Biomedical engineer Dena Shahriari is excited to be working at the interface between engineering and medicine. It’s an area that she says has only just started to catch on, and there are still lots of opportunities to fill unmet needs. A major source of missed opportunities is the gap that exists between engineers and clinicians. Better cross-communication of the challenges and available…
A groundbreaking advance in quickly detecting sepsis using machine learning has been pioneered by researchers in the Hancock Lab and the department of microbiology and immunology at UBC. Sepsis is one of the biggest killers in the world, responsible for one in five deaths worldwide including those from severe COVID-19 disease, but it is difficult to detect early. It’s defined…
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and Acuitas Therapeutics, a company focused on developing lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery systems to enable messenger RNA (mRNA)-based therapeutics, today announced they have entered into a Development and Option agreement under which Pfizer will have the option to license, on a non-exclusive basis, Acuitas’ LNP technology for up to 10 targets for vaccine or therapeutic development.
The gut microbiome—an array of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites—plays an important part in human health and likely plays a role in brain-based diseases. DMCBH researcher Dr. Helen Tremlett collaborated with teams across Canada and the United States and found evidence that the gut microbiome might be involved in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), the results of which were published in Annals of…
Three members of the Michael Smith Laboratories (MSL) had their research projects highlighted as part of the GlycoNet Top 10 Stories of 2021! Drs Joerg Bohlmann, Harry Brumer and Stephen Withers are all members of GlycoNet “…a pan-Canadian initiative bringing together researchers, industry and academic partners to develop solutions to unmet health needs through the study of glycomics”. With a…
Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:XENE), a neurology-focused biopharmaceutical company, today announced that its collaboration to develop treatments for epilepsy with Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: NBIX) achieved a regulatory milestone, which has triggered an aggregate payment of $15.0 million to Xenon. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted Neurocrine’s protocol amendment that expands the study population to include subjects aged between…
When it comes to COVID-19, peace of mind is difficult to come by. But thanks to new research compiled with data from UBC’s first on-campus clinical study, a new self-administered rapid antigen test will soon be available in Canada. It’s a tool that could help combat growing uncertainty, prevent transmission and potentially save lives. The research was used by Quebec-based…
Wendy Hurlburt, President and CEO, Life Sciences BC, talked with CanadianSME about the importance of BC’s life sciences sector on a national level and the major areas of growth. She also talked about the biggest challenges for BC’s life sciences sector and how she plans on overcoming them. Wendy Hurlburt, a passionate global executive with more than 25 years of…
Peter Zandstra is such a pioneer in the field of stem cell bioengineering that he actually helped coin the term as a co-author of a 2001 publication on the topic. He is now the Director of the UBC School of Biomedical Engineering, and was recently appointed as a Companion Member of the Order of Canada for this work. “Biomedical engineering is an evolving…
Researchers at the UBC Faculty of Medicine are the first in the world to conduct a molecular-level structural analysis of the Omicron variant spike protein. The analysis—done at near atomic resolution using a cryo-electron microscope—reveals how the heavily mutated variant infects human cells and is highly evasive of immunity. The findings shed new light on why Omicron is highly transmissible…