Clinical & Translational Research Programs

In February 2018, the Faculty of Medicine launched a new Translational Research Grant (TRG) Program. The goal of the TRG program is to promote translational research and collaboration between basic science and clinical researchers throughout the Faculty. Given our tremendous strengths in clinical and basic research, this program will promote the strategic integration of research teams from clinical and basic science departments. This program is designed to provide seed funding to test new, innovative ideas and facilitate future grant support.

The TRG process invites applications from 2 (or more) researchers, each as co-principle investigators. One researcher must be a basic scientist holding an appointment in a basic science department or research institute, and the other a clinical researcher, holding a primary appointment in a clinical department. Both researchers must hold their primary appointments in the Faculty of Medicine.

Each application can request up to $50,000 to be used over 2 years. TRG funds are derived from two sources: (1) basic science department or research institute (up to $25,000) + (2) clinical department (up to $25,000). Researchers interested in applying to the TRG Program must confirm that matching funds are available from their host institute, clinical or basic science department before beginning the application process. TRG funding is awarded on a competitive basis following a rigorous peer-review process based on excellence of the proposal, innovative nature of the proposal, previous accomplishments of the applicants, feasibility, potential impact on health and/or patient care, and availability of partner matching funds.

2022 Translational Research Grant Program

Currently, the Faculty of Medicine is not accepting applications for this program. Please continue to visit this website for updates on future rounds of the TRG program.

The Blueprint Translational Research Group, established in 2016 at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, developed an innovative research model called the Excelerator program to enhance and enable efficient clinical translation through rigorous methods and approaches. In 2019, Blueprint partnered with the Faculty of Medicine at uOttawa to extend the Excelerator program to the broader Faculty and affiliated institutes to help rapidly develop promising therapies from bench to early-phase trials.

The Excelerator program allows research teams to address many common challenges in translational research a priori with a set of focused studies, and therefore helps researchers and clinical investigators deliver optimized clinical trial protocols with the best possible chance of success.

The Excelerator targets several issues that contribute to failed translation during early phase clinical trial protocol development. The Excelerator program includes:

• Systematic reviews: to objectively appraise available preclinical and early phase clinical data. This helps assess safety, efficacy, and identify knowledge gaps. These reviews have been well received by regulatory agencies (i.e. Health Canada) that are highly concerned about safety when initiating ‘first-in-human’ and early phase clinical trials.
• Implementation diagnostics: to identify barriers and facilitators to patient and clinician participation in clinical trials. By using interview and survey studies we can optimize eligibility criteria, specifics of interventions, and outcomes to be assessed. This can help avoid issues with patient recruitment. In addition, we propose to build patient partnershipusing an integrated knowledge translation approach, to help ensure that the developed clinical trial protocol would align with patient interests and needs.
• Economic evaluation: to estimate the maximum cost at which new therapies can be brought to market and still be considered cost-effective. This can help avoiding delays in commercialization and reimbursement processes necessary for clinical adoption.
• Testing feasibility: by using planned eligibility criteria, we perform retrospective cohort studies from available databases (e.g. The Ottawa Hospital Datawarehouse) to ensure that inclusion/exclusion criteria are feasible, and a sufficient number of eligible patients could be recruited.
• Regulatory consultation: we provide consultation for developing clinical trial protocols as well as regulatory requirements, GMP, GLP 

The Excelerator group is actively looking for research that might be ready, or soon-to-be ready, to take those early steps along the translation pipeline. With the help of the group’s expertise, researchers at uOttawa and The Ottawa Hospital can tackle all the right questions in advance and launch their projects with the best clinical protocol possible. 

For more information about the program, contact the Research Office or Mohamad Sobh.

2022 Excelerator Program

Currently, we are not accepting applications for this program. Please continue to visit this website for updates on future rounds of the Excelerator program.

Objectives

• The Path to Patenting & Pre-commercialization (3P) grant will support early-stage health/biomedical research and innovation at uOttawa Faculty of Medicine through proof-of concept and beyond, providing opportunities to patenting and commercialization. The funding is intended for 1) key experiments needed for intellectual property (IP) protection and potential commercialization, 2) assessment of potential market access and 3) development of a commercialization plan (if ready).
• Provide support in the preparation of an early-stage business case/commercialization pathway.

Eligibility:

• Applicants must be active Faculty members with a primary academic appointment in the Faculty of Medicine.
• Projects must meet criteria for TRL (Technology Readiness Level) >3. See figure below.

Guidelines:

• Applications must be submitted electronically in a single PDF file to Mohamad Sobh. 

Deadline round: 5pm on May 9th, 2022

The application for funding must include a 3-page proposal containing the following:

• Project title
• Project summary: provide a non-technical description of the proposed product/discovery, the issues it will address and its significance or expected benefits for potential market access.
• Specific needs, missing areas, studies to be supported with this funding.
• Description of the project team members with their role and responsibilities
• Identification of key collaborators relevant to the project
• Summary of work already completed to date
• Potential outcomes/benefits likely to be met through this additional funding.
• Identification of competing technologies/approaches elsewhere (publications, patents).
• Budget justification 

Funding is restricted to eligible operational expenses (including, but not limited to reagents, consumables, salaries and stipends, facility service fees), minor infrastructure expenses, cost for pre-market assessment and cost for the development of a commercialization plan as they directly relate to the proposed initiative.

The application must also include:

• Current updated CV of applicant and relevant co-applicant(s)
• Relevant letter(s) of support from departmental chair/institution
• One-page list of references

 All documents must be formatted in accordance with generally accepted standards at the granting councils, as follows: text must be single-spaced, with no more than six lines per inch. Text must be in black color and 12 point or larger.

Procedures and review process:

• You can contact the Research Office of the Faculty of Medicine, Mohamad Sobh to verify eligibility.
• All applications will be reviewed by the 3P Review Committee which will be composed of non-applicant Professors at the University of Ottawa and affiliated research institutes, with representation from ISS, and industry. The committee will be chaired by the Faculty of Medicine Vice-Dean, Research.
• Criteria for funding will include excellence of the proposal, commercialization potential, overall feasibility of the objective(s), milestones accomplished, and potential impact of the initiative.
• Three projects will be selected for funding. The maximum grant amount to be awarded to each project is $15K, with a potential 1:1 match if the research is done within uOttawa affiliated research institutes. In addition, the funding can be leveraged via a Mitacs application with support from the Research Office in partnership with an external partner (industrial or non-profit) to fund a student or Postdoc and thus maximize the award amount (up to $60K).