Three MSL faculty involved in projects funded through Spring 2025 CIHR Grant competition

Three of our MSL faculty members are involved in projects recently funded through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant: Spring 2025 competition. These newly funded projects will advance health research in several disciplines, including cardiac health, cellular therapy development, and pandemic preparedness.

This funding competition awarded approximately $411 million across Canada in research grants, and an additional $5.1 million in priority announcement grants. At UBC, 54 research projects earned a total of $47 million in Project and Priority Announcement Grants.

Project Grants:

AI-supported mapping and probing of the regulation of cardiac voltage-gated calcium channels
Principal Investigator(s): Dr. Jörg Gsponer (MSL, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
Co-investigator(s): Dr. Filip Van Petegem (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
$895,050 (5 years)
 

Engineered In Vitro Niches for Blood Development to Enable Advanced Cellular Therapies from Renewable Sources
Principal Investigator(s): Dr. Peter Zandstra  (MSL, School of Biomedical Engineering)
$1,093,950 (5 years)
*conditional award at time of announcement
 

Priority Announcements:

A platform for developing rationally guided, broadly neutralizing antibodies for future pandemics, using SARS-CoV-2 as a model
Principal Investigator(s): Dr. Steven Plotkin (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
Co-investigator(s): Dr. Nobuhiko Tokuriki (MSL, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
Priority Announcement Area: Pandemic Preparedness and Health Emergencies Research
$100,000 (1 year)
 

Quick links:

• Read the UBC VPRI announcement
• Learn more about the Canadian Institutes of Health Research 2025 Spring Project Grants