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The research of two electrical and computer engineering professors earned grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the federal government agency responsible for funding health research. Karthi Umapathy was awarded $219,103 over three years, while Canada Research Chair Victor Yang was granted $379,765, also over three years.

CIHR aims to support scientific excellence in its mandate to improve the health of Canadians. The national agency employs a peer review process using 50 committees. For this recent round of competition, Umapathy was among 402 applicants and his application was ranked first out of 44 proposals peer reviewed by the committee. 

"Ryerson takes great pride in Karthi and Victor's success , particularly in light of the extremely competitive nature of the CIHR peer review process. Karthi and Victor are doing phenomenal research and it's great to see this recognized at a national level," said Carla Cassidy, interim vice-president, research and innovation.

Umapathy received funding for his research project "Studying Dynamic Electrical Conduction Pathways in Understanding Human Ventricular Fibrillation." Umapathy's research objective is to evaluate the usefulness of real-time monitoring of heart activity during ventricular fibrillation as a measure of CPR effectiveness. He's collaborating with researchers from Toronto General Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital and fellow electrical and computer engineering professor Sri Krishnan.

Yang's CIHR grant comes soon after his recent $420,000 funding support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Both portions of funding were for his research project "Optical Coherence Tomography for Intraoperative Imaging during Skull Base Neurosurgical Procedures."

Yang is working with researchers at University Health Network, St. Michael's Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Science Centre to investigate ultrasound and MRI-guided interstitial optical coherence tomography. His aim is to image the human body, specifically the coronary artery (the vessel that brings blood to the heart), more thoroughly to provide physicians with an effective method of guiding their catheters through the artery.

Both Umapathy and Yang's research fall under CIHR's Open Operating Grant program (OOGP), which provides funds to support research proposals in all areas of health research including randomized controlled trials. The OOGP is the largest of the open calls for proposals within CIHR programming.