Science and Research committee  It's called stem cell tourism. If it sounds too good to be true, then it's often too good to be true. These can be very dangerous. Some of these patients have died. They have sprouted tumours and have had other adverse effects. This has been an area of active study for many year

Science and Research committee  It's huge. We're working very hard to address that with our training programs. We know from talking with companies like Stemcell Technologies that without our programs, they would have a hard time meeting their needs. We need training. We need a full slate of students and pos

Science and Research committee  I think we have to have accelerated certification programs. Often—

Science and Research committee  A lot of the professionals, and I'm thinking for medical doctors and nurses.... Nurses have to write an exam in every province. That's kind of ridiculous. There should be national certification. Barriers are put up. If you're a vet from Afghanistan, you may have a hard time get

Science and Research committee  I've had students tell me that they're going to write up their master's thesis and not pursue a Ph.D. because they can't afford to live. This is an equity issue. If you don't have parents helping you, you can't pursue a graduate degree. The approved pay for post-doctoral fellows

Science and Research committee  That's correct. It's below minimum wage.

Science and Research committee  Stem cell research has paved the road for regenerative medicine to enter the clinic, and it is transforming the practice of medicine. How we prioritize the research is through expert peer review. We bring in a lot of international reviewers to look at our projects. We don't just

Science and Research committee  There's probably a list. Certainly the funding cycles that we've faced have made it difficult to roll out support on an annual basis. That's been an ongoing problem. There are regulatory issues at Health Canada. We're working with all of the stakeholders and Health Canada to he

Science and Research committee  Yes. Attracting people to work in labs and on projects is becoming increasingly difficult. For example, I had a student I was trying to bring in recently. It took six months to get his visa approved. He almost decided to go elsewhere, where it was taking a lot less time. These s

Science and Research committee  We are absolutely an area of international strength. Many Canadians have gone through our training programs. According to a study that we conducted internally, because of our community and the network we've built, they tend to stay in Canada. The retention rate is very high. Howe

Science and Research committee  The investments in these companies are for the discoveries that are mature enough to be commercialized. What CIHR does is fund the basic research, and we need that robust foundation of discovery. Organizations like the Stem Cell Network build multidisciplinary teams from across

Health committee  Blood transplantation is the major clinical application of stem cells today. I think that's without question. It's huge. In North America there must be hundreds of thousands of bone marrow transplantations done on an annual basis, if not more.

Health committee  Yes. There are examples of drugs that target stem cells or progenitor cells. For example, erythropoietin, EPO, is a drug that expands the progenitors in the blood system to make more red blood cells. It's a widely used drug. There are other examples of drugs like that in the clin

Health committee  Well, what they told us was exactly that. It's on hold because of this court challenge.

Health committee  Not that I know of.