The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is a government-backed independent corporation, created for the purpose of funding advanced biological research throughout the country. It supplies funds to scientists looking for breakthrough in such areas as bone and tissue engineering, orthopedics and cardiovascular health, and also supports a variety of other such enterprises.

Experts from the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario (UWO), in Canada, turned to the CFI for money to fund their research in artificial bone and tissue engineering. One of the scientists from the research team looking into these methods of producing biological “spare parts” for the human body, dental researcher Dr. Douglas Hamilton, managed to get some $163,000 for the Center for the Study of Biomaterials and Tissue Regeneration.

This allowed the facility to purchase state-of-the-art equipment, to help the scientists understand why most of the compounds that are produced in the world today, with the purpose of one day being able to replace eroded ligaments and fragile bones, are still clinically inviable, as they still do not possess at least half of the endurance that human bones and cartilages have.

"In many instances our ability to help tissues such as bone to repair, is limited as we don't fully understand how human tissues respond to the presence of artificial materials. This becomes even more problematic in tissues that are loaded due to normal human activity," Hamilton says.

"With the funding from the CFI, we are establishing an innovative laboratory that will allow us to study how cells respond to both mechanical stimulation and biomaterials such as titanium at the same time. We anticipate learning much about how cells sense their environment and subsequently regenerate tissues, which will be important in orthopedics, dentistry, and cardiovascular medicine," he adds.

The Foundation says that next year it will award some $45.5 million to more than 251 research projects, scattered throughout the country, out of which UWO will receive approximately $1.3 million, for various projects it currently has in development. Other domains to receive funding include chromosomal abnormalities, cardiovascular imaging, planetary evolution probing technology, and fetal metabolism research.