Genome Canada has awarded $9.7 million to a project co-led by researchers at Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) that could change the face of transplant care. The funding will support a groundbreaking study—co-led by Dr. Paul Keown and Dr. Stirling Bryan from University of British Columbia, Dr. Ruth Sapir-Pichhadze from McGill University and Dr. Timothy Caulfield from University of Alberta—that aims to increase kidney transplant success rates by 50 per cent and save around $1-billion in health care costs over the next 15 years.
“With the funds from this award, we are working to identify new clinical interventions to increase survival rates and quality of life for transplant patients and their families,” says Keown, professor and director of Immunology and founding head of the BC Transplant Program, now one of the largest and most successful in North America. “The knowledge and expertise gained throughout this project has the potential to be transferred to other types of transplantation, which could be revolutionary.”
The BC-led project—Precision Medicine CanPREVENT AMR: Applying precision medicine technologies in Canada to prevent antibody-mediated rejection and premature kidney transplant loss—involves research teams throughout Canada (Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia) and the world (United Kingdom, European Union and United States).
