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:
Meet the students behind the 2022 ALS Canada – Brain Canada Trainee Awards. Charlotte Manser is the recipient of a $75,000 ALS Canada – Brain Canada 2022 Trainee Award. As a PhD student at the University of Ottawa, she investigates how ALS-linked genes might contribute to the loss of normal stress granule formation.
International student explores understudied causes of ALS
Meet the junior researchers who received the 2022 ALS Canada – Brain Canada Trainee Awards. Donovan McDonald is the recipient of a $75,000 ALS Canada – Brain Canada 2022 Trainee Award. As a PhD student, he investigates how the function of tRNA could contribute to ALS disease processes.
Future change-maker in ALS pursues innovative research
Meet the students behind the 2022 ALS Canada – Brain Canada Trainee Awards. Charlotte Manser is the recipient of a $75,000 ALS Canada – Brain Canada 2022 Trainee Award. As a PhD student at the University of Ottawa, she investigates how ALS-linked genes might contribute to the loss of normal stress granule formation.
Dr. Alex Parker, at the Centre de recherche du CHUM, Université de Montreal, is one of the first two recipients of the newly introduced three-year, $300,000 ALS Canada–Brain Canada Discovery Grant. Dr. Parker’s grant was funded in generous partnership with Dr. Jean-Pierre Canuel Fund – SLA Québec.
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.”
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.
