The Innovation Award Program provides awards of up to $150,000 CAD for innovative research projects. Recipients who demonstrate significant progress may receive additional year(s) of support.

Through Innovation Awards, we embrace unconventional opportunities. The result could be a breakthrough finding for the field.

INNOVATION AWARD WINNERS

2024

Lisa Osborne, PhD for her research on identifying helminth-induced type 2 neuro-immune interactions that modulate sex-specific disease outcomes in mouse models of multiple sclerosis.

Jeffrey Hubbell, PhD for his research on interleukin-35 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Andrew Mason, MBBS, FRCPI for his prevalence studies of human betaretrovirus in autoimmune disorders.

Liam O’Neil, MD, MHSC, FRCPC for his research on investigating the role of mucosal citrullination and autoantibody formation in cigarette smoke driven collagen-induced arthritis.

2023

Nunzio Bottini, PhD, and Richard Ainsworth, PhD for their research on Treg instability in rheumatoid arthritis.

Alessandra Franco, PhD for her research on how Treg cells control autoimmunity and prevent clinical relapses in rheumatoid arthritis.

Sue Tsai, PhD for her research on early life determinants of type-1 diabetes.

Greet Verstichel, MD, PhD for her research on allergy, an atopic march towards autoimmunity.

Wan-Lin Lo, PhD for her research on tailoring NFAT signaling in Treg cells to optimize immune tolerance

2022

Jennifer Gommerman, PhD, for her research on mining for microbial metabolites that stave off MS progression.

Marc Horwitz, PhD, for his research on virus-enhanced age-associated B cells mediate commonalities in autoimmune disease pathology.

Eric Huseby, PhD for his research on fate-mapping T cell responses in type-1 diabetes.

Rana Herro, PhD for her research on allergy, an atopic march towards autoimmunity.

2019

Eric Meffre, PhD, for Inhibiting autoreactive B cell production in autoimmune diseases.

Edwin Wan, PhD and Vanja Lazarevic, PhD, for their collective research on the novel function of NKp46+ innate lymphoid cells in CNS inflammation and autoimmunity.

Maria Bettini, PhD for her research on exploiting regulatory T cell functions for treatment in autoimmunity.

2018

Dean Tantin, PhD, for his research on the genetic and pharmacological targeting of OCA-B in autoimmunity.

Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker, PhD, for his research on the generation of tissue-specific regulatory T Cells for adoptive immune tolerance.

Fotini Gounari, PhD, and Khashayarsha Khazaie, PhD, for their collaborative research on the mechanistic insight into de-regulation of inflammation and immunity by Tregs and microbiota.