MD/PhD “Building Bridges” Seminar Series – ALL ARE WELCOME
Our seminar series aims to illustrate the relationship that exists between clinical practice and medical research, allowing MD/PhD and other interested students to hear about different career tracks and various ways to combine clinical and research work. In addition to speaking about their active research, the invited speakers discuss their experiences and training backgrounds, share their advice with prospective clinician-scientists, and give their opinions on career development options for clinician-scientists. All faculty, clinical investigator trainees, and students in the Faculty of Medicine and other members in the UBC community are welcome to join us in person.
Time: 5:30 to 6:30 pm
Date: 22 April 2024
Time: 5:30 to 7:00pm
Invited speaker: Doris J Doudet
Professor Emeritus, Medicine/Neurology, UBC
Dr. Doudet is originally from Bordeaux, France. She obtained her PhDs in Neurophysiology and in Clinical Neurology and Human Behavior at the University of Bordeaux, France, working on rodents and non-primate models of Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Her research centers on the role of monoaminergic systems in health, disease, and therapy, with a focus in neurodegenerative diseases and mood disorders and the effect of non-invasive brain stimulation therapies. She joined the UBC/TRIUMF PET program in 1993.
After a 30-year career at UBC, Dr. Doudet retired on June 30, 2023, from the Department of Medicine in the Division of Neurology. She will talk about her training background, career path and share her recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 11 March 2024
Invited speaker: Katrina Besler, BSc (Molecular Biology & Biochemistry), Li Qing Wang, BSc (Cell, Anatomical & Physiological Sciences) and Shayda Swann, BSc (Health Sciences)
Current UBC MD/PhD students (class of 2026)
Presentation Topic: TBD
Date: 15 January 2024
Invited speaker: Kevin Gregory-Evans, MD, PhD, FRCS, FRCOphth
Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Dept. of Opthalmology & Visual Sciences, UBC
A renowned ophthalmologist and global leader in macular research, Dr. Kevin Gregory-Evans currently serves as professor of ophthalmology at The University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine. Previously, Dr. Gregory-Evans was reader in molecular ophthalmology at Imperial College London. He underwent clinical ophthalmology training at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and received basic science research training with professors Alan Bird and Shomi Bhattacharya at the Institute of Ophthalmology in London as well as professor Richard Weleber at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon. In 1985, he achieved a bachelor of medicine degree from St. Bartholomew’s Medical School at the University of London.
Currently, he is council member and chairman of the Research Infrastructure Working Group at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. He is also an active panel member for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine Panel. An active speaker, Dr. Gregory-Evans presents regularly for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society, the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the Foundation Fighting Blindness Canada. Dr. Gregory-Evans’ works include basic science studies in molecular genetics, molecular therapeutics in model systems and stem cell therapeutics. He also holds the Julia Levy BC Leadership Chair in Macular Research.
Dr. Gregory-Evans will talk about his training background, career path and current work. He will also share his recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Presentation Topic: TBD
Date: 18 December 2023
Invited speaker: Julia Naso, M.D., Ph.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UBC
Vancouver General Hospital
Dr. Naso recently returned to Vancouver after completing fellowship Pulmonary Pathology at Mayo Clinic Rochester. She did her residency training in Anatomical Pathology through UBC, and is a graduate of the MD/PhD program, with her PhD in the Genome Sciences and Technology program and her undergraduate in Molecular Genetics. She is presently supported by UBC to develop an independent research program in thoracic malignancies, while also serving as a consultant pathologist at VGH. Her research interests include translating novel molecular testing approaches into clinically available tests that aid in the diagnosis and characterization of lung cancers.
Dr. Naso will talk about her training background, career path and current work. She will also share her recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 27 November 2023
Invited speaker: Maryam Vaseghi-Shanjani, MSc (Medical Science) and Lianne Cho, BSc (Neuroscience)
Current UBC MD/PhD students (class of 2026)
Presentation Topic: TBD
Date: 23 October 2023
Invited speaker: Dr. Haakon Nygaard MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, UBC
Director, UBC Hospital Clinic for Alzheimer and Related Disorders
To better understand the healthy brain, Dr. Nygaard leads a project to sequence the genomes of centenarians in search for a genetic cause of dementia-free aging. As both a clinician and a scientist, Dr. Nygaard hopes to bridge the gap between basic science and clinical neurology to facilitate novel therapeutic development in Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Nygaard will talk about his training background, career path and current work. He will also share his recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 11 September 2023
Invited speaker: Dr. Michelle Wong, MD, FRCPC
Assistant Dean Student Affairs Fraser | MD Undergraduate Program
Clinical Associate Professor | Faculty of Medicine l University of British Columbia
Dr. Wong is a Hematopathologist at RCH and also currently one of the Student Affairs Deans in the UBC Medical School. She will be presenting the supports that are available from Student Affairs followed by a talk from our Associate Director, Dr. Liam Brunham.
