Funded Grants

At birth, some babies suffer from a condition called birth asphyxia, where their brain and organs do not receive enough oxygen or blood, leading to hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE).

The human brain’s development relies on precisely coordinated genetic programs that ensure proper wiring and function.

Challenge: ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is an incurable and invariably fatal motor neuron (MN) disease.

The Challenge: Current therapies for treating a number of mental health disorders – depression, anxiety,
and PTSD, among them – adequately treat only a small fraction of afflicted patients.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex condition affecting communication, social interactions, and behavior in approximately 1–2% of people worldwide.

Challenge: Current DRE standard of care is either DBS (Medtronic, Boston Scientific), Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS – Livanova) or Responsive Nerve Stimulation (RNS – NeuroPace).

Challenge: Delivery of therapeutic proteins to the brain has been a longstanding barrier to CNS drug
development.

In Canada, over 1 million people have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (BD) in their lifetime.

We propose to develop chemically defined synthetic extracellular matrices to support neural cells in longterm stable cell culture.

ALS is a devastating neurological disease characterized by the progressive degeneration of motor neurons leading to paralysis and death.