BC Environmental and Occupational Health Research Network

Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are likely to become progressively more important in the future due to increasing water reuse; taste and odor issues; wastewater-derived organics; emerging contaminants such as endocrine disrupting compounds, pharmaceutically active compounds, and personal care products; and potential future regulations. Advanced oxidation has an advantage over other processes such as membranes and activated carbon for treating emerging contaminants in that it is a transformation process that can actually destroy the contaminant and remove it from the environment. However, there is some risk that this transformative attribute can also have negative consequences. It is, therefore, important to study the potential risk for AOPs to transform target contaminants into undesirable products that may have potential health effects or form additional unwanted byproducts through interaction with other water constituents. This project will evaluate the risk that AOPs transform selected organic contaminants from EPA’s Contaminant Candidate List 3 (CCL3) into byproducts with potential health effects.

This project will assess the capability of molecular methods relative to regulatory accepted culture-based methods to enhance microbial monitoring in finished drinking water. The focus of the comparison will be on monitoring and quantifying E. coli. In addition, deliverables of this project will include an inexpensive, sensitive, transferable molecular method capable of detecting E. coli in less than one working day.

Build on recent information about asset management, maintenance, and optimization of operations to consolidate Best Management Practices (BMPs) for maintenance of distribution system assets within a single document. Identify BMPs from utilities and literature for achieving improved levels of service. Discuss how maintenance strategies and practices relate to risk, criticality, life-cycle costs, condition assessment, capital re-investment, and related aspects of asset management.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA), issued by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health, aims to promote innovative research across multiple disciplines to better understand the etiology of pancreatic cancer and to facilitate its early detection, prevention, and treatment. Proposed projects may center on the biology, etiology, detection, prevention, and treatment of pancreatic cancer. This FOA focuses on different types of projects including pilot and feasibility studies; secondary analysis of existing data; small, self-contained research projects; development of research methodology; and development of new research technology. The R03 is intended to support small research projects that can be carried out in a short period of time with limited resources.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) solicits grant applications from applicant organizations that propose to:
• identify and assess biological or biobehavioral interactions among two or more related and co-occurring symptoms;
• characterize mechanisms and pathways underlying the symptom interactions;
• elucidate the level of interaction necessary for categorization as a symptom cluster; and/or
• design and test interventions targeted to interacting or clustered symptoms that are hypothesized to lead to beneficial patient outcomes.
A rationale for the choice of symptoms is needed, not just co-occurrence of two or more symptoms. The symptoms must be associated with a target disease or syndrome, or the treatment of this disease or syndrome. Studies at any point in the disease trajectory, or during the survivorship period are encouraged. Further, this FOA seeks to stimulate research on the impact that interacting symptoms have on patient experience and quality of life. Interacting symptoms may or may not be characterized as true symptom clusters. The FOA particularly encourages the design and testing of interventions addressing symptoms that have demonstrated interactions and/or common pathways. For situations where the knowledge base remains insufficient for intervention design, mechanistic and methodological studies are encouraged. In this way, knowledge can be developed and applied to the management of multiple interacting symptoms or symptom clusters in relation to a variety of physiological, psychosocial, and demographic factors.

The specific objectives of the research are to understand the determinants of epigenetic changes, the role of DNA methylation in cancer risk and factors that modify DNA methylation and cancer relationship in existing human population studies.
Specific research areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following themes:
• Determinations of the roles of physical, chemical, and infectious agents and behavioral factors on the types and levels of DNA methylation changes in human populations of different races and ethnicities;
• Determination of the role(s) of DNA methylation changes in the risk of cancer in human populations; and
• Identifications of genetic, environmental, and host susceptibility factors that modify the risk of cancer associated with DNA methylation alterations in different races and ethnic groups.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for R01 applications is to encourage clinicians, epidemiologists, geneticists, statisticians, and translational cancer control and prevention researchers to improve existing models for cancer risk, prognosis, or response to therapy by developing innovative research projects that: use existing data; develop new models for cancer risk and prognosis; and validate new models and evaluate their utility in research and clinic settings. This FOA is designed to provide a mechanism under which investigators can address two major challenges in model development, which are: integrating diverse types of data (e.g., clinical, demographic, pathologic, environmental, epidemiologic, outcomes, and genetic data from varied data marts or warehouses); and ensuring adequate validation (i.e., using multiple separate populations to define sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values). Using the NIH Research Project Grant R01 funding mechanism, this FOA focuses on well developed projects supported by preliminary data.

The purpose of this FOA is to solicit applications to develop and validate new and innovative engineering approaches to address clinical problems related to energy balance, intake, and expenditure. Novel sensors, devices, imaging, and other technologies, including technologies to detect biochemical markers of energy balance are expected to be developed and evaluated by collaborating engineers, physical scientists, mathematicians, and scientists from other relevant disciplines with expertise in obesity and nutrition. Basic and applied scientific applications with rigorous hypothesis-testing designs or for design-directed research are encouraged. The goal is to increase the number of useful technologies and tools available to scientists to facilitate their research in energy balance and health. Eventually these research tools should facilitate therapeutic advances and behavioral changes to address such problems as weight control and obesity.

This request for proposals is for systematic reviews on specific research issues identified by WorkSafeBC. The purpose of this competition is to develop a better understanding of the present state of knowledge on specific issues of priority to WorkSafeBC by soliciting proposals to: synthesize the existing research; provide critical assessment of the present knowledge level; and, possibly identify future knowledge needs in each of the areas specified. Prospective authors should have experience in conducting systematic reviews and expertise with the issues at hand.
Project duration is not to exceed one year.

