CIHR spearheads national epigenetics consortium

A select group of Canadian and Japanese stakeholders have pooled $41 million in funding over five years to launch an epigenetics research consortium to examine how environmental factors can alter the expression of DNA. The Canadian Epigenetics, Environment and Health Research Consortium (CEEHRC) will receive $28.5 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, augmented with funding from the Japan Science & Technology Agency ($8 million), Genome British Columbia ($2.5 million), Fonds de recherche du Québec-Santé ($1.5 million) and Genome Quebec ($400,000). The CEEHRC consists of two phases. The first will see CIHR fund a grant program and an epigenomics platform centre program. The second phase includes two team grant programs aimed at putting research discoveries into practice. BC has already established a Centre for Epigenomics Mapping Technologies to help build a national network and build bioinformatics resources. Quebec will also establish an Innovation Centre. The consortium is one of eight CIHR Roadmap Signature Initiatives that have been launched since FY10-11. In addition to providing funds for fellowships and catalyst grants, CEEHRC will fund Canada-Japan team grants and nodes of an emerging National Epigenetics Platform comprised of mapping and data coordination centres spread across canada.