Partners

External partners include Genome Canada, Genome BC, Genome Quebec, and Fonds de recherche Santé (FRQS), among others.

A major focus for CEEHRC has been facilitating international research collaborations in epigenetics and epigenomics. Through CEEHRC, CIHR has been a founding member of the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC). IHEC is a global consortium of funders and researchers dedicated to human epigenomics, with the primary goal of providing comprehensive sets of reference epigenomes relevant to health and disease to the global research community. By setting quality standards and providing efficient communication mechanisms, IHEC promotes rapid data sharing and minimizes redundancy between member research projects.

Toward these goals, IHEC launched in 2014 a dedicated Data Portal. The IHEC Data Portal can be used to view, search and download all the data released by the IHEC-associated projects. Significantly, this Data Portal was developed and is maintained for all of IHEC by one of the CEEHRC Epigenomics Data Coordination Centres (EDCCs), based at the McGill University and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre. This EDCC is funded by CIHR and Genome Quebec, with additional support from Genome Canada. The computing and networking infrastructure, and part of the software development, have been provided by Compute Canada and CANARIE.

A secondary function of IHEC is to support projects looking to improve epigenomic technologies and analysis methods. The CEEHRC EDCC based in Vancouver at the BC Cancer Agency Genome Sciences Centre has developed an innovative suite of data analysis and visualization tools, as well as a set of IHEC-approved protocols and standards, available for download by the research community. This EDCC is funded by CIHR and Genome BC.

A further goal of IHEC is to facilitate research interactions between members, including the development of bilateral and multilateral agreements to investigate the role epigenetic regulation in disease processes, and to explore broader gene-environment interactions in human health. In 2012, CIHR and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) launched a bilateral funding opportunity on the Epigenetics of Stem Cells. In 2014, a multilateral team grant funding opportunity on the Epigenomics of Complex Disease was developed between CIHR, FRQS, the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Please see the CEEHRC Funding page for more information.

Please contact us for further information, or to discuss opportunities related to epigenetics.

Date modified:

2014-10-01