Please note that the research questions/issues on Tendinitis/Tenosynovitis included in the RFP issued on April 9, 2009 are cancelled. The remaining questions relating to multiple sclerosis and primary cancer of the skin are continued.

NOI Deadline: May 25, 2009

On April 8, 2009 GeoConnections/Natural Resources Canada launched a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a Data Needs Assessment project to support Integrated Land Management (ILM) decision making processes which consist of these objectives:
• To identify geospatial data sets used or selected for use to support ILM decision-making processes;
• To identify and prioritize new geospatial data sets identified by project stakeholders as being needed to support and enhance ILM decision-making processes in their region;
• To describe and understand the transformation of geospatial data sets into meaningful information for decision-makers;
• To identify any barriers that may arise in ILM decision-making processes for accessing, using (manipulating, processing, integrating, analyzing, modelling) and sharing the identified key geospatial data sets; and
• To provide opportunities and recommendations to GeoConnections and to the ILM Network for overcoming any identified barriers.

The purpose of this FOA is to support high impact, innovative exploratory/developmental investigations to determine the mechanisms of IgE-mediated food allergy and related co-morbid conditions, focusing on ex vivo studies with human specimens and on studies with current or new animal models of food allergy. Areas for research focus may include, but are not limited to: pathogenesis, biomarkers and genetic components of food allergy and severe food allergy; food allergens and their epitopes including molecular characteristics, pathogenesis, biomarkers, genetics, mechanistic studies, and mechanisms of desensitization and tolerance to food allergens.

GeoConnections is pleased to announce a new funding opportunity. In order to increase the ease of information sharing of Canadian geographic data, the program is now soliciting proposals for projects to publish location-based, or ’geospatial’, data online through the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI).

All basic and applied research projects related to air quality management issues within British Columbia are eligible for support from the BC CLEAR Fund. Specifically, the Fund supports research relevant to BC that helps further understanding of the nature of air quality, the physical processes involved (atmospheric, emissions, transformations), their effects on the environment and humans, and how they are effectively managed. Research projects are invited relating to (but not be limited to) the following focus areas:
• air quality science processes such as meteorological and atmospheric chemistry
• weather, air quality and ecosystem/health effects models that would lead to more reliable tools used for air quality management decision-making
• identification, quantification and characterizing the space and time variability of emission sources
• monitoring methods that provide cost-effective and accurate measures of emissions, meteorology, ecosystem and human health effects
• emissions control approaches that include clean fuels, improved processes, newer technology and market-driven programs
• links between air quality and ecosystem and human health impacts
• public communication/behaviour-change approaches
• economic valuation of air quality benefits/impacts
• air quality/climate change co-benefits
• air quality management systems
Maximum: $25,000
No deadline date

The current EOI is targeted towards the identification of novel and important clinical trial ideas, rather than detailed scientific treatments of the precise methodologies. As such, the EOI aims to gather information about the scientific basis for the innovative project, and its implications in terms of clinical benefit and our understanding of tolerance. Of particular interest to the JDRF-ITN
Partnerships are projects that hold significant potential to increase our understanding of, and our ability to induce and maintain a state of clinical tolerance in autoimmune diabetes.

The current EOI is targeted towards the identification of novel insulin formulations and improved strategies for delivery. As such, the EOI aims to gather information about innovative insulin molecules or delivery approaches that may mimic the postprandial action of endogenous human insulin better than existing formulations.

This request seeks carefully designed, hypothesis-driven studies that will determine mechanisms of persistent cellular re-programming observed in the diabetic state. Phenotypic changes observed in the persistent diabetic state include various metabolic perturbations, inflammation, and fibrosis. Priority will be given to proposals that aim to find a causal link between disease-specific cellular changes (including but not limited to chromatin biology / epigenetic factors) and the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetic complications.

GeoConnections is developing a foundation to help the public health community capitalize on geospatial (or location-based) information. This foundation will enable public health practitioners to use geospatial data to improve decision making and work together more effectively.

The purpose of this award is to advance innovation in the development of high content assays in the field of Complications of Type 1 diabetes; specifically applied to proliferative retinopathy, renal fibrosis, axonal regeneration and microvascular inflammatory signaling. Innovative applications will profile metabolic and morphological changes, post-translational modification, gene expression and protein expression in culture systems relevant to Type 1 diabetes. Techniques such as sophisticated imaging, advanced fluorescence and flow cytometry techniques, simultaneous probes with simultaneous readouts over an extended time course in single or mixed cell systems are encouraged.

Expressions of interest are sought from investigators interested in identifying and further developing, in pre-clinical models, novel antigen specific therapies for treatment of recent onset T1D. The clinical translation potential of the investigations should be emphasized. Of particular interest are also mechanistic studies conducted in collaboration with ongoing antigen-specific T1D clinical trials aiming to correlate blood markers and T cell responses with clinical outcome, glycemic control, and response to therapy. Projects involving close cooperation between clinical results and pre-clinical models to allow for targeted prediction of optimal biomarkers are also deemed of high interest.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC) is issuing this Request for Proposals (RFP). The purpose of the RFP is to engage the services of a team of research consultants/contractors to conduct a synthesis of the global research evidence related to economic policies, obesity and health.