Dr. Mick Bhatia and his research team at McMaster University celebrate every major scientific discovery with a bottle of champagne.

They're hoping Ontario's announcement yesterday of an $11.5-million grant will line up several more empty bottles in their lab at the McMaster Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute.

"This money just gives us the money to do the work," said Bhatia, the institute's director and senior scientist. "The knowledge that's going to come out of it is going to be massive. I'm sure that will lead to a couple of bottles."

At a news conference at the university yesterday, Minister of Research and Innovation John Milloy announced Ontario was contributing $11.5 million to Bhatia and his team of 15 scientists.

The funding comes through the Ontario Research Fund's Global Leadership Round in Genomics and Life Sciences competition, which is committing $114.6 million to fund 19 projects. Bhatia's proposal received the largest grant.

He is heading up a project called the Ontario Consortium for Regeneration Inducing Therapeutics, a collaborative effort between McMaster and research institutions and universities in Waterloo, Ottawa and Toronto.

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Stem cell researchers get $11.5m