Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis (IMHA)
Strategic Training Initiatives in Health Research
CIHR Strategic Training Centre Program in Integrative Biology of Infectious Diseases and Autoimmunity
Dr. Erwin Schurr
Principal Investigator
L11-520
Montreal General Hospital
Montreal, QC, H3G 1A4
Tel.: 514-934-1934 ext. 44513
Fax: 514-934-8238
Principal Objective
To create an internationally leading training centre program by:
- attracting the best and brightest students and clinician trainees from Canada and worldwide;
- providing an intellectually stimulating environment where researchers can develop interdisciplinary, comprehensive skills in the field of integrative biology of infectious diseases and autoimmunity.
The Training Centre's program is based on:
- Outstanding Mentors: The Centre's mentors are all recipients of a wide variety of career accomplishments. They include clinician scientists, national agency competitive salary award winners, international scholars, and investigators from Network Centres of Excellence.
- Innovative Training Components: Courses and workshops offer specialized and state-of-the-art scientific training in genomic technologies, genetic analysis and mouse models of human disease. Additional training is also offered in communication skills, ethics, career development intellectual property and technology transfer workshops, and research meetings of graduate and post-doctoral fellows.
- Multidisciplinary Research Concepts: Research training is conducted in laboratories of exceptionally well-funded investigators as part of a multidisciplinary approach to the study of common human diseases. International exchange visits and unique opportunities exist in the program for global field work; for example, ataxia, asthma and cardiac studies in Northern Quebec, leprosy studies in Vietnam and Brazil, and tuberculosis in Montreal, northern Canada, South Africa and the United States.
- .Critical Assessment of Progress by the Program Advisory Committee (PAC): The PAC plays an essential role in overseeing and evaluating the program's curriculum and activities.
- Implementation of Multi-faced Partnership Strategies: The Centre partners with companies, disease foundations, national and international organizations, and university and hospital departments. The Centre's extensive network of local and National Collaborations is also widely known for advanced study of mouse genetic models of human disease. Supported trainees are engaged in transdisciplinary, collaborative research in the area of common diseases with knowledge translation as a major focus of research training.