Date: 1 May 2023
Invited speaker: Dr Martin Dawes – MB.BS, MD, DRCOG, FRCGP, CCFP
Professor Emeritus of Family Practice
Department of Family Practice | Faculty of Medicine | The University of British Columbia
Dr. Dawes has been a family physician since 1983 working full-time in Oxford for the first 10 years. He completed his PhD on weight gain in pregnancy in 1992. In 1995 he helped develop a multi-disciplinary Masters programme in Evidence Based Health Care that is run at the University of Oxford. He was Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford and Head of the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University before coming to UBC in 2010. He was chair of the Program committee of the North American Primary Care Research Group and is currently the Head of the Department of Family Practice at UBC.
His current research interests include pharmacogenomics in primary care, diabetes prevention, information retrieval, hypertension, and chronic disease management. In addition to his research and practice interests, he has considerable expertise and passion for the development of training programs that allow clinicians to engage in Masters level research. Dr. Dawes will talk about his training background, career path and current work. He will also share his recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 24 April 2023
Invited speaker: Andy An, BSc (Pharmacology) and Luke MacLean, MHSc (Clinical Engineering)
Current UBC MD/PhD students (class of 2025)
Presentation Topic: TBD
Date: 27 March 2023
Invited speaker: Dr. Kasmintan (Intan) Schrader, MBBS, FRCPC, PhD, DABMG
Program Medical Co-Director Hereditary Cancer
BC Cancer
Dr. Kasmintan Schrader received her medical degree from the University of Melbourne (2003), and completed her residency in Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Dr Schrader undertook the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Clinician Investigator Program to undertake graduate studies in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine to investigate the association between germline mutations in CDH1 and lobular breast cancer. Her PhD work evolved to include use of next-generation sequencing technology to identify Mendelian disease genes. Dr Schrader is an active member of the Personalized OncoGenomics Policy and Ethics working group that has helped to develop a process for return of germline findings from whole genome sequence data generated at the time of tumor sequencing. Dr Schrader collaborates on several projects looking at return of this type of information and has the expertise to interpret the clinical significance of incidental findings beyond those primarily associated with cancer. Her clinical genetics specialist training makes her ideally positioned to consider and answer questions regarding the return of incidental genetic information identified throughout the course of massively parallel sequencing projects.
Furthermore as co-Medical Director of the BC Cancer agency’s Provincial Hereditary Cancer Program, Dr Schrader is well-positioned to understand the impact of these findings on the public healthcare system. Dr. Schrader will talk about her training background, career path and current work. She will also share her recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 27 February 2023
Invited speaker: Dr. Samuel V. Lichtenstein, MD, PhD, FRCSC
Clinical Professor of Surgery, UBC Head, Division of Cardiac Surgery
UBC Regional Cardiac Program Medical Director, PHC & VCH
Dr. Samuel V. Lichtenstein is Clinical Professor of Surgery and University Head of the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of British Columbia. In addition to his Medical Degree, Dr. Lichtenstein holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Publications include approximately 1240 peer reviewed articles and invited reviews. Early in his career, he introduced the notion of performing open heart surgery at normothermia which challenged previously held concepts of hypothermia in open heart surgery. In 2005, Dr. Lichtenstein and his group were the first in the world to implant an aortic valve for aortic stenosis through the apex of the left ventricle in man. Catheter-based valve implantation has become a tremendously important development in the treatment of valve disease and the transapical approach allows for treatment of patients with peripheral vascular disease. The group in Vancouver has the largest experience in the world with this modality.
