Sept 25, 2025: Announcing the 2024/2025 Precision Health Catalyst Grant award recipients.
Background
The Precision Health Catalyst Grant competition aims to enable collaborative and innovative early-stage precision health research projects (foundational or clinical research) created with the intent to fuel a proposal for a larger-scale, longer-term project.
Proposals for projects can address various PH research areas, where at least one grant is awarded to each of the following PH research areas to align with our Research Institute partners who have contributed funding to the catalyst grants:
- Childhood Health
- Cancer
- HIV/AIDS & Related Diseases, Heart & Lung, Kidney, Mental Health, or Healthy Aging
Up to a maximum of $50,000 may be requested per catalyst grant proposal.
Learn more about the PH Catalyst Grants here.
2024/2025 Round
Five proposals led by Early Career Researchers receive precision health catalyst grant funding
September 25, 2023
We are pleased to announce 5 proposals have been funded through the 2024/2025 UBC Faculty of Medicine Precision Health Catalyst Grant Round. The PH Catalyst Grant Review Committee consisting of 9 Faculty members from different departments and research institutes reviewed the 12 proposals against evaluation criteria and recommended 5 proposals to be funded at $40,000 each, 2 related to Cancer and 1 related to Children’s Health, 1 related to Heart & Lung, and 1 related to Immunology for a total funding allocation of $200,000.
We congratulate the following successful applicants!
Precision Health Research Area
View:
Cancer
Identifying biomarkers and therapeutic targets to direct air pollution promoted lung cancer prevention with Administrative Health Data
Leads: Emilia Lim, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Life Sciences Institute and Anna McGuire, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Surgery, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
Summary: This project aims to identify transcriptional biomarkers in normal lung cells that are associated with air pollution exposure. This would ultimately enable studies into early diagnosis or prevention of air pollution-promoted lung cancers.
Predicting EGFR mutation in non-small cell lung carcinoma through integrated models of pathology, radiology and demographic data
Leads: Julia Naso, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and Ali Bashashati, Faculty of Medicine, School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, BC Cancer
Summary: This project aims to use weakly supervised and unsupervised machine learning models to produce accurate predictions of EGFR mutations in non-small cell lung carcinoma using integrated pathology, radiology and demographic data.
Children’s Health
Investigating the role of gut microbes and diet in response to an oligofructoseenriched inulin prebiotic in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease
Leads: Genelle Lunken, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, BC Children’s Health Research Institute and Keegan Korthauer, Faculty of Science, Department of Statistics, BC Children’s Health Research Institute
Summary: This project aims to 1) Determine if inulin supplementation in pIBD leads to modulation of gut fungi 2) Explore if specific fungal taxa are associated with: (i) host response to inulin (FC changes) and (ii) bacterial response to inulin and 3) investigate if specific dietary patterns, food groups or nutrients are associated with host, fungal and bacterial response to inulin.
Heart & Lung
Dissecting molecular and functional mechanisms of atrial fibrillation-associated noncoding variants
Leads: Sheila Teves, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Life Sciences Institute and Glenn Tibbits, Faculty of Medicine, School of Biomedical Engineering, BC Children’s Health Research Institute
Summary: This project aims to identify how GWAS hits in non-coding regions confer disease risk or protection. We will specifically examine a novel human variant in the intronic region of the KCNN3 gene that increases risk of Atrial Fibrillation. Findings will allow for precision medicine therapies to ameliorate heart disease risk and promote healthy aging.
Immunology
From ancient viruses to modern pandemics: Investigating the contribution of human endogenous retroviruses to COVID-19 severity and recovery
Leads: Jessica Dennis, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics, BC Children’s Health Research Institute and Maria Tokuyama, Faculty of Science, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Summary: This project aims to relate HERV-K polymorphisms in the host genome to severe COVID-19 and PACS. Our project leverages WGS data linked to electronic health data from hundreds of thousands of ancestrally diverse All of Us participants to ensure that precision health advances are equitable.