Key Takeaways

  • Brain Canada and the Cancer Research Society are funding five new brain cancer research projects totalling $490,000
  • Three Doctoral Research Awards of $70,000 over two years each back early-career researchers at the University of Toronto, McGill and the University of Guelph
  • Two Operating Grants of $140,000 over two years each go to teams at the Université de Moncton and Simon Fraser University

Five Research Projects. $490,000. One Fight Against Brain Cancer.

Brain cancer is one of the toughest diagnoses in medicine — and five Canadian research teams just received new funding to fight it.

Brain Canada and the Cancer Research Society are funding five new brain cancer research projects totalling $490,000.

Three Young Researchers, Three Big Ideas

Three Doctoral Research Awards of $70,000 over two years each support early-career scientists:

  • Mahya Rezaeifarimani (University of Toronto) is developing a nanoparticle platform to carry drugs across the blood-brain barrier for radiosensitization.
  • Liam Wilson (McGill) is studying MPO+ macrophages in glioblastoma.
  • Sarah Worfolk (University of Guelph) is testing an oncolytic HSV-1 virus against glioblastoma.

Two Teams, Bigger Grants

Two Operating Grants of $140,000 over two years each support Moulay Akhloufi and team at the Université de Moncton, building a radiogenomics AI model, and Lisa Julian and team at Simon Fraser University, building a brain-organoid model of mTORC1-driven tumour growth.

The funding flows through the Canada Brain Research Fund — Government of Canada funding through Health Canada, matched by Brain Canada — together with the Cancer Research Society.

Brain Canada president Dr. Viviane Poupon noted that the outlook for people with brain cancer remains poor despite advances.

The Twikup Take

Five projects, $490,000, and one goal: better odds against one of medicine's hardest cancers.

The money is modest — the ideas behind it are not.

Health note: This is a research funding announcement — these are early-stage studies, not treatments available to patients.

Image: AI-generated illustration.

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