Joint Canada-Israel Health Research Program

“Grant support from the Joint Canada-Israel Health Research Program made a huge impact on my lab and the research we do. The most significant impact came from my ability to connect with and recruit 3 talented researchers from Turkey to my lab (Yeliz Yilmaz, Ezgi BağırsakçI (left), and Ayşim Günes (middle)). They enriched our lab in so many ways and made significant contributions to our research on altered liver metabolism in cancer. Our collaboration with Eithan Galun in Israel has so far led us to identify a new gene that controls when and why certain liver cells die, and a new blood biomarker that could help estimate the level of liver damage without the need for a biopsy. Without this support, helping us to connect to these new networks around the globe and funding our shared goal to fight liver cancer, these accomplishments would not have been possible.” 

Dr. Jennifer Estall 
Associate Research Professor 
Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) 
Montreal, Canada 

“The research funding from the Joint Canada-Israel Health Research Program provided the opportunity to conduct a multidisciplinary study incorporating analysis of unique clinical samples from Thailand. Our omics-driven analysis is designed to generate new knowledge on mechanisms linking iron overload to cardiometabolic disease. The concept of including a partner from a developing country in this team grant was superb as it opened new research avenues for us and afforded our collaborators the opportunity to elevate their research to a level that would not otherwise have been possible.” 

Dr. Gary Sweeney 
Professor  
York University 
Toronto, Canada

“With the support from the Joint Canada-Israel Health Research Program and working collaboratively with our research partners in Canada and Israel, we were able to establish the Tilganga Hospital’s Visual Psychophysics laboratory which aims at conducting research in children and young adults with cortical visual impairment. This is the first basic research laboratory of its kind in Nepal and is providing an opportunity to Nepali researchers to strengthen their capacity in the intersections of neuroscience and artificial intelligence research.” 

Dr. Srijana Adhikari 
Head, Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus 
Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology 
Kathmandu, Nepal  

“Support from the Joint Canada-Israel Health Research Program has made a significant impact on my lab and the research we do. Specifically, the Program gave us an opportunity to collaborate closely with Dr. Ittai Ben-Porath at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel as well as with Dr. Anu Rangarahan at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore India. As part of this collaboration on aberrant Notch oncogene signaling as a driver of breast cancer heterogeneity and tumor progression, we have co-published a large study on the importance of hemizygous gene loss in breast cancer progression. We have also been able to organize two highly successful conferences on breast cancer heterogeneity in Bangalore, which attracted international speakers as well as professors and trainees from across the Indian subcontinent.”   

Dr. Sean Egan 
Senior Scientist, Cell Biology Program 
The Hospital for Sick Children 
Toronto, Canada