Funding Opportunities

• The primary applicant must be a full member of the DMCBH.
• This funding program will provide funding support up to maximum of 2 years for the same project. Guidelines and review criteria for new and renewal applications are outlined below.

• Support research that focuses on outstanding questions related to Alzheimer’s Disease, which could include (but is not limited to) causes of the disease, diagnosis, treatment and experimental models of the disease.
• Strengthen and foster new collaborations within the DMCBH community and across UBC.

This program will fund several new and renewal research projects each valued at $50,000.

New Application

1. Your application should be no longer than two pages and must include the following headings:
   Project title, primary applicant, co-applicants, and an outline of team member roles;
2. Concept;
3. Approach;
4. Impact;
5. Budget.

Appendices:
The primary applicant and co-applicant(s) must attach

• a CV (4 pages maximum) that includes a list of publications from the past 5 years;
• References.

Combine the application and Appendices into a single PDF for your submission.

Renewal Application

Your renewal application should be no longer than two pages and must include the following headings:

1. Project title, primary applicant, co-applicants, and an outline of team member roles;
2. Concept;
3. Approach;
4. Progress report;
5. Budget.

This is a competitive peer review process and each application will be evaluated on the following criteria:

New application

1. Innovative concept;
2. Collaborative approach and strength of team;
3. Potential impact on the greater understanding and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Renewal application

1. Status of collaborative approach and strength of team;
2. Progress achieved and potential impact.

All applications will be adjudicated by a committee as designated by the DMCBH Executive and will include a Chair and 3-4 reviewing members.

A short progress report will be required upon conclusion of each project and awardees will be required to present their findings at the Neuroscience Research Colloquium.

We are not accepting applications at this time, but we anticipate announcing a competition in Fall 2022.

Any questions regarding this program and the application process can be directed to Chris Crossfield (chris.crossfield@ubc.ca).

2021 Award Recipients

• Dr. Sophia Frangou: Analyzing inter-individual variation in the ageing brain
• Drs. Liisa Galea, Annie Ciernia and Cheryl Wellington: Understanding the influence of genetics and sex differences in Alzheimer’s risk
• Dr. Manu Madhav and Thalia Field: Developing a behavioural biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis 
• Drs. Terry Snutch and Haakon Nygaard: Analyzing transcriptome changes in human 2D and 3D models of Alzheimer’s disease
• Drs. Tim Murphy and Mark Cembrowski: Tracking the impact of multi-sensory brain stimulation on Alzheimer’s disease (renewal)

2020 Award Recipients

• Drs. Fidel Vila-Rodriguez, Haakon Nygaard, Robin Hsiung, Sherri Hayden and Alex Levit: Using non-invasive brain stimulation to treat mild cognitive impairment 
• Drs. Liisa Galea, Annie Ciernia, Cheryl Wellington, Jonathan Epp, Staci Bilbo and Lisa Saksida: Understanding the influence of  genetics and sex differences in Alzheimer’s risk
• Drs. Brian MacVicar and Haakon Nygaard: Searching for the source of oxidative stress in brain cells
• Drs. Tim Murphy and Mark Cembrowski: Tracking the impact of multi-sensory brain stimulation on Alzheimer’s disease 

2019 Award Recipients

• Drs. Haakon Nygaard and Stephanie Willerth: Modelling Alzheimer’s disease through 3D human neural tissue
• Drs. Cheryl Wellington, Haakon Nygaard, and Karen Cheung: Microfluidic models of the neurovascular unit for studies of Alzheimer’s disease
• Drs. Haakon Nygaard and Brian MacVicar: Neuronal oxidative stress and microglia interactions in Alzheimer’s disease models
• Drs. Teresa Liu-Ambrose, Vesna Sossi, Liisa Galea, and Roger Tam: Exercise impacts on cognition and Alzheimer’s Disease indicators in perimenopasual women
• Drs. Donna Lang, Kristina Gicas, Thalia Field, Eduardo Navajas, and Alexandra Talia Vertinsky: Cardiovascular risk in Alzheimer’s disease
• Drs. Liisa Galea, Robin Hsiung, and Sherri Hayden: Impact of motherhood on cognitive health in aging and Alzheimer’s Disease

The primary applicant must be a full member of the DMCBH.

If you have received funding as the primary applicant from a previous Kickstart competition, you will not be eligible to apply until an impact progress report has been submitted confirming completion of your project and that you have scheduled a Neuroscience Research Colloquia (NRC) talk.

