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News Release

November 07, 2005

CFI Announces Funding for U of G Researcher

Research by a U of G biomedical scientist that may one day lead to new fertility treatments and hormonal therapies has received a funding boost from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

Prof. Pawel Bartlewski received more than $117,000 to continue his studies on the development of ovarian structures in sheep and cattle. The announcement was made today in Winnipeg by CFI president and CEO Eliot Phillipson.

The award is part of the government’s New Opportunities Fund, designed to help launch the careers of new and talented faculty and help institutions recruit exceptional scholars in priority areas for research.

“The support of CFI truly makes a difference for new researchers,” said Alan Wildeman, vice-president (research). “The University is genuinely appreciative of what CFI has accomplished and of the contributions Prof. Bartlewski is bringing to an area of strategic importance.”

Bartlewski will use the funding to buy state-of-the-art stationary and portable ultrasound units that will allow him to study the ovaries in conscious, non-anesthetized animals. He says the ultrasonic studies combined with his hormonal and molecular research will help him anticipate the fate of individual ovarian structures.

“If we can predict what will happen, it will help us in clinical applications and in artificially regulating reproduction,” he says.

This could have groundbreaking results in developing new fertility treatments, hormonal replacement therapies and hormonal contraceptives, as well as identifying the reasons for various ovarian abnormalities in humans, says Bartlewski. “Results of the studies, using farm animals as a model for ovarian function in humans, promise to be a major breakthrough.”

This week’s funding announcement marks the end of CFI’s New Opportunities Fund, which was launched in 1998. It will be replaced by the Leaders Opportunity Fund, which will help Canadian universities attract top faculty and retain leading researchers. The new program will have a budget of more than $300 million that will be disbursed from 2006 to 2010.