Tommy Douglas. Terry Fox. Michael Bliss. Judith Hall. These renowned individuals are among the 125 laureates of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame(CMHF), which recognizes Canadian heroes whose work has advanced health. Established in 1994, the national charitable organization aims to inspire pursuit of careers in the health sciences, while celebrating the country’s rich medical history. In April of 2018, an induction ceremony will see Canadian…
As part of its Industry Innovation Program (I² Fund), Genome BC is investing CAD $750,000 in a local microbiome testing company—Vancouver-based Microbiome Insights (MBI), which provides next-generation-sequencing-based analytical testing and consulting services to microbiome researchers in academia and industry. The new funding adds to the company’s recent round of equity financing, which closed in October. Microbiomes are the communities of…
We are interested in developing enrichment or cultivation approaches needed to directly test the hypotheses proposed in the manuscript. We also want to integrate our findings into a recently developed pathway-centric numerical model describing coupled biogeochemical cycling in the Saanich Inlet water column. We use Saanich Inlet as a model ecosystem for studying microbial community...
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 just published collaborative research with Dartmouth College detailing the mechanism of action and efficacy of Qu’s lung-targeted SSI, QBKPN, for the treatment of lung cancer. It has long been recognized that acute infection can potentially trigger the…
Biological molecular machines are microscopic proteins that carry out biological tasks by converting between different forms of energy. Many molecular machines burn chemical fuel to produce movement, similar to a car engine, only 100 million times smaller. An example of this is the protein kinesin, which transports cargo along cellular filaments to specific destinations within cells, and supports critical functions such…
Canada’s talented and skilled workforce is a competitive advantage for our country that attracts investment, drives innovation, and strengthens the economy. That’s why our government is investing in Canadians—to make sure our students and recent graduates have the skills they need for the middle-class jobs of today and tomorrow. The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development,…
In this paper we have generated and characterized a mouse model for Stargardt disease in which the conserved asparagine residue at position 965 in an ATP-binding binding domain of ABCA4 is replaced with serine. This disease-associated missense mutation (N965S) is commonly found in the European and Asian population and a similar mutation in a related transporter ABCA1...
Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are potent suppressors of immune responses and are currently being clinically tested for their potential to stop or control undesired immune responses in autoimmunity, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and solid organ transplantation. Current clinical approaches aim to boost Tregs in vivo either by using Treg-promoting small molecules/proteins and/or by adoptive transfer of expanded Tregs. However, the applicability of…
Three new species of microbe found in the guts of termites have been named after members of the Canadian prog-rock band Rush, owing to the microbes’ long hair and rhythmic wriggling under the microscope. “A Spanish postdoc, Javier del Campo, asked me to recommend some good Canadian music, and I suggested he listen to Rush,” says Patrick Keeling, a University…
There are currently 5 million Canadians suffering from asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), diseases of airflow limitation for which there are no effective treatments. The main reason is that there are many subtypes of these diseases, and some people even suffer from both – a condition called Asthma-COPD Overlap Syndrome. The key to discovering new life-preserving drugs for…
