Canada Invests $30.4M in University Research Infrastructure

These funds will also go to institutions with researchers working in areas such as pharmacology, infectious disease and materials engineering. The support will provide recipients with advanced tools that will help them generate research breakthroughs, expand Canada’s innovation capacity and contribute to the country’s economic success.

The CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund helps these academic institutions attract and retain some of the world’s most talented researchers in a variety of disciplines.

New biomarkers to detect dementia among innovative projects awarded
The first signs of Alzheimer’s disease in Canada’s aging population may be detected earlier using new biomarkers being developed by Jennifer Heisz, a neuroscientist at McMaster University. Heisz’s brain biomarkers are neural signals she will use to detect disease, or the risk of disease, early and help measure the progress of treatments.

Heisz’s Neurophysiology and Fitness Laboratory is one of 149 facilities at universities across the country to benefit from new federal investments through the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund.

Other approved projects include:

• Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) System for Developing Sensitive and Quantitative Proteomics Techniques at Simon Fraser University. 
• Biochemical Mechanisms of Epigenetic Inheritance at Université de Montréal
• Single Cell Genomics Infrastructure at McGill University

A full list of approved project can be found below.