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Ottawa Health Research Institute

THE OTTAWA RESEARCH INSTITUTE (OHRI)/ Institut de recherche en santé d'Ottawa is the research arm of the Ottawa Hospital and an affiliated research institute of the University of Ottawa. OHRI is a not—for-profit corporation, the purpose of which is to promote excellence in research, education, and innovation in healthcare. It is governed by a board of directors, which includes representatives from the Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa University, the Hospital Foundation, and the community. The board chair of OHRI as of 2007 was Jacquelin Holzman, and the chief executive officer and scientific director was Dr. Duncan Stewart. In 2007, OHRI employed over 1,350 staff members, received almost $80 million in funding (including $67.1 million in external grants), and had thousands of patients enrolled in clinical trials.

Mission

There are three facets to the OHRI mission: research, education, and patient care. Research at OHRI is aimed at the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, including basic, translation, clinical, population, and health services research. Education at OHRI includes teaching students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as training clinical research and postdoctoral research fellows.

Over 250 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students (pursuing a doctoral or Master's of Science degree) were working at OHRI as of 2007, and there are also programs for summer students and honors students. In addition, OHRI has several ongoing seminar programs, and additional seminars are offered through the University of Ottawa. The institute also disseminates information through news releases and its Web site. Innovation in patient care is the third focus of OHRI: this includes the development and testing of new therapeutic approaches and innovations in healthcare delivery.

OHRI is also committed to increasing the effect of basic research through technology transfer, and the OHRI Technology Transfer and Business Development Office was established to further this goal. The office works with OHRI researchers, companies, government departments, and other research institutes on issues such as licensing, investment, collaboration, and partnerships; information about intellectual property and the patenting process is available from the OHRI Web site.

Core Research Programs

OHRI has six core research programs: cancer therapeutics, chronic disease, clinical epidemiology, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, and vision. Stem cell research is involved in several of these areas; for instance, cancer stem cells and bone marrow stem cell transplantation are areas of research within the Cancer Therapeutics Program, the use of gene and stem cell therapy for retinal disease is studied within the Vision Program, and the use of transplanted neural stem cells in functional recovery is studied within the Neuroscience Program. Stem cell research is also a central focus of some of the research on Parkinson's disease conducted with the Neuroscience Program, and OHRI spearheaded the foundation in 2004 of the Parkinson's Research Consortium, a collaboration among 11 Ottawa scientists engaged in the study of Parkinson's disease.

However, stem cell research is most central to the area of regenerative medicine, an emerging field that studies the repair and replacement of damaged cells and tissues. As of 2006, OHRI had 11 core scientists and a further 25 scientists and investigators working in the Regenerative Medicine Program; their fields include stem cell biology, molecular genetics and molecular biology, and applied sciences such as tissue engineering and transplantation. StemBase, the largest stem cell gene expression database in the world, was developed within the Regenerative Medicine Program under the direction of the bioinformatics expert Dr. Miguel Andrade. It contains data from samples accepted into the Stem Cell Genomics Project and may be accessed (after free registration) through the Internet. An online microar—ray analysis course, intended to aid researchers in using StemBase, is also freely available on the Internet.

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