Dr. Lichtenstein has a research interest in myocardial protection, heart-lung interaction, peripheral vascular physiology, and myocardial mechanics. Dr. Lichtenstein holds multiple patents. In 1998, he developed a suture-based mechanical coronary anastomosis system for Perclose. The patented methodology has been adapted for femoral artery closures after interventional cardiological procedures. In 1999, Dr. Lichtenstein co-founded Ventrica, a biotech start-up in Menlo Park, California, based on a magnetic coupling system for coronary anastomosis. More recently, he co-founded biotech start-ups in Vancouver focused on percutaneous solutions for treating atrial fibrillation, methods of reducing x-ray radiation exposure for long fluoroscopic procedures, and non-invasive lung volume reduction for the treatment of emphysema.
Dr. Lichtenstein will talk about his background, career path and current work. He will also share his recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 23 January 2023
Invited speakers: Dr. Danielle Lavallee, Vice President, Research and Dr. Ellie Griffith, Assistant Vice-President, Research
Michael Smith Health Research BC
As Vice President, Dr. Lavallee oversees Michael Smith Health Research BC’s portfolio, including research strategy, funding programs and partnerships. She and Dr. Griffith will be presenting their work and the funding programs and grants available to support clinician scientists. This will be a great way to network and find out different source for research funds so all MD/PhD students are encouraged to join this session in person to meet and chat with Dr. Lavallee and Dr. Griffith.
In addition to being Michael Smith Health Research BC’s Vice President, Dr. Lavallee plays a key role in the senior leadership as the BC Support Unit’s Scientific Director. Dr. Lavallee is also an Adjunct Professor at the UBC School of Population and Public Health.
Date: 5 December 2022
Invited speaker: Dr. Liam Brunham MD, PhD, FRCPC, FACP
Associate Director, MD/PhD Program, UBC
Medical Lead, Healthy Heart Program Prevention Clinic, St. Paul’s Hospital
Presentation Topic: TBD
Date: 7 November 2022
Invited speaker: Rohit Singla, MASc. Biomedical Engineering
Current UBC MD/PhD student (class of 2025)
Presentation Topic: Multi-parametric renal ultrasound for chronic kidney disease and renal transplantation
Rohit is an MD/PhD student and Vanier Scholar at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Supervised by Prof. Robert Rohling and Dr. Chris Nguan, His current research interests include ultrasound, artificial intelligence, chronic kidney disease (T2DM, IgAN, and SLE), kidney transplantation and medical trainee education.
Date: 24 October 2022
Invited speaker: Dr. Jacqueline Saw, MD, FRCPC, FACC, FSCAI
Interventional Cardiology at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH)
Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC)
Dr. Jacqueline Saw is an Interventional Cardiologist at VGH, with joint appointment at St Paul’s Hospital. She is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at UBC, and Program Director of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program at VGH. She also served as the Head of VGH Cardiology Clinical Trials Research. She was awarded Canada Scholar and the Dean’s Entrance Scholarship for Natural Sciences at Simon Fraser University, where she did her undergraduate degree. She then obtained her medical doctorate at the University of Ottawa, where she graduated summa cum laude. She did her residency training in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the UBC, and served as Chief Cardiology Fellow. She then proceeded to Interventional Cardiology fellowship training at the Cleveland Clinic, which encompassed carotid, peripheral and structural interventional training. She has been an active staff with the Division of Cardiology at VGH and joint appointment at St Paul’s Hospital since 2004. She is also a physician proctor/preceptor for left atrial appendage (LAA) closure with the Amplatzer Cardiac Plug/Amulet and WATCHMAN devices.
Dr. Saw’s research interests include spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), antiplatelet therapy, percutaneous coronary intervention, carotid artery stenting, peripheral intervention, LAA closure, and non-atherosclerotic coronary artery disease [including SCAD and coronary fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) in women]. She is the principal investigator of the Canadian SCAD Study, PRYME, NACAD, SAFER-SCAD, Canadian WATCHMAN Registry, TAP-CABG, and ELAPSE studies.
Dr. Saw will talk about her training background, career path and current work. She will also share her recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 26 September 2022
Invited speaker: Asmae El Bouhali
UBC Faculty of Medicine, GPE Embedded Counselor
Asmae is a Clinical Counsellor with membership with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. She holds graduate degrees in Counselling Psychology and Human Development from the University of Ottawa and the University of British Columbia. Her undergraduate degree in Clinical Psychology and Communication was obtained at the University of Amsterdam. She offers a collaborative, safe, compassionate therapeutic space in which clients can explore self-awareness, mindfulness, and personal growth. She facilitates change and goal attainment utilizing several theoretical and research-based methodologies, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Solution Focused Therapy.
