Toronto (Feb. 19, 2008) - Colin Carrie, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry and Dr. Eliot Phillipson, president and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) today announced a $119.9M investment towards University Health Network's (UHN) Advanced Therapeutics Research Platform.
"This new investment from CFI will provide a significant boost in helping UHN achieve global impact," said Dr. Bob Bell, president and CEO of UHN. "It will allow our research community to establish critical new resources that will transform health care for our patients, our community and the world."
The award—the largest in UHN's history—includes $92.3M towards construction projects at The Krembil Discovery Centre, Toronto Western Research Institute, Ontario Cancer Institute and Toronto General Research Institute. It will fund new equipment across seven research themes including signaling, clinical studies, stem cells, medical imaging, immunity, biomarkers and drug discovery programs.
"Receiving this award is a tribute to the internationally recognized strength of UHN's researchers and research programs," notes Dr. Christopher Paige, VP Research, UHN. "It represents a unique opportunity to create pioneering research platforms integrated across UHN's labs and clinics."
With our CFI funding to date, UHN has recruited from Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, among others. With this new funding, UHN will have the space to create 300 new trainee positions. Based on our previous record, we will continue to bring top talent to Ontario.
The remaining $27.6M is for institutional operating funding related to the award.
For more information please visit www.innovation.ca.
About University Health Network
University Health Network consists of Toronto General, Toronto Western and Princess Margaret Hospitals. The scope of research and complexity of cases at University Health Network has made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care. It has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in cardiology, transplantation, neurosciences, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, and genomic medicine. University Health Network is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto.
