Granville Lab, 2016
The lab of ICORD Principal Investigator Dr. David Granville recently won two grants, which will support furthering his groundbreaking research on granule-secreted enzymes, or granzymes, in inflammation and wound healing. Dr. Granville, along with Dr. Keerit Tauh, a third year cardiac surgery resident, who is completing a MSc in Dr. Granville’s lab, will receive a $25,000 award from the Transplant Research Foundation (TRF) of British Columbia. Dr. Granville will also be bringing a research intern, Tansu Bağdatlı, an undergraduate who is completing her BSc in Molecular Biotechnology at the Technical University of Munich, to ICORD through a Mitacs’ Globalink Research Award.
“We are excited and grateful to the TRF of BC for funding this project as it allows us to investigate, for the first time, the role of a novel mediator of inflammation in transplantation. Results from these studies could lead to the generation of a new class of drugs for regulating inflammation,” says Dr. Granville. “We are also very excited to be part of the Mitacs Globalink program and look forward to welcoming and working with Ms. Bağdatlı, upon her arrival in Canada.”
Undergraduate student, Tansu Bağdatlı
The BCTRF grant will go towards investigating the role of granzyme K in cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV), an accelerated form of coronary artery disease, which can occur after a heart transplant. CAV is the major cause of organ failure in transplant recipients one year after transplantation. Previous studies suggest Granzyme K is involved in vascular inflammation, but it has never been studied in vivo. Drs. Granville and Tauh will investigate whether inhibition of this enzyme can suppress inflammation and alleviate CAV.
Dr. Granville’s research intern, Tansu Bağdatlı, will be visiting ICORD in May for the project “Investigating a new therapeutic target for diabetes and wound healing.” Every day in BC, a lower limb is amputated as a result of impaired wound healing due to diabetes. Impaired wound healing associated with pressure ulcers is also a major problem for people with spinal cord injuries. Ms. Bağdatlı will be working with others in the Granville laboratory in studies related to understanding the factors that impair normal healing.
The Globalink Research Awards allows students to visit institutions in other countries to perform research in a new setting. Mitacs works with countries and organizations around the world to build research partnerships between academia and private industry.
