For every $1 we spend in seed funding through the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research program, Future Leaders will attract an additional $7.75 to build on their findings.
For every $1 we spend in seed funding through the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research program, Future Leaders will attract an additional $7.75 to build on their findings. Since 2019, the Future Leaders program has supported 131 promising early career researchers with $100,000 each to pursue bold ideas, advance their research programs, and launch their careers. This seed funding has allowed Future Leaders to:
Personalized therapies are not yet a reality for children with medulloblastoma, a highly aggressive form of Brain CancerTreatment involves invasive surgery, radiation to the whole brain and spinal cord, and high doses of chemotherapy. Not only does this approach not cure all patients – the survival rate is 60% – those that do survive face lifelong side effects of radiation on the developing brain, including intellectual disability, growth issues, early strokes, and hearing loss.
In 2020, Olivier Goy, an entrepreneur, activist and photography lover from France, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – a rare neurodegenerative disease that can have many different underlying causes, presentations, and prognoses. Some patients may live with the disease for decades, while others decline rapidly.
Dr. Yuen discovered and patented a method to detect tandem repeat expansions in complex brain disorders. He and his research team used this method to determine that tandem repeat expansions contribute to at least 3% of autism cases.
Rates of cannabis use across all age groups have increased by 7.3% since legalization, with many users perceiving it as natural and therefore safe. However, the evidence used to assess cannabis safety and toxicity has an important limitation; most people consume cannabis by inhalation, while most of the research to date has involved injecting rodents to study cannabis’ effects.
What factors promote resilience to stress? Researchers have investigated this question at the level of neurons for decades, but Dr. Caroline Ménard found an answer where the blood system and the nervous system interact, the blood-brain barrier (BBB).
Funding solutions for people with spinal cord injury
Spinal cord injury (SCI) often leads to a secondary problem of irregular blood pressure. That pressure problem then leads to an elevated risk of heart disease and stroke. Dr. Aaron Phillips has developed an innovative new technology that acts like a thermostat to regulate blood pressure in individuals with SCI.
Could a ketogenic diet slow the progression of ALS?
“Increase your caloric intake.” This is the number one recommendation that a clinician will make to a person recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease affecting nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control. A high calorie diet is linked to better outcomes for ALS patients, but the question is – why? And what is the optimum diet to slow progression of the disease?
