Health researchers receive more than $3 million

Robert Ross, School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, is one of eight Queen’s projects to receive funding in the latest round of Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) funding.
Researchers studying treatment strategies for erectile dysfunction in obese men, physical activity among grade 10 students, and HIV/AIDS prevention in South Africa are among eight Queen’s projects awarded a total of $3,177,791 in the latest round of Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) funding.

Across Canada, 764 health research projects received more than $298 million.

“The research being supported with the funding will help us address important health issues affecting Canadians, such as cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS.” says the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Health. “The Government of Canada is committed to investing in knowledge, science and innovation.”

Queen’s researchers receiving grants:

Lucie Levesque, School of Kinesiology and Health Studies ($99,964) will examine the effectiveness of a community-wide intervention to enhance physical activity involvement in the entire population of grade 10 students (approximately 2500 youth) in a mid-size Canadian city. New knowledge yielded by this research will help guide program decisions and refinement of community-wide strategies to enhance obesity and chronic disease prevention in the Canadian population.

Rosemary Jolly, English ($688,530) will work with young males in rural South Africa to prevent HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence. With substantial input from youth, service providers and community leaders, she will design a culturally-appropriate intervention that would be pilot-tested and evaluated in a subsequent research project.

Ingrid Johnsrude’s, Psychology ($479,265) research uses behavioral and functional brain imaging from normal listeners to study how the auditory signal and knowledge-based information contribute to accurate speech perception. Her work will also look at how the interaction between perceptual and cognitive processes changes with age.

Kenneth Rose, Physiology ($855,452) is working to understand the mechanisms used by the central nervous system to control movement. His research will serve as the foundation for unmasking the causes of motor dysfunction seen in a wide variety of neurological diseases, strokes, and spinal cord injuries.

Robert Ross, School of Kinesiology and Health Studies ($302,931) studies acute and chronic exercise as treatment strategies for erectile dysfunction (ED) in obese men. His research aims to provide encouragement to the estimated 3.8 million Canadian men above 40 years of age who have ED and vascular disease to adopt an active lifestyle and thereby improve erectile function while also lowering their related risk of disease.

Victor Tron’s, Pathology ($412,365) goal is to block expression of inhibitors of cell death, in skin melanoma. This is the most common, deadly form of cutanous tumor, and a treatment for metastatic disease does not exist. If successful, his research will give hope to thousands of Canadians who develop melanoma.

Louise Winn, Pharmacology and Toxicology ($322,617) looks at environmental chemicals and drugs that produce birth defects. She is currently looking at why Valproic acid (a commonly prescribed antiepileptic agent used to treat a wide variety of seizure disorders) is associated with birth defects when taken during pregnancy.

Linda McLean, School of Rehabilitation Therapy ($16,667) is the lead for Muscles in Motion: Moving research into clinical practice, which will be a semi-annual congress of the International Society for Electrophysiology and Kinesiology (ISEK). They hope to attract a large delegate of clinicians to this meeting to enhance knowledge exchange between those who develop new knowledge and those who use these developments and can offer feedback regarding their needs.

The CIHR is the Government of Canada’s premier agency for health research. Its objective is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system.