This program will support research* projects that demonstrate new collaborations, directions, and technological developments that can be used to generate preliminary data for future research grant competitions to external funding agencies.

This program is intended to strengthen and foster new collaborations within the DMCBH community and across UBC.

*In this context, “research” refers to any activities under Section 4.03: Scholarly Activity under the Agreement on Conditions of Appointment; that is, all fields of academic endeavor are considered.

This program will fund up to a maximum of five (5) one-year term awards @ $30,000.**

The term for each award will be July 1 – June 30.

** Funding must be spent in a manner consistent with the application that was submitted and funded, although variations from budget lines that were originally submitted are permitted so long as the use of funding is still consistent with the overall project. Expenses must directly support research, and be compliant with UBC and Faculty expenditure guidelines.

Your application should be no longer than 2 pages and must include the following headings:

1. Project Title, primary applicant, co-applicants, and an outline of team member roles;
2. Concept;
3. Approach;
4. Impact;
5. Budget.

Appendices:

1. Abbreviated biosketch CVs of the primary applicant and co-applicants (each 2 pages maximum) that includes a list of relevant publications from the past 5 years.
2. References (maximum 1 page).

Combine the application and Appendices into a single PDF for your submission.

Application deadline is by 5:00pm Friday, April 29, 2022.

This is a competitive peer review process and each application will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• innovative concept;
• collaborative approach and strength of team;
• potential impact.

Applications will be adjudicated by a committee as designated by the DMCBH Executive and will include a Chair and 3-4 reviewing members.

Please submit your application in PDF format to Chris Crossfield (chris.crossfield@ubc.ca) by 5:00pm Friday, April 29, 2022.

Any questions regarding this program and the application process can also be directed to Chris (chris.crossfield@ubc.ca).

2021 Award Recipients

• Drs. Kamyar Keramatian, Erin Michalak and Lakshmi Yatham: Evaluation of a novel psychoeducational intervention for individuals at high risk for bipolar disorder: A feasibility study.
• Drs. Ipek Oruc, Robin Hsiung, Ozgur Yilmaz and Sonia Yeung: Automated detection of Alzheimer’s disease from retinal fundus images using deep learning.
• Drs. Anthony Phillips and Terrance Snutch: Assessment of novel drugs for attenuation of opioid withdrawal-induced hyperalgesia.
• Drs. Daniela Palombo, Jodie Gawryluk and Christopher Madan: Dexontextualization of memory in PTSD.
• Drs. Catharine Winstanley and Tao Huan: Applying metabolomics to explore origins of sex differences in risk-taking caused by D2/3 agonists.

2020 Award Recipients

• Drs. Annie Ciernia and Urs Hafeli: Mechanisms of Peripheral Lipopolysaccharide Induced Brain Inflammation.
• Drs. Brian MacVicar, Louis-Philippe Bernie, Matilde Balbi, Mohamad Seyed Sadr and David Chen:  A new target for aneurysmal SAH-induced vasospasm: P2Y14-dependent cerebral vessel constriction.
• Drs. Lynn Raymond and Peyman Servati: Chronically stable neural interfaces for basic discovery and future therapeutics .
• Drs. Paul van Donkelaar,  Alexander Rauscher, Vesna Sossi, Cheryl Wellington and Will Panenka: Characterizing tau pathology in survivors of intimate partner violence-related traumatic brain injury.
• Drs. Rebecca Todd, Stan Floresco, Luke Clark and Trisha Chakrabarty: Neurophysiological and behavioural indices of active and inhibitory  avoidance in health and major depressive disorder.

This program will provide salary awards to neuroscience trainees whose supervisors are full DMCBH members, and is intended to recognize excellence in academics and research activities. Through the generous support from many donors and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, funding is available from several disease specific endowments and a general endowment. Half of the general awards will be reserved for GPN students, all other awards are open to all trainees in DMCBH.

• The applicant’s supervisor must be a full member of the DMCBH or the student must be a GPN member.
• UBC students and postdoctoral fellows can apply.
• Applicants must not hold internal or external award funding over $25,000 (graduate student) or $50,000 (postdoctoral fellow) per year. Holders of 4-Year Fellowships with no other funding can apply.
• Recipients from a previous competition may apply for a second year of funding by submitting a full application with a progress report. A maximum of two years of funding is available through this program.

