1.8.5 Research Centres

Artificial Cells and Organs Research Centre

3655 Promenade Sir-William-Osler, Montreal, QC H3G 1Y6
Web site: www.artcell.mcgill.ca/
Fax: (514) 398-4983

This Centre concentrates on interdisciplinary research on the application of artificial cells in medicine and biotechnology. The present research emphasis is on artificial cells, enzyme replacement therapy, biotechnology, modified hemoglobin and encapsulated hemoglobin as red blood cell substitutes in transfusion and other applications, biomaterials, artificial kidney: tissue engineering, enzyme engineering, artificial liver, control drug delivery systems, bioencapsulation of enzymes, cells, microorganisms, and organelles. The members of this Centre come from different specialties in McGill ranging from the basic science Departments of Physiology, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering to clinical divisions in the McGill teaching hospitals. The Centre Office is in the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building.

Biomedical Ethics Unit

3647 Peel Street, Montreal, QC H3A 1X1
Telephone: (514) 398-6980
Fax: (514) 398-8349

One of the responsibilities of this Unit, established in the Faculty of Medicine in June 1996, is that of providing and coordinating undergraduate and graduate teaching in bioethics and health law. This includes courses and electives for medical students; in-hospital courses, lectures and rounds for residents and those in allied health disciplines; participation in faculty development workshops and conferences. This Unit also administers the Bioethics Master's Program, and provides the core bioethics courses and supervision of theses, in collaboration with the Faculties of Medicine, Law, and Religious Studies, and the Department of Philosophy. Master's students from all those disciplines are eligible for this Master's Degree with a specialization in bioethics. It is an interdisciplinary academic program that emphasizes both the conceptual and the practical aspects of bioethics and ordinarily takes two years to complete. The Unit provides and coordinates clinical ethics services for the McGill teaching and affiliated hospitals. This service includes the provision of in-hospital clinical ethicists from the Unit who provide ethics consults as well as chair or co-chair the Clinical Ethics Committees and serve on the Research Ethics Committees. Members of the Unit are active in a variety of interdisciplinary research areas from the perspectives of bioethics and health law. Current areas of research include clinical trials, genetics, ethics-law interaction, psychiatric ethics, ethics and culture. The Unit has seminars open to McGill faculty and students and the public on a variety of contemporary bioethics issues. Unit members and research associates actively collaborate with members of various McGill faculties and units as well as nationally and internationally in research, teaching and clinical activities. There are currently five academic members located on a full-time basis in the Unit offices, representing the disciplines of philosophy, religious studies, medicine and law. The current director of the Unit is Kathleen Cranley Glass, LLB, BCL, DCL E-mail: kathleen.glass@mcgill.ca.

Centre for Bone and Periodontal Research

740, Dr. Penfield Avenue, Room 2200

Montreal, Quebec H3A 1A4 Canada

Tel: (514) 398-6028

Fax: (514)398-4020

Web site: www.bone.mgcill.ca

The Centre for Bone and Periodontal Research was established in October 2001 to promote and facilitate research and training in the areas of bone, cartilage and periodontal disease. The Bone Centre currently represents the interests of almost 50 clinical and fundamental scientists across Canada, many of whom are recognized leaders in research pertaining to disorders such as arthritis, osteoporosis, metastatic and metabolic bone disease and developmental disorders of the skeleton and oral cavity.

The Bone Centre is managed and operated under the guidance of 15 investigators from McGill, Université de Montréal and Ecole Polytechnique, who form the Research & Development Committee.

The Centre provides advanced instrumentation for hard tissue research, acts to increase the research capacity of its members and to translate advances into improved diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases involving the skeleton and oral cavity.

Centre for the Study of Host Resistance

Montreal General Hospital, 1650 Cedar Avenue, Room A6149,

Montreal, QC H3G 1A4

The Centre brings together the major disciplines responsible for carrying out research in the field of Host Resistance. The mechanisms underlying both genetically-determined and acquired resistance to environmental stimuli which represent a threat to the host integrity and which can lead to the development of a broad range of abnormalities are studied. Rational approaches towards the identification of susceptible individuals and the prevention and correction of their genetically-determined or acquired defects are explored. Centre faculty specialize in research and in providing graduate and postgraduate training in the following fields: Genetic Epidemiology, Genomics, Molecular Immunology and Cell Biology, and Immunoparasitology. The efforts of the Centre have been recognized in the National Centres of Excellence, in which the Centre is a principal domain in the Network entitled: "Genetic Basis for Human Disease".

Centre for Translational Research in Cancer

Sir Mortimer B. Davis - Jewish General Hospital
3755 Côte Ste-Catherine, Room D127, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2

The aim of the Centre is to facilitate the translation of the exciting novel findings made in fundamental laboratories into testable hypotheses for evaluation in clinical trials in oncology. There are currently extremely high quality clinical research activities at McGill, and the fundamental investigations of cancer biology by McGill scientists are recognized worldwide. The Centre provides the infrastructure to bring these investigators together in order to synergize their efforts at generating novel and promising translational research. This provides a structured focus for these activities and will accelerate the testing of potential benefits derived from scientific discovery.

The Centre provides core functions to enhance translational research, including a Tissue Bank, Clinical Research Unit, and a Molecular Modeling Program. The unique interaction of clinician-scientists and Ph.D. researchers provides an important strength to novel therapeutic development programs. There is significant interaction with biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry.

