Queen’s Health Sciences researchers have secured over $5.3 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation – Innovation Fund (CFI-IF) for research infrastructure that will help improve healthcare for millions of Canadians.
The TIME Core project, led by Dr. Lynne-Marie Postovit (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences) and Dr. Stephen Archer (Medicine), has received $5.3 million in funding from the CFI-IF. TIME Core will be a central facility consisting of six world-class research platforms that will allow investigators to move bidirectionally from scientific discovery to the treatment of patient populations.
The overarching mission of TIME Core is to deliver state-of-the-art research tools that enable fundamental discoveries and facilitate the translation of this new knowledge into diagnostic tests and therapies for some of the major diseases affecting the health of Canadians. These include cancer, cardiopulmonary diseases, inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. TIME Core will catalyze the translation of discovery science by leveraging approximately 20 research groups and over 100 trainees within Queen’s Health Sciences.
The program will elevate training in areas such as biotechnology, clinical research, and biomolecular sciences, providing learners and faculty with infrastructure tailored to their research needs. It will also accelerate the translation of discoveries into new medicines and biomarkers. For example, the delivery of cell therapies to cancer patients, the development of a microbiome-based therapy for analgesia in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), and the elucidation of biomarkers for the early detection of neurodegenerative disorders, like Alzheimer’s disease (AD). TIME Core will also help advance first-in-person clinical trials that will test whether novel mitochondria-targeting agents can be used for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension (PAH).
TIME Core has the potential to improve healthcare outcomes for millions of Canadians and be an engine for discovery, education, and purposeful translation, leading to innovations in healthcare at Queen’s.
Learn more about Queen’s success in the recent $40M federal government research announcement.
This story originally appeared in The Gazette.