Grant: Planning Grants - Priority Announcement: International Research Collaborations

Two decades have passed since the discovery of hepatitis C virus (HCV). Despite an expanded understanding of HCV and rapidly-improving treatments, there is still no effective vaccine and other strategies have been ineffective in preventing new infections. Understanding how to better control HCV infection will require better integration and cross-talk between investigators across the biomedical, clinical, health systems/services and population/public health research areas. The International Collaboration of Incident hepatitis C in Injecting Cohorts (InC3) Collaborative Group was established to create a merged multi-cohort project of pooled data from well characterised cohorts of IDUs with acute HCV infection, facilitate new in-depth studies not possible from each individual study and bring together researchers across disciplines. The first meeting was held on March 24, 2009, attracting over 30 leading international investigators across disciplines from 15 institutions in six countries. This meeting achieved the original objectives of exchanging information on the design of existing cohorts, provided state-of-the-art lectures on the immunology, virology, clinical and epidemiological issues of acute HCV in IDUs and discussed unresolved research questions and potential funding opportunities. The overall goal of this CIHR Meetings, Planning and Dissemination Grant is to provide support for the planning and conduct of a second workshop to further advance this collaborative project. The specific aims of this workshop will be: i) to facilitate transdisciplinary knowledge exchange between Canadian and International investigators working in the field of acute HCV infection among IDUs; ii) to strengthen collaborations between Canadian and International investigators working in the field of acute HCV infection among IDUs; and iii) to develop an international collaborative grant focused on acute HCV infection among IDUs.