Thank you, Mr. Merrifield.
My name is Burleigh Trevor-Deutsch. I am the director of the Ethics Office at CIHR. With me here is Dr. Pierre Chartrand, who is the vice-president of research.
First of all, let me thank you for inviting us here today.
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the major federal agency responsible for funding health research in Canada. It aims to excel in the creation of new health knowledge, and to translate that knowledge from the research setting into real world applications. The results are improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health care system.
CIHR carries out its mission in collaboration with a wide cross-section of partners, including our colleagues in the health portfolio, and these, of course, include Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, other federal departments, such as Industry Canada, CIDA, and Environment Canada, and we also collaborate with provincial health research agencies, charities, and other non-profit organizations, as well as industry.
Today, with an annual budget of $737 million, CIHR is supporting over 10,000 health researchers in universities, research institutes, and teaching hospitals across the country.
CIHR takes a problem-based and multidisciplinary research approach to health challenges facing Canadians. We bring together all the disciplines of health research under one umbrella, and these include biomedical, clinical, health systems and services, and population and public health. These are the so-called four pillars of CIHR.
Stem cell research is one of the areas funded. Stem cell research can potentially lead to effective therapies in the treatment of a number of health care conditions and diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, spinal cord injury, and most recently—you may have read in the Globe and Mail—cancer.
CIHR is committed to funding health research that meets the highest standards of science, excellence, and ethical conduct. A number of systems have been put into place to uphold these standards for the research that CIHR funds.
In the area of stem cell research, a number of oversight mechanisms are in place. Of course, CIHR complies with the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which, as you know very well, provides a legislative framework within which all public and private human embryo research can be undertaken. Complementing this legislative framework, CIHR's stem cell guidelines set out conditions under which CIHR will and will not fund human pluripotent stem cell research.
The guidelines operate within the legal framework created by the act, and it's also worth mentioning that the consent provisions of our stem cell guidelines are incorporated by reference into the act itself.
CIHR is currently working closely with Health Canada to ensure that guidelines on stem cells are completely harmonized with the implementing regulations of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act now under preparation.
As the federal agency responding for funding health research in Canada, CIHR will continue to support, in cooperation with all its partners, the Canadian research community. This is a community based on excellence, once that respects ethical standards and that definitely will help to improve the health of Canadians.
These are my introductory comments.
My colleague, Dr. Chartrand, and I will of course be pleased to answer your questions.