Team Grant

Cystic Fibrosis Canada’s Team Grant was proposed, in the October 2008 grants competition, to support the creation or further development of a CF research team conducting high-quality collaborative research with a translational focus that would lead to an enhanced understanding of CF and have the potential to cure or more effectively control CF. Potential for realized benefits to patients was an important evaluation criterion along with an integrated and effective, multi-disciplinary research team.

Following review by M/SAC’s Research Subcommittee, Dr. Yves Berthiaume from the Université de Montréal was awarded a three-year Team Grant, in the amount of $900,000, to fund Diabetes and inflammation: a better understanding for a better control of CF disease.

Dr. Berthiaume and his team will study cystic fibrosis related diabetes (CFRD), which affects 40-60% of adults with CF.  Dr. Berthiaume’s team will investigate whether the same basic defect in CF that causes the production of thick mucus is also responsible for defective insulin secretion leading to diabetes.  The team will also study the effects that high blood sugar, a symptom of diabetes, has on lung inflammation and lung function.  Finally, the team will examine how CF clinics currently screen for CFRD, and how screening may be changed to improve outcomes for individuals with CF.

All of these areas of research will provide insight into how CFRD can be detected and treated earlier and more effectively, in order to avoid the declining lung function and increasing mortality currently seen in many people with CFRD.

Reviewed/updated: 2011-01-31