This week, Conversations That Matter features the remarkable Dr. Allen Eaves, the founder, CEO and President of STEMCELL Technologies, Canada’s most successful biotech company. A firm that is playing a pivotal role in fostering a community of biotech startups. Eaves says, “we’re very keen to support an ecosystem of biotechnology here and be closely related with the universities, especially UBC…
In 2012, 14-year-old Madeline Lauener received a stem cell transplant from her sister as treatment for a rare type of blood cancer. Five years later, she’s at BC Children’s Hospital, taking part in research that aims to help kids diagnosed with cancer. “I joined the Summer Student Research Program because I wanted to learn and be involved in the cancer…
his is a major Canadian study performed by the Canadian BMT Group and including centres from Canada, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, and Australia. We found that two donor immune cells suppress chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGvHD) and will be used to guide interventions to minimize development of the disease. It also has resulted in a new focus on NKregs, an immune regulatory...
Qu Biologics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing Site Specific Immunomodulators (SSIs), a unique platform of immunotherapies designed to “reboot” the body’s innate immune system, has identified specific ulcerative colitis (UC) genetic markers that may predict response to QBECO SSI therapy and important immunological biomarkers that may be used to track response. These discoveries came from genetic and cytokine analyses of Qu Biologics’…
Asthma-COPD overlap syndrome (ACOS) or asthma-COPD overlap captures the subset of patients with airways disease who have features of both asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Although definitions of ACOS vary, it is generally thought to encompass persistent airflow limitation in a patient older than 40 years of age with either a history of asthma or large bronchodilator reversibility.…
MSFHR is delighted to convene the first MSFHR Research Leaders Forum, a group of internationally recognized researchers who will advise the Foundation on the trends, challenges and opportunities shaping health research at provincial, national and international levels. Following a nomination process, the MSFHR Board of Directors has selected 15 distinguished researchers from across the broad spectrum of BC health research to…
InMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the research and development of novel, cannabinoid-based drug therapies, announced today an update to its investors and stakeholders on the significant advancements in its proprietary technology for the microbial biosynthesis of cannabinoids. InMed has successfully demonstrated that it can selectively produce all four “gateway” cannabinoids using genetically engineered microorganisms. These molecules can be…
We are very pleased to congratulate our BC Children’s Hospital investigators, recipients of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR) 2017 Reach Awards. The MSFHR Reach Program provides funding for teams of researchers and research users to support the dissemination and effective uptake of research evidence to inform and improve further research, practice and policy-making. Dr. Tim Oberlander, co-lead…
Islet macrophages reside in the perivascular space next to islet blood vessels. They are long-lived and self-renewing, maintaining about two to ten macrophages per islet [1]. However, more than three decades after the first description of islet macrophages [2], our knowledge regarding the biological role of these cells is limited (reviewed in [3]). Emerging evidence indicates that islet macrophages are…
TxCell SA a developer of cellular immunotherapies based on regulatory T cells (Tregs) for inflammation, autoimmunity and transplantation, today announces details on the new proof-of-concept preclinical data presented at the 18th Congress of the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT), held in Barcelona, Spain, on September 24-27, 2017. The oral presentation made by Prof. Megan Levings describes positive data obtained with proprietary…
