U of T received $114M from CFREF for huge regenerative medicine program

The Univ of Toronto has received $114 million over seven years — the largest research award in its history — to undertake a massive, multifaceted research program on regenerative medicine. The award was made under the initial $350-million tranche of the $1.5-billion Canada First Research Excellence Fund and is the first of five announcements expected over the next few days.

The CFREF funding will support U of T's new Medicine by Design program that will build on previous investments from the federal granting councils, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Canada Research Chairs and Canada Excellence Research Chairs programs.

"CFREF is a new way of looking at things and conducting research at globally competitive levels," says Suzanne Corbeil, executive director of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities. "The money is significant enough that it will really catapult U of T's regenerative medicine research. It's what the U of T is known for internationally and that's good for Canada."

The mandate of Medicine by Design is to undertake transformative research and its clinical translation to enhance expertise in in synthetic biology and computational biology. This will enable researchers to design cells, tissues, and organs from the ground up, fostering translation, commercialization and ultimately clinical impact. U of T's affiliated research hospitals will also be engaged.

Teams of researchers have been assembled to undertake specific aspects of the multifaceted program, with the medical research side led by including Dr Peter Zandstra, Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Bio-engineering and professor in U of T's Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering.

Ken Knox, chair of the Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC) also chaired the CFREF selection board, leading some observers to question whether there is a conflict of interest. Corbeil says she can understand such a perception but says the depth of other board members and the quality of the five awarded projects should dispel any suspicions.

"This decision was made through peer review. It absolutely lives up to the principles that we were expecting of the program," she says.

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