Carl James, a professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora in the Faculty of Education at York University, received funding for “Bridging the gap in regenerative medicine for African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) communities,” a project which will promote greater equity in regenerative medicine research and clinical practice.
With Dr. Istvan Mucsi of University Health Network, James will lead a team that was among six that received a collective $1 million from Medicine by Design (MBD), a strategic hub for regenerative medicine research at the University of Toronto. The project sprung from a series of workshops organized by MBD's Convergent Working Group, which aspires to gather diverse perspectives across the field of medicine.
The goal of James and Mucsi's current project is to enable researchers and clinicians to build more trusting relationships and communication between African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) communities. It aims to do so by facilitating education, workshops and discussions, as well as modules focused on culture, race, ethnicity and anti-Black racism in the field of regenerative medicine.
The project is reflective of James' interest throughout his extensive career, which has focused on the ways in which race intersects with ethnicity, gender, class and citizenship to mediate accessible and equitable opportunities in education and employment of racialized Canadians. Some of James' previous work includes another project completed in collaboration with Mucsi, which resulted in the article “Psychosocial distress in patients with advanced CKD by racial group and immigrant status: A Canadian cross-sectional Study” published The American Journal of Kidney Diseases.
James' work has earned him recognitions like the $100,000 Killam Prize in 2022; the title Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada - Academy of Social Sciences in 2012, and an honorary doctorate from the Uppsala University, Sweden in 2006.