• Jock & Irene Graham Brain Research Endowment (Postdoctoral Fellow Award);
• Leslie Ann Wyman Brain Tumour Research Endowment;
• Benjamin Feldman and Family Endowment Fund for Transformational Activity in Mental Health;
• Neural Repair (Spinal Cord) Endowment;
• Schizophrenia Endowment;
• DMCBH General Award

Your application must include the following documents:

• Application Form (see below)
• Applicant’s Canadian Common CV. Please include all publications (book chapters, journal articles, etc.). https://ccv-cvc.ca/
• Applicant’s summary of research (1-page maximum, single-spaced, 11 pt font size, 0.5”margin
• Letter of reference from the supervisor (1-page maximum) if you are applying for the Jock & Irene Graham Brain Research Endowment or the Leslie Ann Wyman Brain Tumor Research Endowment.
• Optional: a short statement (max. 100 words) outlining leaves of absence or delays to research progress (such as illness, childcare, etc.). Please indicate leave durations and describe impact on productivity.

Combine the required documents into a single PDF for your submission.

The application deadline is by 5:00pm Friday, April 29, 2022.

This is a competitive peer-review process and each application (including renewals) will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Quality of the research proposal;
• Research productivity (e.g. publications, presentations);
• Awards and recognitions;
• Community engagement, public outreach, leadership, and/or teaching.

Minority status
The awards committee will ensure that the group of successful applicants is diverse. Applicants’ minority status will be considered when making the final award decision.

Send your application as a single PDF to: ubc.neuroscience@ubc.ca by 5pm Friday, April 29, 2022.

Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted.

Applicants will be notified of the competition results by June 30, 2022.

Any questions regarding this program and the application process can also be directed to ubc.neuroscience@ubc.ca.

• 2021 award recipients
• 2020 award recipients

Applicants must be a full member of the DMCBH.

This program will contribute towards the purchase of research equipment. It is primarily designed to provide matching support and cover small shortfalls for equipment grants (e.g. CFI, NSERC, RTI), but can also be used for the purchase of equipment in conjunction with other DMCBH labs. The equipment does not have to be located in DMCBH/Koerner labs but must benefit DMCBH members.

This program will support 5-6 applications per year, up to a maximum of $10,000/application.

Provide the following information in your application, which should be a maximum of 2 pages:

• Title of project, brief outline, total budget, and amount requested;
• Funding organization, and current stage in the application review process (if applicable);
• Equipment item(s), proposed location, and a quote;
• Sustainability plan for ongoing maintenance/service of equipment;
• Benefits to the CBH community and list of CBH labs that the equipment will support/impact;
• List of matching requests made to other Departments/Centres/Labs/donors/ vendors;
• References, quotes can be attached as Appendices.

Applications will be adjudicated by a small sub-set of the DMCBH Executive Committee and Chris Crossfield.

• Potential impact and benefit to DMCBH community
• Sustainability plan

There is no set deadline for this program. Please submit completed applications in PDF format to Chris Crossfield (chris.crossfield@ubc.ca). Any questions regarding this program and the application process can also be directed to Chris.

The primary applicant must be a full member of the DMCBH.

Provide match support to projects that demonstrate new research collaborations, directions, technological developments, directly benefits the larger DMCBH community, and are in alignment with one or more of DMCBH’s strategic priorities.

DMCBH will consider providing match support for requests greater than $10,000 based on availability of funds.

Your request should be no longer than 2 pages and must include the following information:

1. Project Title;
2. Primary applicant and a list of research collaborators;
3. Brief outline of the project and the total match funding request from DMCBH;
4. Primary funding source (e.g. Brain Canada, CFI), total project funding request, and current status of the application process;
5. Details of other partner match funding request(s) in support of the project and current status of each request;
6. Describe how this project will foster new collaborations, its potential impact, and how it aligns with DMCBH strategic priorities, which include Integrated Research Programs, Neuroinformatics, Neurogenomics or Neuroinflammation.

Matching requests can be submitted at any time. Each request will be reviewed by members of the Executive committee and these members will also comprise representatives of each of the Integrated Research Programs. Appropriate COI measures are in place to ensure a transparent review.

Your request will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Evidence of match funding support from other partners;
• Collaborative approach;
• Potential impact (alignment with strategic priorities, benefits to larger DMCBH community).

Please submit your request in PDF format to Chris Crossfield  (chris.crossfield@ubc.ca).

Any questions regarding this funding opportunity and the application process can also be directed to Chris.