Times are tough for many principal investigators in Canada. Our lab is one of several to be turned down for a major operating grant recently.

According to our rejection letter, our grant application was among the 83% that were turned down for funding. Of course, many research projects go unfunded — in Canada and elsewhere — not because they lack excellence and merit, but because resources are scarce or the government's commitment is insufficient, especially in this dire economic climate. Nonetheless, I fear that, as a young investigator starting my own research programme, I am not a top priority for reviewers at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Moreover, restructuring of priorities at the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research — the province's main supporter of health-science research — has left many labs at my institute without operating funds for the next year or more.

For the first time, I hear hushed talk among senior staff that well-established principal investigators may have to let lab members go, or even shut their doors, in the coming months. In our lab, some of us may have to move on if we can't soon acquire fellowships and other research grants to cover our salaries.

I worry that Canada's provincial and federal governments are sending the wrong message to young researchers.

And that means a more tenuous future for young health scientists in Canada — myself included.