David Granville

Dr. David Granville is a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He recently moved his laboratory to the International Collaboration On Repair Discoveries (ICORD) and was appointed as the associate director of the BC Professional Firefighters’ Burn and Wound Healing Group, Division of Plastic Surgery, UBC.

Granville’s research program over the past 20 years has been focused on mechanisms by which tissues are injured and identifying therapeutic targets that promote healing. In his early career (1994-2001), he worked at QLT Inc., where his research supported the development and approval of Visudyne® as the first treatment for age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. In 1999, Visudyne® was approved by the FDA resulting in the largest ophthalmic product release in history. Granville’s research was referred to on the drug label for Visudyne® and he is listed as a primary inventor on patents pertaining to his work at QLT.

In 2001, Granville relocated to the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, where his research identified a novel therapeutic approach for attenuating ischemia and reperfusion injury. He is a primary inventor on patents pertaining to the latter discoveries that led to the formation of Radical Therapeutix Inc in San Diego, CA. Granville was recruited back to UBC in 2003 as a Canada Research Chair and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar. In 2005, he was awarded a Canada Top 40 Under 40™ award by Caldwell Partners. He has also received the 2006 UBC Outstanding Young Alumnus Award, the 2007 SFU Academic Alumnus Award, the 2008 Canadian Association of Pathologists Junior Scientist Award, 2010 Business in Vancouver Top Forty Under 40 Award and was a runner-up for the prestigious Louis and Arnold Katz Basic Science Prize at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions. In 2014, he was named as a Fellow of the American Heart Association. More recently, he was inducted as a Scholar of the Royal Society of Canada.

Granville’s research is presently focused on how immune-secreted proteases in the context of autoimmunity and/or chronic inflammation affect tissue injury, inflammation and repair. His research has identified a family of serine proteases, known as Granzymes (Granule-secreted enzymes) that are elevated and contribute to pathogenesis in conditions associated with impaired healing, loss of endothelial/epithelial barrier function, inflammation, and loss of function in the context of vascular and skin health and disease. He is currently taking this research to the next level with respect to translating these discoveries into the development and commercialization of novel, first-in-class therapeutics with the goal of entering the clinic by the end of 2018. Since arriving at UBC, his research has resulted in the filing of 31 patents, of which, all are owned by UBC and licensed to industry, and all include his UBC trainees as co-inventors. He is also a co-founder and serves as the chief scientific officer of viDA Therapeutics, Inc.

For an up-to-date list of publications by Dr. Granville, please see his website.

Affiliation

University: University of British Columbia
Faculty: Medicine
Department: Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Position: Professor
Research location: ICORD