The Centre provides a high quality environment for training clinician-scientists in cancer research. The trainees include both graduate students (Experimental Medicine, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Pathology) as well as Ph.D. and M.D. scientists interested in postdoctoral experience in working specifically on clinicially oriented or relevant models or problems.

Centre for Research on Language, Mind and Brain

1266, Pine Avenue West

Montreal, QC H3G 1A8

Web site: www.crlmb.mcgill.ca

The multidisciplinary Centre for Research on Language, Mind and Brain brings together investigators from four faculties at McGill with the goal of advancing our understanding of the processes of speech and language that extends from the theoretical (e.g., theories of language structure, neural processing) to the applied (e.g., bilingual and second language learning, clinical intervention for speech and language disorders). Research domains include speech science modeling and analysis, the neural bases of language, language acquisition, and visual language processing, among others. The Centre provides an interdisciplinary training environment for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows.

McGill AIDS Centre

Lady Davis Institute, Jewish General Hospital,
3755 Cote St. Catherine, Room 318, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2

The McGill AIDS Centre coordinates, facilitates and promotes teaching, research and treatment activities, relating to HIV infection and AIDS, at McGill University and its affiliated teaching hospitals. McGill University has been among the foremost institutions in Canada to study and treat HIV infection and AIDS. McGill scientists, researchers, and clinicians have carried out work in every area of this health problem. The Centre firmly believes that the study and treatment of HIV infection and AIDS must be inter-disciplinary, and thus the fields of medical science and social science must complement each other. The Centre enhances this work by helping researchers, scientists and clinicians at McGill to carry out the complex research that is needed to understand, prevent and treat HIV infection. Educational and training activities will be augmented to ensure there is sufficient manpower for the growing HIV epidemic. The care and treatment of persons who are infected with HIV or who have developed AIDS will be enhanced through coordination of these activities at McGill hospitals and clinics. Further the Centre will provide a forum for the input and participation by people with HIV infection or with AIDS in this research, teaching, and care.

McGill Cancer research Group

3655 Promenade Sir-William-Osler, Room 701,
Montreal, QC H3G 1Y6

The mission of the McGill Cancer Research Group is two fold: to bring together internationally renowned scientists devoted to cancer research and provide them with state of the art resources so that they can fully contribute to the worldwide effort of developing novel approaches for the improvement of the diagnosis, treatment and management of this disease as well as to provide an internationally recognized training ground for the next generation of investigators. Scientific activities of the Group are mainly concentrated on the following topics: signaling and molecular mechanisms in apoptosis and cell division, differentiation and motility, genetics of Complex Traits, development of new mouse models of human cancer, Cell Transfer System, Chemical Biology of cancer targets, Development Biology, Identification of complex traits markers in cancer and Research and validation of new therapeutic targets for cancer. Associate members involved in both basic and clinical cancer research interact regularly with a core of investigators housed in the Group itself. The Group's office is in the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building.

McGill Centre for Studies in Aging

Douglas Hospital, 6825 LaSalle Boulevard,

Verdun, QC H4H 1R3

The specific goals of the Centre are: i) to bring together investigators in the basic sciences, the clinical sciences, the social sciences, and other disciplines, to create a greater knowledge base for understanding of the aging process; ii) to serve as a focus for education and training of those individuals concerned with the elderly; iii) to transfer the newly created knowledge to those institutions and organizations actually giving service and care to the aged; and iv) to identify those parts of the aging process which are preventable or capable of being modified, to assist the individual aged person in coping with the problems of being elderly and ultimately, through those processes, to benefit mankind.

McGill Nutrition and Food Science Centre

Royal Victoria Hospital, 687 Pine Avenue West,

Montreal, QC H3A 1A1

Established in 1982 in recognition of the increasing importance of nutrition in clinical medicine, the Centre has a four-fold function. The first is the development and integration of research at the basic and clinical level, involving investigators at the Crabtree Laboratory of the Centre at the Royal Victoria Hospital, and at other locations in the University, and to encourage existing faculty to interact in nutrition-related investigations. The second function is the provision of opportunities for graduates in medicine, nutrition and other disciplines to do graduate and postdoctoral research in the laboratories of full-time and associate members. The third is to provide contemporary nutrition teaching at the relevant levels of the medical curriculum, during residency training and thereafter. The Centre is committed to providing reliable information to the public on nutrition-related matters. Finally, nutrition consulting activities in the clinical setting are supported and further developed. The Centre is administratively related to the Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment Services and the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition.

Centre for Medical Education

Lady Meredith House, 1110, Pine Avenue West

Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1A3

The Centre for Medical Education was established to:

· promote and strengthen research and scholarly activity in medical education and ensure that research informs practice;

· develop expertise and educational programs in specific content areas related to medical education;

· and to respond to specific curricular needs and assist in the development and evaluation of core curricula and innovative educational methods in the Faculty of Medicine.

Centre for Research on Pain

Stathcona Anatomy and Dentistry Building

3640, University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B2

Pain research at McGill University is carried out by the McGill Centre for Research on Pain, which comprises researchers from the Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Science. The main goal of the Centre is to bring together the McGill community of basic and clinical pain researchers to promote research that will result in cures for chronic pain. Through its own activities and international collaborations, the Centre focuses on new discoveries and their clinical applications that will improve the prevention and treatment of chronic pain.