Canada and Japan join forces to support early career researchers on advancing Epigenetic research
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) continue their long-standing collaboration with the recently announced results of the funding opportunity on advancing epigenetic technologies. Building on the success of previous CIHR-AMED collaboration, this funding opportunity supports international collaborative research projects for the advancement of high impact epigenetic research between early career researchers in Canada and Japan. This program capitalizes on the respective strengths of Canada and Japan in basic science and technology of epigenetics and it will help to build international collaborations in this rapidly changing field. On December 18, 2020, 3 joint Canada-Japan projects were selected to receive funds totaling $900K CAD and 90M Japanese Yen, for up to three years.
The funded projects are:
| Project | Country | Affiliation | Principal Investigator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artificial Intelligence based adaptive and interpretable models for analyzing multi-track epigenomic sequential data | Japan | Tokyo University | Soichiro Yamanaka |
| Canada | University of Manitoba | Ahmed Ashraf | |
| Single-cell probing of epigenetic memory in immunity | Japan | RIKEN | Jay Shin |
| Canada | McGill University | David Langlais | |
| Characterization of the integrative epigenetic and epitranscriptomic landscape of acute myeloid leukemias | Japan | National Cancer Center Research Institute | Akihide Yoshimi |
| Canada | Simon Fraser University | Ly Vu |
This research collaboration results from the Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) that was signed by the President of AMED, Dr. Yoshinao Mishima and the President of CIHR, Dr. Michael Strong on June 19, 2020. Beyond the program in epigenetics, the MoC will facilitate cooperative activities through personnel exchange, joint seminars, workshops, and other scientific meetings.
CIHR and AMED have had a history of strong collaborations. Under an MOU signed between CIHR and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) in 2012, CIHR and JST supported a bilateral funding opportunity totaling $12.5 million over 5 years for three joint research projects on the Epigenetics of Stem Cells (Note: Responsibility for this program was transferred from JST to AMED following AMED’s establishment in 2015). CIHR and AMED also continue to work together through a number of multilateral fora including the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC), the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR), and the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD).
To highlight the longstanding history of productive cooperation and collaborations between Canada and Japan, this year marks 35 years of Canada-Japan cooperation under the Canada-Japan Cooperation in Science and Technology Agreement.
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