Genome Canada is pulling out of a major Canadian-led international effort to map the genetic circuitry of stem cells.
The non-profit, non-governmental organization finances large-scale science, but was shut out of the federal budget in January.
Michael Rudnicki, the senior scientist and chair of the International Regulome Consortium, said he is devastated by the news. He said Martin Godbout, president and CEO of Genome Canada, phoned him this week to say that the agency had to terminate its support because of the budget.
But Mr. Godbout told The Globe and Mail the move had nothing to do with lack of funds. He said a peer review committee had identified significant scientific and management issues. The committee had recommended that funding be continued, but Mr. Godbout said the board of Genome Canada felt the issues could not be satisfactorily addressed in the near future.
"It had nothing to do with the federal budget," he said.
Dr. Rudnicki has criticized federal government cuts to science funding.
"At the risk of sounding paranoid, it has crossed my mind that this might be because I'm outspoken," the University of Ottawa researcher said in an interview.Canada proposed the ambitious project and took the lead, bringing research groups from Europe, the United States, Britain, Australia and Singapore together to follow up the Human Genome Project. They are mapping how genes work as cells develop and become more specialized, turning into blood, bone or brain cells, or the other 250 kinds of human cells.
Dr. Rudnicki said he is determined to keep Canada in the project with funds from other sources, including the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and a recently announced $3.8-million from the Ontario government. But he said he will have to scale back. The funds from Genome Canada run out in June, and he will have to lay off half of his staff - six or more highly-trained technicians and researchers.
Genome Canada's decision is a blow to Canada's international reputation, said Frank Grosveld, a researcher at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, part of the International Regulome Consortium.
"This does not look good," he said.
Canada can't expect to continue to lead the project, he said, and could lose out on commercializing discoveries.
He said the European labs had no trouble securing long-term financing for the $75-million project. The Canadian researchers were looking to Genome Canada for $20-million over five years.
The Canadian part of the project received nearly $2-million over the past 18 months from Genome Canada.
After the federal budget in January, Mr. Godbout said he was devastated.
"We got nothing, nothing, and we don't know why."
But later, Genome Canada issued a news release saying it was "pleased with the federal government's 2009 budget."
Federal politicians don't decide which projects get financing from Genome Canada, which, since its inception in 2000, has matched the money the federal government provides with funds from the private sector and provinces. The annual federal contribution has ranged from $60-million to $160-million.
Many researchers were critical of the government for leaving Genome Canada out of the budget, and for chopping $147.9-million from the three granting agencies that finance research at Canadian universities. They say the cuts exacerbated a funding crunch that has left many top people hunting for operating funds to continue their work.
But the government said the budget offered a lot of new cash for science, including $750-million for the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, which helps scientists buy expensive equipment. There was also $2-billion for infrastructure at Canadian universities, which will go to fixing leaking roofs and other repairs and infrastructure projects.
Anne McIlroy is The Globe and Mail's science reporter