First of its kind biomed lab gets $3 million funding

Winnipeg, MN – Research that looks at finding better ways to help transplant and cancer patients will be part of a new systems biology program that will receive over $3 million in medical research funding from the Manitoba government.

The Manitoba Centre for Proteomics and Systems Biology, said to be the first of its kind in Canada, will support basic biological as well as biomedical research relevant to transplants, autoimmunity, cancer detection and treatment, and viral infections. Research will focus on the development of new approaches and tools for the study of biological systems by integrating expertise from physics, biology, medicine and computer sciences.

“We have the people, we have the expertise and now we have the means to put the necessary infrastructure in place that will give these individuals the ability to identify problems at the molecular level and to develop the tools to solve them. This is a rapidly developing field of research, which makes this infrastructure a natural and essential progression in the study of biological systems,” says Emke Szathmry, president of the University of Manitoba.

“The Health Sciences Centre Foundation recognizes the importance of the research that the new systems biology lab will have for future patient care,” said Dr. Blake McClarty, director of research for the Health Sciences Centre and the Health Sciences Centre Foundation. “And that is why, in addition to funding support, we have allocated 10,000 square feet of space on the seventh floor of the John Buhler Research Centre to house the new laboratory.”

The funding will also support the development of new analytical instruments and bioinformatics programs that will further enhance systems biology methods. This new lab is also intended to offer key support to the province’s emerging biotechnology cluster and further develop Manitoba as a centre of excellence in biomedical research.