New chair focuses on the health of people and forests

Imagine the day when we can use a simple screening test to detect diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancers in their early stages—or have new and improved drugs for the treatment of AIDS and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. Or how about the day when we can breed trees that can naturally ward off attacks by pests like the mountain pine beetle? And trees that are super-efficient at storing carbon and reducing global warming?
Those days might not be far off, thanks to a new research chair recently awarded to the University of Victoria by the BC government.

The Don and Eleanor Rix BC Leadership Chair in Biomedical and Environmental Proteomics will investigate the use of cutting-edge proteomics technologies and techniques to improve human and forest health.

The chair comes with an endowment of $4.5 million—split equally by the Rix Family Foundation and the BC government’s Leading Edge Endowment Fund (LEEF). The chairholder is Dr. Christoph Borchers, a proteomics pioneer who has headed the UVic-Genome BC Proteomics Centre since 2005.

Donald Rix was a leading physician and philanthropist and an active member of the biotechnology industry. He was chairman of LifeLabs Diagnostics Inc., with over 80 labs across BC, and chairman of Cantest Ltd., one of Canada’s leading analytical laboratories. He died in 2009, and his wife, Eleanor, died in 2007. Their daughter, Laurie, chairs the Rix Family Foundation.

“This new chair builds on UVic’s strengths as a national leader in the development, use and application of proteomics technologies for improving human and environmental health,” says Dr. Howard Brunt, UVic’s vice-president research. “We’re deeply grateful to the Rix family and to the province for supporting this prestigious chair.”

Proteomics is the study of all the proteins—antibodies, enzymes and structural molecules—that are directed by genes to keep cells functioning and healthy. It is applicable to just about every area of biomedical investigation, including health, agriculture, fisheries and forestry.

The chair program will support a research and training program in proteomics at UVic, primarily through the UVic-Genome BC Proteomics Centre. It will combine technology development, applications to biomedical and environmental sciences, and commercialization through spinoff companies and industry partnerships.

Located at UVic’s Vancouver Island Technology Park near Victoria, the UVic-Genome BC Proteomics Centre is a world-class facility used by regional, national and international academic and industry researchers. The centre has the highest concentration of mass spectrometers—powerful instruments used in proteomics research—of any Canadian university and one of the highest in North America.