When a mysterious neurological disease was recently discovered in New Brunswick, Dr. Neil Cashman, a clinician-scientist in the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Neurology and member of the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, was called into action. Because of his expertise in neurodegenerative diseases, in particular protein misfolding diseases, Dr. Cashman was asked by Dr. Michael Coulthart, Head of the…
There is a critical need to monitor for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. The virus replicates, with the potential for mutation, not only within the human population, but also within some animal populations that encounter humans. Farmed mink is of particular interest since they are highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 and, in Europe, have also been shown to transmit…
New research in Nature Communications details the painstaking unraveling and reconstruction of a key protein in a single-celled, photosynthetic organism called a cryptophyte, a type of algae that evolved over a billion years ago. Up until now, how cryptophytes acquired the proteins used to capture and funnel sunlight to be used by the cell had molecular biologists scratching their heads.…
Androgen receptor (AR) is a major driver of prostate cancer and AR pathway inhibition (ARPI) is a standard first-line therapy for advanced prostate cancer, however, cancer cells inevitably develop resistance to this therapy. The major focus of our research has been on exploring the adaptive survival mechanisms in response to acute treatment stress which assist in the development of treatment-resistant prostate cancer and then further develop co-targeting strategies to re-sensitize them.
The Ready to Rocket List by Rocket Builders, is an annual list celebrating BC’s Leading Growth Tech companies. These companies are identified as Emerging Rockets (companies poised for growth) or Ready-to-Rocket (companies already scaling revenue) in several categories: Agri-food, ICT, CleanTech, Digital Health, and Life Sciences. It’s no secret that companies of all kinds felt the impact of COVID-19. Yet, despite the turbulence…
This article is the latest in a series of publications on the role of synaptic plasticity (both long-term potentiation-LTD and long-term-depression LTD) in learning and memory. In collaboration with Yu Tian Wang the authors have focused on the role of LTD in a range of tests of learning and memory. This body of work has implicated LTD in behavioural and cognitive flexibility as well as natural forgetting.
Bioengineering and biomanufacturing are new ways of making products that we need and use every day, but they are built on old principles. I would like to illustrate how biomanufacturing works by using a couple of examples, and I am going to use medicines and soap because those are two things we really need during this pandemic. When we think about…
Before COVID-19, tuberculosis was the most devastating infectious disease, affecting more than 10 million people in 2019 alone, and killing more than 1.5 million people annually. Today, on World TB Day 2021, the World Health Organization is calling on the global health community to honour promises made to accelerate the End TB Response, and its flagship initiative, “Find. Treat. All.”…
Scientists worldwide struggle to identify suitable animal models to study SARS-CoV-2 infections. Interspecies-related differences, such as host specificity, divergent immune responses, or the unavailability of species-specific reagents hamper the research. Human-based models, such as micro-engineered multi-organs-on-chip, may hold the solution. Animal models are imperative in preclinical research; however, most animal models are poorly predictive of human conditions. The lack of…
