By Dr. David Evans and Dr. Marek Michalak
acroSS canaDa
Research in
ALBERTA
The province of Alberta is probably best known for its resource wealth, spectacular scenery, and cowboys; a “Texas North” in the minds of some. What may not be so well known are the world-class infrastructure and academic programs at Alberta universities and the important role that provincial investments have played in supporting an environment where innovation and ingenuity are recognized and rewarded. Alberta’s ingenuity is exemplified by the historic role that the University of Alberta and the Alberta Research Council played in developing technology for oil sands extraction, long before it was considered economically viable to do so. Today, Alberta holds one of the largest recoverable oil reserves in the world, and the wealth generated by its traditional resources continue to be invested in an “innovation agenda”. One of the long-standing areas of major investment has been in health research and these investments are now paying dividends in the form of a vibrant life sciences research community and state-of-the-art health services. Alberta invested aggressively to build its health research continuum through the establishment of two endowed Alberta Heritage Foundations. These were the Heritage Foundations for Medical Research and for Science and Engineering Research (now Alberta Innovates — Health Solutions and Alberta Innovates — Technology Futures, respectively). Starting in the 1980’s, these agencies have played a critically important role in recruiting “high quality personnel” to Alberta and in establishing much of the research infra-
structure. More recently the province, in collaboration with the Government of Canada, has greatly expanded this infrastructure to meet the growing demand for health workers and for training in research laboratories. For example, the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, has just completed two new stateof-the-art research buildings (the Li Ka-Shing Institute for Health Innovation and the Katz Centre for Pharmacy & A reactor suite, Health Research) part of Gilead’s that comprise manufacturing ~65,000 m2 of operation in new space housEdmonton, AB. ing 1,600 people, linked to two existing research buildings, two of western Canada’s largest tertiary care, research and teaching hospitals, the Provincial Laboratories of Public Health, and the new Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute (one of only three in Canada). An additional facility, designed to support a multi-disciplinary program in allied health sciences (the Edmonton Clinic Health Academy), is currently being populated. This academic cluster now comprises one of Canada’s largest contiguous medical research complexes and can provide researchers with access to the latest tools for imaging (optical, electron, MRI, and PET),
UofAlberta Li Ka-Shing Institute of Virology
genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and structural biology. The infrastructure also includes specialized facilities that support access to nanotechnology (the National Institute for Nanotechnology is located on campus), new infectious pathogens facilities (the Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases), animal models, clinical trials, ABSL3 biocontainment suites, and radioisotope production. Similar investments in advanced infrastructure have been made at the University of Calgary. With this funding, the province has been able to support a variety of programs in health research and this had led to the development of a number of areas of specialized research strengths. There has been a long history of support for infectious disease research, dating back to the establishment of some of Canada’s first molecular virology NOVEMBER 2011 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS 23
