A global research powerhouse — because of you.
More than 6,000 collaborative projects in three years, with partners in every province and territory and 157 countries. Donor support is what puts our researchers in those rooms.
The first made-in-Canada CAR-T programme
With BC Cancer, our teams lead the country's first homegrown CAR-T cell research programme and clinical trial — a highly personalised cancer immunotherapy that is changing outcomes. We also lead BioCanRx, Canada's immunotherapy network.
Story: a Canadian-first trial gave a lymphoma patient another chance.
Resetting the immune system in severe MS
We are a global pioneer in using stem cell transplantation to reset the immune system in people with severe multiple sclerosis — now a standard of care across North America. We founded Canada's Stem Cell Network and host the Sprott and Sinclair centres.
Story: stem cell treatment stopped new MS activity for John C.
The most experienced facility of its kind
Our Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre makes vaccines, cancer-fighting viruses, gene therapies and stem cell therapies, working with partners across Canada, North America, Europe and Asia.
Video: inside the Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre.
Better TB prevention and care in the North
Our researchers work with Nunavut Tunngavik and the Government of Nunavut to improve how tuberculosis is prevented, diagnosed and treated — a disease at least 300 times more common among Inuit in Nunavut than in the rest of Canada.
Community-led research, designed with Inuit partners.
One of the first hospitals to join the ARC network
We were among the first hospitals in the world to partner with Sheba Medical Centre and its ARC centre for digital innovation — bringing new care technology to patients here faster.
Accelerate, Redesign, Collaborate.
Could Parkinson's start in the nose?
We lead an international effort to find out — an answer that could open up new treatments. With centres across Europe we are also piloting a personalised approach to Parkinson's care.
Story: the push to demystify Parkinson's disease.
The world's largest repository of decision aids
The Ottawa Hospital hosts the largest collection and research programme of patient decision aids anywhere — award-winning interactive tools that help people weigh treatment and screening options with their clinician.
Used by patients and hospitals worldwide.
A world-first cell therapy for tiny lungs
We led the first clinical trial of a cell therapy to heal the lungs of extremely premature babies, now expanding to eight Canadian hospitals. With partners worldwide we are also developing a simple blood test to identify preterm babies where ultrasound is not available.
Built for low-resource settings from the start.
Two networks, one question: how do we stop clots?
Our researchers co-lead CanVECTOR, bringing 28 Canadian centres together on treatment and prevention of dangerous clots in the legs and lungs, and created INVENT, an international network spanning researchers in ten countries.
CanVECTOR + INVENT.
Canada's largest pragmatic cancer trials programme
REaCT asks the practical questions that change everyday cancer care, with more than 5,000 patients taking part in 24 trials at 16 centres across the country.
Trials designed to fit into real clinical practice.
Rules written in Ottawa, used everywhere
If you have ever been assessed in an emergency department, chances are your clinician used a decision rule developed here. Three of the top five rules recommended for U.S. emergency departments came out of Ottawa.
Decades of emergency research, still in daily use.
Testing care, not just drugs
We play a major role in a large collaborative incubator testing non-drug, care-based interventions for people living with Alzheimer's and dementia.
Care-based interventions, rigorously trialled.
Limiting the damage of a brain bleed
With colleagues around the world we are trialling the first medication to limit damage from a brain hemorrhage, while testing new clot-busting drugs alongside neuroprotectants in the emergency department. The results will change stroke care here and abroad.
Findings expected to shift national guidelines.
Going after the cells treatment cannot reach
We co-lead CanCURE, a network working to eliminate HIV-infected cells that hide from current treatments — research with the potential to deliver a true cure.
A national network chasing a cure, not just control.
International work across the full spectrum
Our mental health teams collaborate internationally on bipolar disorder, suicide prevention, depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, psychopharmacology and eating disorders — from basic science through to clinical trials and putting findings into practice.
Basic science to bedside, across six continents.
World-first insights from orbit
Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital are leading research in outer space, which is providing world-first insights into how space travel affects astronaut bone marrow and blood cells.
Story: what happens to bone marrow and blood cells in space.
157 countries, one hospital at the centre of it
These are the countries our teams have published, trialled or manufactured with over the past three years — from Nunavut to Nairobi. The darker the shade, the more collaborative projects sit behind it.
Countries are shaded by how many collaborative projects sit behind them. Choose a region to zoom in and see each research location.
Number of collaborative projects
It is time to take research to unprecedented heights
Our experts expect more clinical breakthroughs in the next ten years than in the last fifty. Where those breakthroughs happen is not fixed — it depends on who funds the work.
Give here and more of them happen here — better treatments, novel therapies, and greater hope for all of us.