Read the Publication This week we profile a recent publication in Nature Biotechnology from Dr. Daniel Kirouac (pictured) and a team in Dr. Peter Zandstra’s lab at Notch Therapeutics and UBC. Can you provide a brief overview of your lab’s current research focus? Notch Therapeutics is working to maximize the benefit of T cell therapies. Current T cell therapies (e.g.,…
The Dean of Science Excellence in Service Awards recognize staff, students, and faculty in the UBC Faculty of Science whose service contributions have had a significant positive impact in achieving UBC Science’s mission. A maximum of 6 staff (including one PDF or RA) and 2 faculty awards of $2,000 each, and 2 student awards of $1,000 each were awarded. This year’s award…
Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are essential for immune homeostasis and suppression of pathological autoimmunity but can also play a detrimental role in cancer progression via inhibition of anti-tumour immunity. Thus, there is broad applicability for therapeutic Treg targeting, either to enhance function, for example through adoptive cell therapy (ACT), or to inhibit function with small molecules or antibody-mediated blockade. For…
Launched in 2017, the JDRF-CIHR Partnership to Defeat Diabetes is a landmark collaboration between the Government of Canada, through the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) and JDRF Canada for a total combined investment of $30 million to support transformative type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. This Partnership was renewed for a further $30 million through Federal Budget 2021 and through…
Dr. Pieter Cullis, a professor in the UBC faculty of medicine’s department of biochemistry and molecular biology, has been awarded the 2023 Killam Prize for Health Sciences. Dr. Cullis and his UBC colleagues are responsible for fundamental advances in the development of nanomedicines employing lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology for cancer therapies, gene therapies and vaccines. This work contributed to five drugs…
There has been a lot of curiosity surrounding SFU’s Institute for Neuroscience and Neurotechnology’s (INN) work on developing an open science framework at the university. We sat down with project leads, psychology professor and INN associate director Brianne Kent and INN senior program manager and informatics team lead Kelly Shen, to discuss how open science will help lead to more research…
Low carb, high fat diets, also called keto diets, have been gaining popularity as a quick way to lose weight.1 It involves consuming very low levels of carbohydrates, like bread, rice, pasta, and other grains, and high levels of fat, to induce the body into a ‘ketogenic’ state, using fats instead of carbohydrates as the primary energy source. However, a recent…
Loss of muscle mass is a common manifestation of chronic disease. We find the canonical Wnt pathway to be activated in mesenchymal progenitors (MPs) from cancer-induced cachectic mouse muscle. Next, we induce β-catenin transcriptional activity in murine MPs. As a result, we observe expansion of MPs in the absence of tissue damage, as well as rapid loss of muscle mass.…
Canada’s biotech ecosystem is poised for a major boost with the federal government announcement today that B.C. will be home to Canada’s Immuno-Engineering and Biomanufacturing Hub (CIEBH). The B.C.-based research and innovation hub, led by UBC, brings together a coalition of provincial, national and international partners to position Canada as a global epicentre for the development and manufacturing of next-generation…
Tetiana Poliakova is a PhD student in Dr. Cheryl Wellington‘s lab. In recognition of International Women’s Day, we caught up with Tetiana to learn more about her research, interests and the importance of women in science. How did you become interested in neuroscience? The brain has always fascinated me because it is the organ, we understand the least about and there…
