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Two Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine researchers are being celebrated with prestigious national awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), recognizing outstanding contributions across the career spectrum in health research.

Dr. Francesca Di Cara, associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Dalhousie’s Canada Research Chair in Human Immunology and Host Pathogen Interactions, has received the Bhagirath Singh Early Career Award in Infection and Immunity, while Dr. Jill Hayden, professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, has been awarded the Barer‑Flood Senior Career Prize in Health Services and Policy Research.

Together, the awards highlight the depth and breadth of research excellence at Dalhousie, from fundamental discoveries in immune regulation to patient‑centred health services research with direct impact on care delivery.

Advancing discovery in infection and immunity

The Bhagirath Singh Early Career Award in Infection and Immunity recognizes early‑career researchers who have demonstrated exceptional creativity, productivity and leadership in advancing the understanding of infectious disease and immune function. The award honours the legacy of Dr. Bhagirath Singh, a pioneering Canadian immunologist and mentor.

Dr. Di Cara studies how the body’s immune system works and how it is influenced by the way cells use and manage energy. Her research looks closely at how various immune cells use their nutrients such as lipids (fats) to keep immune responses balanced—and what can go wrong when that balance is lost, leading to inflammation or infection. Her work has revealed an important new role for peroxisomes, tiny structures found inside almost every cell that help manage chemical reactions needed for normal cell function. Dr. Di Cara discovered that these structures also play a key role in helping the immune system send and control its signals.

By studying fruit flies, mice and human cells, Dr. Di Cara has shown that peroxisomes help organize how immune signals are turned on and off inside cells and manage inflammation, the silent killer in many diseases including inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis and neurodegenerative conditions. This process affects how strongly the body reacts to threats like infection  which is very important as example during COVID19 infection it was the excessive response of our immune cells and inflammation to kill and not the virus itself. Her findings are changing how scientists understand immune control and could eventually help explain a wide range of health conditions and find new therapies to threat immune disorders and chronic inflammation—from rare inherited disorders to common inflammatory and infectious diseases. 

“This award recognizes the need and importance of fundamental research in order to improve our therapeutic approaches” says Dr. Di Cara. “Especially when it comes to inflammation, the  knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms that help our body to maintain and return to homeostasis after fighting an insult is quintessential for novel, effective, and safer  therapies. Our research aims to lead to novel therapies  to control chronic inflammation”

Since joining Dalhousie, Dr. Di Cara has built an internationally recognized research program, secured major peer‑reviewed funding, and has trained a growing cohort of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Her work exemplifies the CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity’s mandate to advance knowledge that improves prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Transforming care through health services research

The Barer‑Flood Senior Career Prize in Health Services and Policy Research is one of CIHR’s most distinguished honours, awarded to a senior investigator whose career has made a sustained and influential contribution to improving health systems and health policy. Named after Drs. Morris Barer and Colleen Flood, the prize recognizes research that strengthens how healthcare is organized, delivered, and experienced.

Dr. Hayden’s career has been defined by a commitment to ensuring that high‑quality evidence leads to real improvements in patient care. An internationally recognized leader in back pain research, she has spent more than two decades synthesizing evidence on treatments for chronic low back pain and studying how care is delivered across health systems.

A recent focus of Dr. Hayden’s work is the ExRX (Exercise Prescription) toolkit, a research‑based resource designed to help healthcare providers use exercise as a first‑line treatment for chronic low back pain. Chronic low back pain is one of the most common and disabling health conditions worldwide, yet evidence‑based exercise is not consistently used in care. The ExRX toolkit aims to make prescribing exercise more practical and accessible for clinicians, while helping patients understand and follow exercise recommendations. By supporting real‑world use in clinical settings, the project helps close the gap between research evidence and everyday healthcare practice.

“Receiving this Award is a tremendous honour, one I gladly share with the outstanding team and partners behind our work,” says Dr. Hayden. “I look forward to carrying that momentum into our next project - developing an evidence-informed, technology-enabled toolkit to better support patients living with chronic low back pain and the healthcare providers who care for them.”

Dr. Hayden’s leadership has had national and international impact, informing clinical guidelines, shaping policy discussions and mentoring the next generation of health services researchers.

Celebrating excellence across the research continuum

Together, these CIHR career awards underscore the Faculty of Medicine’s strength across the full research continuum, from discovery science to health system transformation.

“Dr. Di Cara and Dr. Hayden represent distinctly different approaches to research, yet both are united by a commitment to improving health outcomes through impactful research,” says Dr. Eileen Denovan-Wright, associate dean, research. “Their national recognition reflects not only individual excellence, but the collaborative research culture at Dalhousie.”