Research Excellence

UAlberta is one of Canada’s leading teaching and research institutions. With $513.5 million in external research funding, UAlberta is leading the way with inspirational innovations and discoveries. 

Many of the world's great minds have been a part of UAlberta and its history. Here are just some examples of research achievements by those in the UAlberta community:

• Canada's first Nobel Prize for Physics, awarded to alumnus Richard Taylor in 1990
• The co-discovery of insulin by faculty member Dr. James Collip, who worked with Frederick Banting, Charles Best, and John MacLeod
• The discovery of a potential new cancer treatment using DCA (an inexpensive generic drug) by Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, Dr. Kenn Petruk, and their research team
• The revolutionary islet transplantation for diabetes, led by the Edmonton Protocol team
• The Human Metabolome project, led by faculty member Dr. David Wishart, which gave the world’s first list of “ingredients” for the human body
• The invention of early sonar by faculty member Dr. Richard Boyle
• Canada’s first successful open-heart surgery, performed in 1956 by Dr. John Callaghan
• The life-saving Hepatitis B treatment, Heptovir, developed and administered for the first time in 1998 by Dr. Lorne Tyrrell  
• Lab on a chip technology for detecting cancer, by Dr. Linda Pilarski and Dr. Chris Backhouse

Students & Research

Great research is also about students, and that's why UAlberta students get the chance to be part of the discovery and innovation, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. As just a few examples, there are undergraduate students conducting research in the National Institute for Nanotechnology, the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science, and the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology, all located on the main campus.