Three Ryerson researchers awarded $3.2 million in Canadian Institutes of Health Research grants

Three Ryerson professors have been awarded a total of $3.2 million in Project Grants by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to support their cutting-edge medical research projects. The funding will enable the researchers to explore new possibilities for cancer treatments, develop a tool for diagnosing a muscle disorder, and test an ultrasound technique for analyzing kidney scarring.

“Ryerson researchers are at the forefront of critical new developments in biomedical science, and the projects supported by these important CIHR grants illustrate the ambition and impact of the outstanding work being conducted across our university,” said Steven N. Liss, vice-president, research and innovation at Ryerson. “Many congratulations to professors Michael F. Olson, Karthi Umapathy and Michael Kolios.”

Professor Michael F. Olson, of the Department of Chemistry and Biology, will investigate how an enzyme that naturally occurs in the body, known as MICAL1, contributes to cancer growth (external link) . Over five years, professor Olson and his co-investigator, University of Toronto professor Brian Raught, will seek to discover if targeting MICAL1 with drugs can help to fight tumours.

CIHR has also awarded professor Olson a second grant to research the role of the protein ROCK1 in the development of cancer (external link) . This five-year project will see professor Olson and co-investigator Dr. Robert Rottapel, a physician and professor at the University of Toronto, make modifications to ROCK1 to find out if this can help the immune system to fight cancer more effectively, suppress the growth and spread of tumours, and improve the body’s response to chemotherapy.

Professor Karthi Umapathy, of the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, will develop new methods of detecting early signs of myasthenia gravis (external link) , a muscle weakness disorder that can be fatal. He and his research colleagues will create a screening tool for analyzing eye-movement signals that can be incorporated into a portable device.

This is a three-year, multi-institutional project in which professor Umapathy will collaborate with fellow principal investigators Dr. Hans Katzberg of Toronto General Hospital and Dr. Mark Boulos of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. The team will also include Ryerson professor Sridhar Krishnan of the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering; Drs. Brian Murray and Arun Sundaram from Sunnybrook; and University of Toronto professor Kevin Thorpe, who are all co-applicants of the Project Grant.

Professor Michael Kolios, of the Department of Physics, will collaborate with St. Michael’s Hospital nephrologist Dr. Darren Yuen on a four-year project that will test whether ultrasound-based techniques can measure scarring in kidneys (external link) , a common cause of chronic kidney disease. If proven to be successful, the method could provide a new way of tracking kidney damage over time and ensure that donors’ kidneys are well-matched to potential recipients before transplant. The research will take place at the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Science and Technology (iBEST), a collaboration between Ryerson and St. Michael’s Hospital.