Asmae has experience in cross-cultural therapy and is able to offer services in Moroccan-Arabic and Dutch. She will talk about all the services and resources available for Graduate students via the Graduate & Postdoctoral Education Wellbeing Team.
Date: 16 May 2022
Invited speaker: Dr. David McVea
Public Health Physician, Environmental Health Services, BC Centre for Disease Control
Dr. McVea is a public health physician working at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Environmental Health Services. He completed his medical training at the University of British Columbia, and subsequently was a member the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program before joining the BCCDC. He works to promote and protect health by researching and acting on exposures to radon, heavy metals, air pollutants and other contaminants.
Dr. McVea will talk about his training background, career path and current work. He will also share his recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 4 April 2022
Invited speaker: Wissam Nassrallah, M.Sc. Neuroscience
Current UBC MD/PhD student (class of 2024)
Presentation topic: Calcium handling dynamics and neuroprotective effect of Activin A on synaptic function and behavior in Huntington Disease.
Wissam completed his BSc in Biomedical Science and his MSc in Neuroscience both at the University of Ottawa. During his graduate studies, he developed an interest in the field of electrophysiology and the rules governing synaptic plasticity. Specifically, he studied the implication of the endoplasmic reticulum in the homeostatic synaptic response. His thesis, “Store-Operated Response in CA1 Pyramidal Neurons Exhibits Features of Homeostatic Synaptic Plasticity”, explored novel traits of homeostatic synaptic plasticity. Currently, Wissam works in Dr. Lynn Raymond’s laboratory, exploring the alteration of these synaptic rules in a mouse model of Huntington disease (HD).
Date: 14 February 2022
Invited speaker: Thomas Roston
UBC, Faculty of Medicine (Residents 2020-2022)
Thomas did his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA, and then completed medical school, internal medicine and cardiology training at the University of British Columbia, where he twice served as chief resident. He also recently graduated with a PhD from the University of Alberta in the area of genetic arrhythmias in the young. During CIP, Thomas will be completing a post-doctoral fellowship in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and cardiovascular genetics jointly at Boston Children’s & Brigham and Women’s Hospitals of Harvard Medical School, under the supervision of Drs. Dominic Abrams and Carolyn Ho. He plans to pursue a clinician-scientist career dedicated to the genetic risk stratification of people with cardiovascular disease.
Thomas will share his knowledge and experience on the topic of ‘Doing Research During Residency and Transitioning to Your First Job’.
Date: 10 January 2022
Invited speaker: Dr. Dawn McArthur
Director, Research and Technology Development
Research & Technology Development Office
BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute
As Director, Research & Technology Development, Dr. Dawn McArthur has a mandate to enhance research capacity and competitiveness at BCCHR. Over the past 15 years, Dr. McArthur has worked with BCCHR researchers to achieve an exceptional success rate for individual and collaborative research programs.
One of Canada’s first grants facilitators, Dr. McArthur’s experience includes 20 years of scientific research/ teaching and 19 years of research development leadership in university and health research settings. She has advanced expertise in strategic development of interdisciplinary teams and research initiatives, and extensive knowledge of health research disciplines and funding agency mandates. She shares this knowledge in workshops at BCCHR, in Canada and internationally.
Date: 22 November 2021
Invited speaker: Dr. Gina Ogilvie
Professor, School of Population & Public, UBC
Associate Director, Women’s Health Research Institute
Senior Public Health Scientist, BC Centre for Disease Control
Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, Global Control of HPV Related Diseases and Prevention
Dr. Gina Ogilvie’s research is focused on both the public health and clinical aspects of reproductive health, sexually transmitted infections, HPV screening and the HPV vaccine, and her findings have been highly influential in setting and directing health policy both in Canada and globally.
Dr. Ogilvie has published over 100 peer reviewed manuscripts and has provided advice and consultation to national and global institutions, including the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, Public Health Agency of Canada, the World Health Organization and Ministries of Health globally on STI, HIV and HPV vaccine policy and programming.
Dr. Ogilvie speaks widely at international and national research and education conferences, and has supervised medical students, residents, and graduate students throughout her career. Our trainees will hear about her training pathway and the experiences that led her to pursue her career.
