Clinical Trials BC is pleased to announce the recipients of two recognition awards: the Leadership & Advocacy Award and the Service & Support Award. The awards honour individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions and impacts to the clinical trials community in British Columbia (BC) and beyond. “We are thrilled to bestow these awards on two very deserving individuals…
All her life, Rebecca Traun has been the subject of countless medical investigation. With a cleft palate, extremely low red blood cell counts, hearing impairment, and constant fatigue, the little girl has spent a lot of time at BC Children’s Hospital. “Every day, doctors had another suggestion for a different disease or syndrome,” says Sarah Traun, Rebecca’s mother. “I would…
Immunotherapy has emerged as an efficient therapeutic approach for cancer management. However, stimulation of host immune system against cancer cells often fails to achieve promising clinical outcomes mainly owing to the immunosuppressive characteristics of the tumor microenvironment (TME). Combination therapeutics that can trigger sustained immunogenic cell death (ICD) have provided new opportunities for cancer treatment.
This month, our spotlight goes to Dr. Bharat Joshi, who is a research associate in the Nabi Lab. Dr. Joshi earned his master’s degree from Saurashtra University, India and completed his Ph.D. as a UNESCO Fellow at the Microbiology Institute in Prague. In 2001, Dr. Joshi joined Dr. Chellappan’s Lab at Columbia University in New York, which later that year…
Federal and provincial officials announced $300 million in funding today for the new $700 million biotech campus built by AbCellera (Nasdaq:ABCL )in Mount Pleasant. AbCellera has emerged as one of B.C. most successful biotech companies. The company’s prospects soared during the COVID-19 pandemic because it makes the therapeutic antibodies used in the development of drugs used to treat COVID-19.
Advances in artificial intelligence technology could save patients from unnecessary polyp excisions and lab result wait times. An innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) technology is aiding clinicians in identifying and classifying polyps and adenomas that could lead to colorectal cancer, according to the findings of Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute researcher Dr. Michael Byrne. His review, published in the Canadian Medical Association…
For more than two decades, BC Children’s Hospital researcher Dr. Megan Levings has been immersed in the complex world of very specialized immune system cells – regulatory T cells. She was the first in the world to show these unique white blood cells could be a powerful new therapy to stop harmful immune responses. Now her work has led to another giant…
The metabolic, digestive and homeostatic roles of the liver are dependent on proper crosstalk and organization of hepatic cell lineages. These hepatic cell lineages are derived from their respective progenitors early in organogenesis in a spatiotemporally controlled manner, contributing to the liver’s specialized and diverse microarchitecture. Advances in genomics, lineage tracing and microscopy have led to seminal discoveries in the…
The window of opportunity to participate in a new initiative tackling major threats posed by emerging pathogens and antimicrobial resistance is now open and BC researchers interested in applying should register by May 30th. The Genomic Monitoring of Pathogens in Water (GeMPaW) initiative is a $10 million Genome Canada investment to help Canada defend its population, wildlife and environment from…
Mycobacterium abscessus is a nontuberculosis mycobacterium (NTM) that has shown an exponential rise in its ability to cause disease. Due to its ubiquitous presence in the environment, M. abscessus is widely implicated in secondary exacerbations of many nosocomial infections and genetic respiratory disorders, such as cystic fibrosis (CF). Contrary to other rapidly growing NTMs, the cell envelope of M. abscessus harbors several prominent features and undergoes modifications…
