News & Updates

Dr. Gary Shaw is a biochemist at Western University and one of nine ALS Canada-Brain Canada Discovery Grant recipients for 2022. “It’s always really exciting when you get a research grant, because you’re using your ideas that you’ve researched in the literature and created new experiments around,” he says. “After all that, it’s exciting to have other scientists review it and appreciate your ideas.”

Dr. Maria Vera Ugalde loves fundamental biology. As a biochemist at McGill University, she spends her days using advanced microscopy techniques to see into the intricate workings of our cells.

Dr. Christine Vande Velde is a cellular biologist at the Centre de recherche du CHUM, Université de Montreal, and one of nine ALS Canada-Brain Canada Discovery Grant recipients for 2022. While she and her team spend their lab hours parsing out biological intricacies, her work is always motivated by something bigger: the lives of people affected by ALS. 

Dr. Carlos Rodrigo Camara-Lemarroy is an early-career researcher and clinical neurologist based in Canada at the University of Calgary. He is a first-time recipient of an ALS Canada-Brain Canada research grant.

Dr. Maria Stepanova, a physicist at the University of Alberta, is one of nine 2022 ALS Canada-Brain Canada Discovery Grant recipients. She works closely with Dr. Holger Wille, a structural biologist also at U of A. Though both have decades of experience researching other neurodegenerative diseases, the grant represents their first time being funded for ALS research.

When Dr. Thomas Durcan, director of The Neuro’s Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), found out his team had been awarded a 2022 Discovery Grant, “It was a very happy day for us all.”

When Dr. Renée Douville found out she had been awarded one of the 2022 ALS Canada–Brain Canada Discovery Grants, she was excited. Very excited.

Dr. Richard Robitaille, at the Université de Montréal, received his first grant from ALS Canada ten years ago. Already a world-leading expert on the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), the funding was his first research foray into ALS and allowed him to find clinical applications for his expertise. His lab now spends nearly all their research efforts on the disease.