Congratulations to Rob Bonin and Shirley Wu on their CIHR Grant success !

Congratulations to Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy researchers Professor Xiao Yu (Shirley) Wu and Assistant Professor Rob Bonin on their recent success in the CIHR Fall 2018 Project Grant competition. “This achievement is a tremendous endorsement of the quality, strength and potential impact of the research led by Professor Wu and Assistant Professor Bonin, particularly given the 15 per cent success rate of submitted research applications,” said Dr. Stéphane Angers, Associate Dean of Research for the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.

Assistant Professor Robert Bonin

Focusing his research on intractable, pathological pain, Prof Bonin has received $742,050 over five years fro CIHR to further his research into the mechanisms by which ongoing sensory input can reverse the cellular changes underling the misprocessing of painful sensory input in the spinal cord.

In previous work, Prof Bonin has drawn a parallel between the cellular processes in the brain that allow memories to be updated or strengthened, and the processes that are initiated by ongoing activation of pain-sensitive cells in the spinal cord.

This new funding will support efforts to identify the exact conditions of activity that enable the destabilization of the memory trace and use these findings to reverse pathological sensory processing in animal models of pain.

“As an early career researcher, I welcome the opportunity that CIHR funding will bring to our research programme” said Prof Bonin. “This grant will enable us to attract and recruit new students, continue to develop new approaches to study pain, and ultimately build on our efforts to better understand how we may be able to directly target and reverse pathological pain.”

Learn more about Prof Bonin’s work

Professor Xiao Yu (Shirley) Wu

Precise detection of early onset, relapse and distant metastases especially in the brain by non-invasive medical imaging is essential for timely design of effective and patient-specific therapies.

Prof Wu received $470,475 over three years from CIHR to support efforts to development of a smart tumor-activated nanodiagnostic system for sensitive detection of solid tumors and metastases. In this project, Dr. Wu and team will develop a smart contrast agent for enhancing sensitivity and selectivity of MRI for detection of primary tumors and their spread to the brain as well as brain tumors at early stages.

Learn more about Prof Wu’s work