2005

Dr. Dan Dumont

Dr. Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker

The Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program awarded Tier 1 Chairs to two of SRI's outstanding senior scientists in molecular and cellular biology. Each will receive $1.4 million—$200,000 per year for seven years—to continue their innovative work. They each also receive infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which will enable them to buy state-of-the-art equipment.
Dr. Dan Dumont is studying the mechanisms of angiogenesis (the growth of blood vessels) and lymphangiogenesis (the growth of lymphatic vessels) that contribute to health and disease. These two processes are essential to health; for example, they are critical to wound healing and in manufacturing placenta during pregnancy. These two processes also are involved in some diseases; for example, they contribute to the advance of cancer, arthritis and diabetes. Dumont seeks to understand the mechanisms that initiate and control the growth of these vessels, so that methods in disease control and regenerative medicine can be developed.
Dr. Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker discovered in 2002 how to grow T cells, which are critical to healthy immune function, in the lab; recently, he discovered a way to grow them using human-cord-derived stem cells. This brings scientists that much closer to being able to create and use in vitro T cells to treat autoimmune deficiencies, like those associated with AIDS and cancer, in people whose immune systems have been destroyed. His work continues as he tries to answer a fundamental question: How do certain cells respond to key molecular signals, thereby making them develop into disease-fighting T cells? The answer to this questions offers hope to patients everywhere.

Dr. Robert Fowler

Through the Career Scientist Awards, the ministry supports promising researchers in the early stages of their careers by providing $50,000 plus benefits per year in salary for five years and enabling recipients to devote at least 75% of their time to health services research. Dr. Robert Fowler, a physician at S&W and scientist in clinical epidemiology at SRI, will expand his investigations into access and equity in the delivery of critical care in Ontario, one of the ministry's health services research priorities.

Dr. Kathleen Pritchard

Named after Dr. Warwick, a pioneering researcher in cancer control and treatment, the CCS awards this prize to a scientist whose work has had a major impact on cancer control in Canada. Over the last 25 years, Dr. Kathleen Pritchard's highly translational breast cancer research has led to improved chemotherapy treatments and reduced side effects for women, not just in Canada, but around the world. Pritchard is a senior scientist in clinical epidemiology at SRI and head of clinical trials and epidemiology at Odette Cancer Centre, the comprehensive cancer program of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

Dr. Jack Tu

The CIHR Knowledge Translation Award recognizes an exceptional individual or team involved in a collaborative project to advance the translation of knowledge — in this case cardiovascular outcomes research — from discovery to clinical application. Dr. Jack Tu, a senior scientist at SRI cross-appointed to the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), is team leader of the Canadian Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Team (CCORT), an ICES-based initiative. The Knowledge Translation Award consists of a certificate of recogntion and a $100,000 grant, in recognition of Tu's achievements through CCORT, which have had an impact at the national level.
The Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program has also renewed Tu's Tier 2 Chair in Health Services Research. Tu is an acknowledged leader in the field of cardiovascular research and has led several of Canada's largest database studies on health services issues in cardiovascular care. He will receive $100,00 each year for five years to continue his policy-shaping work.