These gene mutations are the latest discovered in epilepsy, and enable a much faster more accurate diagnosis in children and their families. In general, the results provide critical information to neurologists on how to best to treat these patients, and before it’s too late. For the Province and its health economy, the results mean a stop to further testing and the costs associated with it.
Canadian fruit growers need the best varieties of plants to be successful. In the case of Canadian strawberry growers, they grow the best varieties of plants, which foreign buyers demand. The import and export of fruit plants, however, must go through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to test for potentially devastating plant viruses. Currently, this testing and quarantine process takes…
With Canada’s 150th birthday squarely in the rear-view mirror, we should now look to our future. Our government has been staking much on an “innovation economy” – if the regular speeches by various ministries are anything to go by. So how do we get there? Follow the government’s own evidence and part of the answer is clear: invest in research.…
Technology advancements and decreasing costs have made DNA sequencing more accessible than ever before. The use of genomic testing to deliver more precise diagnosis and effective treatments in what is being called precision health care could be accessible to everyone as it is taken up into clinical practice. However, at present, genomic tests may not be equally effective for all…
Bacterial sporulation allows starving cells to differentiate into metabolically dormant spores that can survive extreme conditions. Following asymmetric division, the mother cell engulfs the forespore, surrounding it with two bilayer membranes. During the engulfment process, an essential channel, the so-called feeding tube apparatus, is thought to cross both membranes to create a direct conduit between the mother cell and the…
Our goal is to obtain new information about “autophagy” that could help to improve breast cancer outcomes. Autophagy is a novel recycling process in all cells that may affect tumour development and tumour responses to therapy. However, findings to date have come primarily from experimental models that may not be indicative of patients’ cells. We will now address this gap…
β-cell dysfunction and apoptosis associated with islet inflammation play a key role in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes (T2D). Growing evidence suggests that islet amyloid, formed by aggregation of human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP), contributes to islet inflammation and β-cell death in T2D. We recently showed the role of interleukin-1β (IL-1β)/Fas/caspase-8 apoptotic pathway in amyloid-induced β-cell death. In this…
How is the human genome sequence packaged in addition to the double helical structure? And how can we visualize, and learn about these alternate structures in the nucleus of the cell? At the University of British Columbia Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dr. Judy Wong and her team are investigating the formation of one alternate structure, the G-quadruplex (G4). This rare DNA structure…
Medical Marijuana, Inc., the first publicly traded cannabis company in the United States, today announced that its major investment company AXIM Biotechnologies, Inc. has entered into a Clinical Study Agreement (CSA) with the University of British Columbia in Canada to begin a clinical trial with its CanChew Plus® cannabidiol (CBD) chewing gum product to treat drug-induced psychosis in adult patients. The University will work with Health…
Infants born preterm are highly susceptible to various environmental stressors during their first few weeks of life. Their brain, in particular their cerebellum, are in active growth and any changes that might interfere with this growth process may lead to developmental problems. Despite our capacity to detect and diagnose...
