Queen’s Health Sciences researchers awarded more than $3.5 million in recent CIHR funding

News & Announcements | 25 Jul 2024

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) have announced the results of their Spring 2024 Project Grant competition. Three researchers from Queen’s Health Sciences (QHS) were awarded more than $2.16 million for their projects ranking either first or second in their panels. In addition, Dr. Paula James and her team earned a CIHR grant earlier this year of $1.374 million as part of its Rare Disease Research Initiative.

Congratulations to the following researchers and their teams.

Dr. Sarah Funnell (Family Medicine): Food as Medicine: Enhancing food sovereignty and promoting healthy aging for Indigenous older adults through culturally informed food programming in long-term care homes - $638,776

The project aims to address the ongoing lack of control over access to traditional and culturally-safe foods in long-term care homes for Indigenous Peoples. It is important for long-term care homes to offer culturally relevant foods so that Indigenous residents feel safe and welcome living there, and are able to see themselves, their history, and their culture in their care. This project will create roadmaps for long-term care homes to help them better serve Indigenous residents in hopes of supporting aging in line with Indigenous understandings of wholistic food, health, and well-being.

“I’m excited to have received this grant, and to be ranked first among proposals in our panel is wonderful. It took a team to put the proposal together and it will take a team to undertake this important research.” – Dr. Sarah Funnell

Dr. Alyson Mahar (Nursing): End-of-life cancer care among adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities – $546,976

Everyone should be able to take control of their cancer care when approaching death, but many adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) aren’t diagnosed with cancer until it is too late, and need good quality end-of-life care. This study will collect data on health-care encounters to identify who is receiving good care among adults with IDD and the factors that lead to better or worse care as well, and evaluate any differences in care among populations with and without intellectual or developmental disabilities.

“Our team is thrilled to have this opportunity to do research with, and for folks with, intellectual or developmental disabilities. Everyone is deserving of a good death. Until we can increase the likelihood of living well with cancer for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities, we need to start making the process of dying with cancer, better.” - Dr. Alyson Mahar

Dr. Madhuri Koti (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Targeting B cell exhaustion in BCG non-responsive bladder cancer - $975,376

For more than 50 years, Bacillus Calmette Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy has been the standard immunotherapy treatment for bladder cancer. While BCG immunotherapy, delivered directly into the bladder, remains the ‘poster child’ among the most successful immunotherapies to treat cancer, it is not effective for many patients and there is still a need for biomarkers for early identification of patients who will not benefit from this treatment, and novel therapies that can be combined with BCG to improve response and reduce recurrence or progression to higher stage. Learn more about this research by watching Dr. Koti’s 5 à 7 Talk.

“This CIHR grant is very special for me in this very competitive funding environment, because we ranked first out of 45 applications from across the country that were reviewed in the panel, and conducting this research at Queen’s is even more special because it is the birthplace of BCG immunotherapy for bladder cancer. Securing this grant was only made possible by hard work from my trainees, help from collaborators, and most importantly patients who consented to donate blood and tissue samples for our research”. – Dr. Madhuri Koti

Dr. Paula James (Medicine): Early genomic testing for inherited bleeding disorders in patients without a diagnosis after first-line testing: a randomized controlled trial - $1.374 million (Rare Disease Research Initiative)

Many individuals (especially women) with abnormal bleeding (such as heavy menstrual periods) wait years to have their bleeding recognized and even longer to achieve a diagnosis—if one is ever made. The research project led by Dr. James and her team aims to reduce the time to arrive at a bleeding disorder diagnosis by implementing genomic testing early in the work up. Learn more about Dr. James and her work through her 5 à 7 Talk.

“We're very grateful to CIHR for the funding to carry out this project, and since the grant announcement, we have connected with the other awardees in our competition through the Canadian Rare Disease Network. The chance to learn from their work and to collaborate is proving invaluable.” - Dr. Paula James

Queen’s Health Sciences researchers awarded more than $3.5 million in recent CIHR funding

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