Analysis: Homegrown team's US-style funding

Worldwide, there is a worrying shortage of scientists but Canada has made huge strides in tackling the problem. The THES reports

Ray Rajotte is happy to stay in Edmonton. While most successful Canadian scientists might look to the US to find a large team to support their work, the University of Alberta professor has built a Canadian team with US-style elite funding.

Dr Rajotte's breakthrough diabetes research has attracted C$28 million (£12.3 million) in federal, provincial and private infrastructure funding.

His work, keeping insulin-dependent diabetics off their injections through organ-donated pancreatic cells, has also attracted offers from industry.

He and about 30 basic and clinical scientists are working on the Edmonton Protocol, where doctors non-surgically transplant insulin-producing cells, called islets, into livers of severe diabetics. The Alberta results have scored an 80 per cent success rate.

Dr Rajotte, 60, said senior scientists had a good future in Canada. Aware of the country's history in his field, he remarks that his building is where James Bertram Collip, one of the three Canadians who developed insulin 80 years ago, worked.

But historical parallels will have to be set aside as he plans soon to relocate to the university's C$55 million Alberta Diabetic Research Institute. There, he will work with an even larger team, all of whom are looking at diabetes through various disciplines. "Who knows what will come up over a coffee or in the corridors," he said.