Date: 18 October 2021
Invited speaker: Dr. Melanie Murray
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine (Infectious Diseases), UBC
Dr. Melanie Murray is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at UBC. She is also an infectious disease specialist in HIV care at BC Women’s Oak Tree Clinic, and an Infectious Diseases Specialist and Staff Physician at St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver. Dr. Murray earned a bachelor’s degree in science, as well as a medical degree and a PhD at the University of Manitoba in microbiology. She completed an infectious disease fellowship and an internal medicine residency at UBC.
Dr. Murray will talk about her training background, career path and current work. She will also share her recommendations for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 10 May 2021
Invited speaker: Dr. Michael Hayden
Killam Professor, University of British Columbia
Senior Scientist, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics
Author of over 900 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Hayden’s research focuses on genetic diseases, including gene therapy, Huntington disease, predictive and personalized medicine and drug development. Dr. Hayden identified the first mutations underlying lipoprotein lipase (LPL) deficiency and developed gene therapy approaches to treat this condition, the first approved gene therapy (Glybera) in the western world. He is the most cited author in the world on ABCA1 and Huntington disease.
Dr. Hayden is the recipient of numerous prestigious honours and awards. He was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2017; awarded the Order of Canada (2011), and the Order of British Columbia (2010). Dr. Hayden is committed to empowering others. In addition to mentoring over 100 graduate students and postdocs, he is also a TED mentor.
Dr. Hayden will share with us his research and what he would recommend for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 8 March 2021
Invited speaker: Dr. Poul Sorensen, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UBC
Director, Academy of Translational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, UBC
Dr. Poul Sorensen is a board certified anatomic pathologist, specializing in the molecular pathology of pediatric cancers. He undertook his undergraduate, medical, and PhD degrees at the UBC and McGill University. He completed postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California, after his Pathology training. He holds the Asa and Kashmir Johal Endowed Chair in Childhood Cancer Research at UBC, and is a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
Dr. Sorensen’s research laboratory is located in the Department of Molecular Oncology at the BC Cancer Research Centre, where he is a distinguished scientist. The Sorensen group is well known internationally in cancer biology; they hypothesize that stress adaptation confers therapy resistance to childhood cancer cells, and increases their capacity for metastatic dissemination. The team is also testing the relevancy of newly identified targets found in pediatric cancers for expression and applications to adult malignancies. Dr. Sorensen’s research has been published in very high impact journals including Cell, Cancer Cell, Nature Gen, Nature Med, and PNAS, and co-authorships in Nature and NEJM. His laboratory has attracted over $100M in grant funding, including his role as the Vancouver principal investigator of the Stand Up 2 Cancer/St. Baldrick’s Foundation Pediatric Cancer Immunotherapy Dream Team, and the NIH-funded Cancer Moonshot Pediatric Immunotherapy Discovery and Development Network (PI-DDN).
Dr. Sorensen has won a number of prestigious awards for his research, including an early career Lotte Strauss Award for pediatrics research, a UBC Killam Research Prize, an August-Wilhelm Scheer Gastprofessorship Award from Technical University Munich, and in 2016 he received the Canadian Cancer Society’s Robert L. Noble Prize for basic cancer research. In 2019, Dr. Sorensen was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in the science division, and he was awarded the Bloom Burton Award for health care innovation in Canada.
Dr. Sorensen will talk about his training and career as a clinician-scientist, as well as his new role in the Academy of Translational Medicine.
Date: 8 February 2021
Invited speaker: Dr. Subodh Verma
Cardiac Surgeon, St Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto
Scientist, Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science and Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of Unity Health Toronto
Professor of Surgery and Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Toronto
Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Surgery
Dr. Subodh Verma is an internationally renowned cardiac surgeon-scientist and Professor at the University of Toronto. He is the Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Surgery and a past recipient of the Howard Morgan Award for Distinguished Achievements in Cardiovascular Research and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Gold Medal in Surgery. He previously served as the Canada Research Chair in Atherosclerosis (2007-2017). He is an appointee of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons (AATS) and a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, Royal Society of Canada. According to Google Scholar in December 2020, Dr. Verma has an h-index of 107 and his work has been cited over 58,000 times.
Dr. Verma has published extensively in prestigious journals like the NEJM, Lancet, Circulation, JACC, Nature, and JCI and he is currently an Associate Editor of the European Heart Journal. Dr. Verma is an active contributor to Canadian clinical practice guidelines and recently co-authored the recommendations for atrial fibrillation, antiplatelet therapy, heart failure and diabetes; he was a member of the 2018 AATS consensus guidelines committee on bicuspid aortic valve-related aortopathy. Dr. Verma has served in various capacities on the American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia since 2008.
