The Institute will support a high content tumour bank, a state-of-the-art Advanced Molecular Profiling Lab, and cancer research on a number of fronts, including stem cells, genomics, tumour metabolism and guided therapeutics.
Improving clinical research quality
UHN runs up to 1,000 clinical trials each year, and the strengthening of our clinical research infrastructure was a major focus this year. A clinical study quality committee, the first of several initiatives aimed at providing organization-wide leadership for patient safety and best practice in clinical research, was founded early in the year, chaired by Dr. Christopher Paige, Vice President, Research, and Dr. Catherine Zahn, Executive Vice President, Clinical Programs and Practice. A mandatory Good Clinical Practices training program for our clinical research staff trained 50 percent of the research teams, with plans to complete the remainder next year. We have also set up an internal audit team to help identify areas that we need to improve on systemically.
As a leading research hospital, we are in the process of setting standards in professional practice and operating clinical research procedures, as well as in designing tools to facilitate and monitor the quality of clinical studies across the organization.
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