Dr. Sriram Subramaniam, the Gobind Khorana Canada Excellence Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design
The Faculty of Medicine is proud to announce that Sriram Subramaniam has joined the University of British Columbia (UBC) as the Gobind Khorana Canada Excellence Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design — named after late Nobel Prize-winning Har Gobind Khorana, a former biochemistry professor at UBC in the 1950s.
Subramaniam is recognized as a global leader in the emerging field of cryo-electron microscopy, or cryo-EM, a technology that has sparked a revolution in imaging of protein complexes. Subramaniam and his team demonstrated that proteins and protein-bound drugs could be visualized at atomic resolution with cryo-EM, paving the way for this technology to be used in accelerating drug discovery.
“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Subramaniam to UBC,” said UBC President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Santa J. Ono. “Thanks to the CERC program and the generous support of our partners, including VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, we have an opportunity to continue to build on UBC’s reputation as a global leader in this vitally important research field.”
Subramaniam comes to UBC’s faculty of medicine from the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he led a research team that made seminal advances in molecular and cellular imaging using electron microscopy, including work on advancing vaccine design for viruses such as HIV. Subramaniam is also founding director of the National Cryo-EM Program at NCI, NIH.
Dr. Sriram Subramaniam with graduate student Brian Caffrey, (at left), and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Jean-Phillipe Demers.
As the Gobind Khorana Canada Excellence Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design, Subramaniam will establish and direct a laboratory located at UBC, aimed at bringing about transformative discoveries in cancer, neuroscience and infectious disease.
Subramaniam is appointed both in the department of urologic sciences and in biochemistry and molecular biology at UBC and is linked to the precision cancer drug design program at the Vancouver Prostate Centre at VGH.
His research is supported by a philanthropic gift of $18 million made to VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.
“VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation is honoured to announce an $18 million gift from Aqueduct Foundation on behalf of an anonymous donor that will increase capacity for discovering and testing new lifesaving cancer treatments right here in B.C. This funding will specifically support the design of precise, targeted and cost-effective drugs for cancer in work led by Dr. Sriram Subramaniam in close partnership with UBC and the Vancouver Prostate Centre at VGH and other research centres,” says Barbara Grantham, president and CEO of VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.
Subramaniam is appreciative of the support and pleased to join UBC.
“We would not be able to undertake this path aimed at leveraging advances in imaging technology to improve patient outcomes if it weren’t for the generous support of the donor, the Canadian government and VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation,” said Subramaniam. “I am proud to be part of a team of outstanding researchers here in Vancouver and working together to harness the true potential of cryo-EM to accelerate drug design. Our work has the potential to establish VGH, UBC and Canada at the forefront of the emerging era of precision medicine.”
Promoting excellence
The Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) program was established by the federal government in 2008 to attract top research talent from abroad to Canada. UBC will receive up to $10 million over seven years to support each chair and their research teams. In addition, a philanthropic gift of $18 million made to VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation will support cancer drug design that will be carried out by Subramaniam in close partnership with UBC and the Vancouver Prostate Centre at VGH.