Dr. Verma has leadership roles on 7 global heart failure trials in diabetes – DAPA-HF, DELIVER, DETERMINE-A, DETERMINE-B, EMPEROR-Preserved, EMPEROR-Reduced and SOLOIST-WHF. He is also involved in the DAPA ACT HF-TIMI 68, FINEARTS-HF, STEP HFpEF, VESALIUS-CV, DARE-19, SELECT and CLEAR SYNERGY trials. He founded and oversees the CardioLink platform at St Michael’s Hospital that is conducting cardiometabolic and surgically oriented RCTs and translational studies.
Dr. Verma leads a dynamic pre-clinical and translational research team that leverages pre-clinical disease models and clinical trial-derived data to identify novel mediators of cardiovascular and cardiometabolic disease as well as answer timely and relevant healthcare questions. His research has yielded 2 United States patents and is supported by several national peer-reviewed grants.
Dr. Verma will speak about aspects of his career and research.
Date: 23 November 2020
Invited speaker: Dr. Blai Coll Crespo
Cardiovascular and Metabolic Platform Lead
The Center for Observational Research and Medical Affairs
Amgen, Inc., Thousand Oaks, California, USA
Dr. Blai Coll Crespo received his MD degree from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and his PhD degree from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Dr. Crespo is a goal-oriented physician and clinical researcher with experience in patient care, cardiovascular and metabolism medicine, and clinical research. He is experienced in working with major pharmaceutical companies: basic research department, research and development, medical and marketing departments. Therapeutic areas include: cardiovascular medicine; lipids; chronic kidney disease; HIV-related complications (atherosclerosis); metabolic syndrome.
It would be invaluable for our trainees to hear about Dr. Crespo’s training and career path, his role as a clinician scientist in Amgen, and his personal reflections on the opportunities, advantages, and possible challenges of being a clinician scientist working in the bio-pharmaceutical industry.
Date: 20 April 2020
Invited speaker: Dr. Zachary Laksman
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine (Cardiology), UBC
Director, Atrial Fibrillation Clinic and Inherited Arrhythmia Clinic, St. Paul’s Hospital
Dr. Zachary Laksman is a Cardiac Electrophysiologist at the St. Paul’s Hospital. He specializes in managing heart rhythm disorders, including heart rhythm surgeries and devices. Dr. Laksman completed both his Bachelor of Science degree in Human Biology and Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Toronto. He trained as a specialist in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at Western University. Subsequently, Dr. Laksman pursued his Master’s thesis and defended in 2015 under the supervision of Drs. Peter Backx and Gordon Keller from the University of Toronto.
Recruited to UBC in 2016, Dr. Zachary Laksman is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor with expertise in Cardiac Electrophysiology at the UBC Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery, and a Principal Investigator at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation. He is also the Director of the St. Paul’s Hospital Atrial Fibrillation Clinic and the Director of the St. Paul’s Hospital Inherited Arrhythmia Clinic. Dr. Laksman is the recipient of the UBC Dr. Charles Kerr Distinguished Scholar in Cardiovascular Genetics and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Health Professional Investigator Award.
Dr. Laksman’s research focus is on the genetic basis for diseases of the heart muscle, heart rhythm, and sudden cardiac death. An element of Dr. Laksman’s work involves using a stem cell model and growing heart cells in a dish. In doing so, Dr. Laksman’s laboratory can model an individual patient’s specific disease, apply medicines to it, and study the cause of the disease and the effect of treatment.
Dr. Laksman will make a presentation about his active research, discuss his training background and how he combines clinical work and research, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 27 January 2020
Invited speaker: Dr. Thalia Field
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (Neurology), UBC
Postgraduate Fellowship Program Director and Co-director of Research, Vancouver Stroke Program.
Dr. Field is a stroke neurologist with research interests in clinical trials, thrombosis, and patient-centered post-stroke outcomes including cognition, pain and quality of life. She has a particular interest in process improvement in clinical trials, which includes optimizing strategies for participant recruitment and retention, investigating strategies for efficient use of resources, and selecting outcomes that are of relevance to patients. She is also investigating the role of technology in meeting these challenges, including the use of telemedicine for remote recruitment and assessment of study participants, and the use of artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency in trials by enriching trial populations, automating components of participant assessments, and helping to identify important patient-centred outcomes.
