The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, a private Canadian family foundation, recently announced the official launch of the Weston Brain Institute with the goal of accelerating research to find treatments for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases of aging including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The Weston Brain Institute was established to address the lack of funding for neurodegenerative diseases, which roughly affects 2.9 million patients and caregivers in Canada. “These diseases affect a large and growing number of people, yet there are no ways to reverse, stop or even slow them down,” said Alexandra Stewart, executive director of the Weston Brain Institute and the executive director of neuroscience at the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.
The project aims at increasing the speed and efficiency with which research is being conducted by closing the funding gap. Since its launch on May 15, the foundation has already allocated funds to several research groups from different Canadian universities.
The award winners include U of T researchers at the Sunnybrook Health Science Centre Isabelle Aubert, Sandra Black, and Kullvervo Hynynen. Aubert, Black, and Hynynen were awarded $1 million to develop a focused ultrasound device specialized to induce localized, controlled and repeated opening of the blood-brain barrier for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Effective treatment of neurodegenerative diseases requires three stages of research — basic research, translational research, and large-scale clinical trials. However, Stewart adds, “there is a gap in skills and resources for translational research called the ‘valley of death’ where promising ideas get stalled or lost instead of moving forward to be tested in clinical trials as potential treatments.” The foundation aims to minimize this area by providing researchers with resources such as funding and expertise, facilitating the translation of ideas from the lab more rapidly to patients.
In order to sift through research proposals more efficiently, the foundation has designed a swift, though rigorous, review process. “[W]e’re optimizing every step of the review process, from using statistical analysis to refine our scoring systems, to softer markers like how well different personalities on review committees mesh to create a high quality discussion,” Stewart said.
The cost of neurodegenerative diseases faced by Canada is currently $28 billion per year.
