Group of International Multiethnic Lab Specialists Gathering Around a Table to Discuss Blu

Innovation Awards

INNOVATION AWARDS:

Awarding biomedical & medical research funding for novel projects.

DID YOU KNOW?

We've distributed over $6.5 million to over 30 research projects since Praespero was launched.

THE SPARK

It’s the spark that lights the fuse. It’s the fuse that leads to an explosion of innovation.

But it all starts with a spark – an Innovation Award.

Innovative medical research requires taking risks. We fund unconventional opportunities. The results can have a chain reaction effect, leading to breakthroughs in the field!

Read examples of chain reaction stories here.

LAUNCHING CHAIN REACTIONS - ONE REWARD AT A TIME

Following a rigorous set of criteria, our Scientific Advisory Board selects award recipients to receive awards of up to $150,000 CAD for “novel research” that punches outside the box.

“Current funding structures are very safe and risk averse. But Praespero is adventurous and innovative. They support us to ask the tricky questions and give us the tools to be able to take a big jump instead of moving in incremental steps.”

- 2024 Innovation Award Winner, Lisa Osborne, Osborne Lab, UBC

“The Innovation Award helped us establish proof of concept and bring preliminary data to compete for federal funds and bring this idea to patients. It also helped us form a new generation of scientists so that we can continue our fight for life without disease.”

2022 Innovation Award Winner Rana Herro, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

With Praesper’s funding, given the freedom we have to ask and explore the interesting questions, we are learning fundamental new things, and we hope to turn those learnings into something that could be really helpful for treating people with autoimmunity in a more effective way.

My work centers on understanding what lives on and in us and how the body recognizes the diverse species that reside in the gut - from microscopic viruses to large, multicellular helminthic worms - and tailors an immune response of the appropriate scope and magnitude necessary to restore balance and maintain a stable internal environment.

One of the things that we are really interested in is eukaryotic helmets that we used to have in our gut that we've lost over the over millennia. With Praespero funding we are exploring the role those play in regulating the immune system to limit the activation of autoimmunity or potentially even leading to tissue resilience so that the body can repair damage that has been caused in an autoimmune system.

The freedom and the faith that Praespero has in what science can do with just a little bit of support is exciting. It gives us confidence to take a risk and it gives us all faith in ourselves too.

Osborne Lab, UBC

Nunzio Bottini, PhD, and Richard Ainsworth, PhD for their research on Treg instability in rheumatoid arthritis.

2023

Liam O’Neil, MD, MHSC, FRCPC for his research on investigating the role of mucosal citrullination and autoantibody formation in cigarette smoke driven collagen-induced arthritis.

2024

Lisa Osborne, PhD for her research on identifying helminth-induced type 2 neuro-immune interactions that modulate sex-specific disease outcomes in mouse models of multiple sclerosis.

UofC

2024

Jeffrey Hubbell, PhD for his research on interleukin-35 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

UofC

2024

Andrew Mason, MBBS, FRCPI for his prevalence studies of human betaretrovirus in autoimmune disorders.

UofC

2024

Praespero Summit

Synergy Award (coming soon)

Innovation Awards