NEW INVESTIGATOR RESEARCH GRANTEE
While research funds in Canada are being directed to the COVID-19 response, it’s more important than ever to invest in the early-career researchers whose work will change the future of child health.
SCIENTIST GIVES BACK TO NATIONAL PROGRAM THAT FUNDED HIM 9 YEARS AGO
Clinician-scientists are a rare breed whose work spans patient care and health research. They’re uniquely positioned to ask profound questions about what’s causing disease in their patients, and to hunt for solutions. But it takes years of education, training, debt, and lost income to get there.
For Dr. Theo Moraes, SickKids respirologist and scientist, it was an 18-year trek through a science degree, medical school, consecutive residencies in paediatrics and respirology, and a pivot to research with a PhD and then a post-doctorate in immunology.
PHOTO: Dr. Theo Moraes, 2011 New Investigator Research Grantee, became Chair of the program’s Grant Review Committee in 2019.
“When I finished my clinical training as a respirologist, I could have found a job as a community paediatric respirologist or a community paediatrician,” says Dr. Moraes, “but as a PhD student, I actually took a pay cut for five years. When you’re motivated to do research, you’re not doing it for the money.”
Having been there, he knows how hard it can be to justify the extra training and debt to add research expertise to a clinical speciality. And with limited funding for health research in Canada, new investigators can struggle to find a job and secure their first major research grant.
“By promoting early investigators, you’re investing in someone’s career.”
- Dr. Moraes
Across the border, clinician-scientists in the USA are 45 years old on average when they receive their first big grant from the government-run National Institutes of Health. The picture isn’t that different in Canada. But granting agencies here are working to change it.
Eight Canadian grantors support early-career health researchers, recognizing the difficulties they face and the value of their unique skillset. The New Investigator Research Grant is one of the longest-running programs, established in 2001 by SickKids and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. That funding can be a lifeline.
A New Investigator Research Grant was the catalyst Dr. Moraes needed. He’d secured a job as a clinician-scientist at SickKids, but his start-up funding was running out. “Without the money, I wouldn’t be able to do any work,” he says. “I wouldn’t be able to pay for a technician or buy reagents. That’s huge because you need people in the lab to help you do the work.”
The grant was a stamp of approval from a national, peer-reviewed funding program. It also boosted his confidence as a clinician-scientist and established a track record for future grant requests. Today, Dr. Moraes helps patients living with lung disease in the clinic, and investigates respiratory viral infections, cystic fibrosis, and asthma through his research in the lab.
And he’s giving back to the program that invested in him nine years ago. As Chair of the New Investigator Research Grant Review Committee, Dr. Moraes is corralling 25 other scientists and clinicians from across Canada to identify and support the next generation of child health research leaders.
“It’s not just the research you’re funding, it’s the person,” says Dr. Moraes. “By promoting early investigators, you’re investing in someone’s career.”
The New Investigator Research Grant program is a national granting program for early-career health researchers. Since 2001, it has invested in 166 scientists at over 45 health institutions across Canada. A partnership of SickKids Foundation and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, this premier granting program is developing Canada’s next generation of child health research leaders.
Find out more about the program here.
