CFREF grant will go towards researching the relationship between the heart and brain
The University of Ottawa held a press briefing on June 14 to announcing its Brain-Heart Interconnectome (BHI) research project as the recipient of a $109 million grant from the federal government’s Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF).
The BHI’s vision is to “transform the prevention and treatment of brain-heart interconnected conditions, improving the health and quality of life of Canadians and people worldwide.” Currently, about one in five Canadian experience issues pertaining to the heart and/or brain.
Mona Fortier, MP for Ottawa-Vanier and president of the Treasury Board of Canada, made a speech to commemorate the University’s award; “I’m very, very thrilled to be here today, making sure that this investment will provide the youth and other members of our community more research opportunities through the University of Ottawa.”
“Since 2016, we have invested more than $16 billion in new resources to support Canadian science and research,” said Fortier. “These historic investments are helping truly cement Canada’s position as a world leader in research and innovation.”
Competitions for the CFREF awards occur every seven years and $1.4 billion is allocated through the program. Criteria for the CFREF recipients included “potential to become world-leading on the global scale and for the possible research breakthrough that they could bring”, prospective economic and sustainable relationships with communities, and incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing in their initiatives.
Also present at the press breifing were University of Ottawa vice-president of research and innovation Sylvain Charbonneau, associate vice-president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Valerie Laflamme, and MP for Ottawa South David McGuinty.
At the conferences, Dr. Ruth Slack and Dr. Peter Liu were announced as co-leads for the BHI research project. Both spoke earnestly about the importance of brain-heart research.
“Clinically, brain and heart diseases are treated separately – they’re even studied separately. So this is a real impediment to research innovation, and also patient care and we really need to change that,” said Slack in a speech. “We will transform health care and the quality of life for Canadians by developing groundbreaking approaches to study to prevent and to treat brain heart conditions as a whole as a single functioning unit.”
Liu spoke about his experiences with patients suffering from brain and heart complications, further emphasizing the importance of the grant towards the BHI project.
“We’re now busy looking for the scientific evidence to help us to change not only the scientific understanding, but also the awareness of the connections between [the] brain [and] heart. So we can actually diagnose these conditions properly, and treat our patients using understanding.”
“It’s a different way of understanding the communication and coordination of the organs that’s taking place every minute that’s within us,” said Liu.
