TORONTO, February 21, 2002 -- Recent funding awarded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) in three new research areas at York University will help to establish Canada’s first, multi-institutional research team studying cancer pain, and will open the way to new therapies for diabetics. It will also help build a field laboratory in northern Ontario to quantify and assess environmental damage to inland lakes.
Awarded under the CFI’s New Opportunities Fund, the grants provide infrastructural support to new researchers at the university to ensure they have access to the advanced equipment and facilities they need to conduct leading-edge research. York’s latest round of recipients are professors Lucia Gagliese, Gary Sweeney and Norman Yan. The Canada Foundation for Innovation was established by the Government of Canada in 1997 to strengthen the capability of Canadian non-profit institutions to carry out world-class research and technology development.
Background on the grant recipients and their research programs is attached.
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For further information, please contact:
Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
416-736-2100, ext. 22091
sbigelow@yorku.ca
YU/025/02
Cancer Pain Research: Prof. Lucia Gagliese
Prof. Lucia Gagliese, a health psychologist in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University is establishing Canada’s first multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary research team studying cancer pain, at York University and the University Health Network. The team will focus on more effective assessment and management of pain, documentation of the psychological and social needs of patients, and identification of appropriate care strategies for disadvantaged and under-served groups such as the elderly or cognitively impaired. Gagliese notes that pain management services in Canada continue to be inadequate, and experts in the field are urgently needed. As the population ages, the number of cancer patients is expected to grow dramatically, creating a tremendous demand for effective and affordable care.
Gagliese is well-known for her investigations into age differences in pain research that belie the notion that chronic pain is a normal part of aging. Her empirical testing of commonly held assumptions about pain in under-studied and often under-served groups has driven her to the forefront of research in the field. Her studies have shown that elderly people do not accept chronic pain as a normal part of aging, and they suffer significant emotional stress because of their pain. She has found that cancer pain in particular is often poorly managed due to inadequate assessment of pain, especially among the elderly and those unable to verbally communicate. The consequences of this are serious, as unrelieved pain is associated with immune suppression, respiratory depression, cognitive impairment, psychological distress, functional limitations, and hastened progression of the disease.
Gagliese is seeking to improve the quality of life of growing numbers of people with cancer, by demonstrating that pain is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that requires assessment at the psychological and cognitive levels as well as the physiological. Her work brings together experts in the fields of pain, mental health, palliative care, pharmacology, and anesthesiology. Her grant from the CFI in the amount of $425,000 will help to build a world-class research facility to support her work at York University and Princess Margaret Hospital, University Health Network. Princess Margaret Hospital and its research arm, the Ontario Cancer Institute, are global leaders in the fight against cancer. The University Health Network is one of Canada’s largest acute-care teaching organizations, comprised of Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital. Phone: 416-736-2100, ext. 77234.
Diabetes and Obesity: Prof. Gary Sweeney
Prof. Gary Sweeney, a biologist in the faculty of Pure and Applied Science, is researching the cellular and molecular basis of the development of diabetes in obese individuals. The success of this research is critical to improving prevention of the disease, and developing therapy for the complications associated with it. These complications include kidney disease, the principal cause of death among diabetics; nerve disease which frequently results in amputations; retinopathy leading to blindness; hypertension; heart failure, and stroke.
Diabetes is a major health problem in Canada and the incidence is growing as obesity among the population increases dramatically. More than 80 per cent of obese individuals develop insulin resistance resulting in type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes (juvenile-onset diabetes) occurs when the pancreas is unable to produce insulin, and can be treated by insulin administration. However, 90 per cent of diabetes cases are type 2 (adult-onset diabetes) characterized by resistance to the actions of insulin and an inability of the pancreas to secrete enough insulin to overcome this resistance. More than two million Canadians have diabetes, and the World Health Organization estimates the global diabetes population will reach an alarming 300 million by 2025, principally due to the rising incidence of obesity. Also of great concern is the prevalence of obesity in juveniles, leading to an increased incidence and decreased age of onset for type 2 diabetes in a population previously unaffected by this type of disease.
Sweeney’s research program employs the latest in proteomics technology, and is unique in its use of cultured human cells, animal models and Drosophila flies used in genetic research. He uses Drosophila studies to perform RNA interference of gene expression, a novel technique that is possible because many of the proteins of relevance to insulin are conserved across species. Proteomics, the next stage of research after the mapping of the human genome, is the study of proteins in a cell and how cells are using genetic information. Sweeney’s work integrates state-of-the-art proteomics technology with cell and molecular biology to understand the association of insulin resistance and obesity at the molecular level. His collaborations with industry, and with researchers in Canada and internationally are expected to yield results of international significance. His award of $529,000 from the CFI will help him to establish his laboratory at York University. Phone: 416-736-2100, ext. 66635.
The Health of Ontario’s Inland Lakes: Prof. Norman Yan
Prof. Norman Yan, a biologist in the faculty of Pure and Applied Science, is one of the world’s foremost experts on the impacts of multiple environmental stressors on the animal plankton of inland lakes. Recently known for his research on the spiny water flea that has invaded Ontario lakes and threatened plankton biodiversity, he will now establish a Field Laboratory for the Assessment of Multiple Ecological Stressors (FLAMES) on zooplankton. The FLAMES lab will look at the joint effects of several, current environmental problems in Canada’s soft-water lakes -- including pollutants, climatic change, and invading species – and their effect on the plankton.
Yan notes that boreal shield lakes are often exposed to acid rain, climate change, excess nutrients, and invading species all at the same time, so the traditional approach of dealing with environmental problems one at a time is essentially flawed. The FLAMES lab will be built on the site of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment’s world renowned Dorset Environmental Science Centre in the Muskoka region, providing unparalleled access to many different lakes subjected to a variety of stressors of national and international significance.
The research will be based on ecological changes detected in the world’s best long-term, large-scale data sets on animal plankton, and will seek to identify the causes of these patterns. The stressors examined will be those suspected of having the largest impact on biodiversity in the world’s fresh waters. The results will help policy makers manage the impact of multiple environmental stressors, and help the metal mining and energy sectors determine whether the interaction of these stressors are compromising the recovery of inland lakes from historical damage. Yan has been awarded a CFI grant of $506,119 toward construction of the FLAMES lab. Phone: 416-736-2100, ext. 22936.
