The projects will advance new knowledge and scientific breakthroughs in AI-powered disease diagnosis and precision medicine, cancer diagnosis, and organ on a chip systems. These grants recognize the creativity and innovation that are at the heart of all research advances. 

The awards are part of a major $1.3 billion federal investment in Canadian research announced July 9 by the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions. 

The funding is being administered by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). More than $48.6 million was awarded to researchers at UBC, including the following researchers from SBME:

NSERC Discovery Research Program

The NSERC Discovery Grants program supports ongoing programs of research with long-term goals rather than a single short-term project or collection of projects, recognizing the creativity and innovation that are at the heart of all research advances. 

Mattia Bacca
Piercing Soft Matter Accross Scales: From Material Sampling to Digital Surgery
$275,000  (5 years)

Ali Bashashati 
Machine learning integration of molecular and histopathology data for cancer diagnosis and risk stratification
$235,000  (5 years)

Peter Cripton
A Biomimetic Cervical Spine
$215,000  (5 years)

Carl de Boer
Exploration and engineering of indirect cooperative interactions in transcriptional regulation
$245,000  (5 years)

Sarah Hedtrich
Generating complex, immunocompetent organ models of the human skin and lung epithelium
$275,000  (5 years)

Pamela Hoodless
Defining cell lineages and plasticity in the developing liver
$220,000  (5 years)

Ivan Nabi
Dynamic regulation of endoplasmic reticulum membrane contact sites: Impact on lipid homeostasis
$280,000  (5 years)

The NSERC Research Tools and Instruments Grants

The NSERC Research Tools and Instruments grants foster and enhance the discovery, innovation and training capability of university researchers in the natural sciences and engineering by supporting the purchase of research equipment. 

Peter Cripton
Open MRI Hardware for Advanced Biomedical Engineering Research
$135,858 

Ivan Nabi
Enhanced multicolor STED super-resolution microscopy to study organelle dynamics and interaction
$144,488