Title of talk: “Time, space and rejection – upsides of the inescapable”
Date: 18 November 2019
Invited speaker: Dr. Keith Walley
Professor, Department of Medicine (Critical Care Medicine), UBC
Dr. Keith Walley received his MD from the University of Manitoba in 1981, trained in Internal Medicine at McGill University, and subsequently trained in Critical Care Medicine at the University of Chicago. He has been a practicing Intensivist at St. Paul’s Hospital ICU and investigator at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation since 1988. The focus of Dr. Walley’s research is to investigate 1) the mechanism of decreased left ventricular contractility and other organ failure during sepsis and 2) the impact of genotype on patient outcomes in sepsis and systemic inflammatory states. Dr. Walley translates basic discoveries into clinical practice in the ICU. Together with Drs. Russell and Boyd, he recently demonstrated that blocking the function of PCSK9, an enzyme that inhibits the clearance of endogenous cholesterol from blood, is associated with increased pathogen clearance via the LDL-receptor, a decreased inflammatory response, and improved septic shock outcome. This important discovery facilitated the emergence of anti-PCSK9 therapies as one of the most promising treatments for sepsis.
Dr. Walley will share his research and clinician-scientist experience with our group.
Date: 10 June 2019
Invited speaker: Dr. Inna Sekirov
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UBC
Program Head, Mycobacteriology, Public Health Microbiology and Reference Laboratory, BC Centre for Disease Control
Born in Moldova, Dr. Inna Sekirov moved to Vancouver in 1995. She completed her BSc at UBC in Microbiology and Immunology in 2003 and went on to join the UBC MD/PhD Program. Her graduate degree was also in Microbiology, which was clearly becoming a serious obsession of hers. Upon completion of her studies she went on to join the UBC Medical Microbiology Residency Program. Dr. Sekirov graduated from residency in 2017 and was hired by the BCCDC Public Health Laboratory as a Medical Microbiologist and Program Head for the Mycobacteriology Laboratory. Her professional interests lie in the domains of public health, clinical applications of microbial genomics and TB diagnostic methods.
Title of talk: Career in laboratory medicine – from residency to faculty
Date: 26 November 2018
Invited speaker: Dr. Haakon Nygaard
Fipke Professor in Alzheimer’s Research, Faculty of Medicine, UBC
Director, UBC Hospital Clinic for Alzheimer Disease and Related Disorders
To better understand the healthy brain, Dr. Nygaard leads a project to sequence the genomes of centenarians in search for a genetic cause of dementia-free aging. As both a clinician and a scientist, Dr. Nygaard hopes to bridge the gap between basic science and clinical neurology to facilitate novel therapeutic development in Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Nygaard will talk about his clinician-scientist training path and some of his research highlights.
Date: 15 October 2018
Invited speaker: Dr. Blair Leavitt
Professor, Department of Medical Genetics, UBC
Director, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics
Dr. Leavitt is a full Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics & the Department of Medicine, Division of Neurology (Associate) at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Leavitt completed his medical degree at McGill, medical internship at Columbia-Presbyterian, neurology residency at Cornell and Harvard. While in Boston, he completed a basic neuroscience research fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital of Boston. Blair is a consulting neurologist and Director of Research at the UBC Centre for Huntington’s Disease. A scientist and physician, Dr. Leavitt’s time (both clinical and research) is dedicated to developing new treatments for genetic brain disorders such as Huntington’s disease. He also works on other neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Frontotemporal dementia. Dr. Leavitt is currently the Director of the CMMT Transgenic Animal Facility and a founding Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Huntington’s Disease.
Title of talk: “A career in Genetics, Neuroscience and Neurology”
Date: 4 June 2018
Invited speaker: Dr. Scott Tyldesley
Clinical Professor, Department of Surgery (Radiation Oncology), UBC
Provincial Program Lead for Radiotherapy, BC Cancer Agency
Dr. Scott Tyldesley completed school at UBC in 1993 and residency in Radiation Oncology at the BC Cancer Agency in 1998. He went onto a Masters in Public Administration at Queen’s University with a Masters project on needs analysis for radiation oncology from 1998-1999. He has been a staff Radiation Oncologist at the BC Cancer Agency Vancouver Centre since. His areas of expertise include radiation oncology (genitourinary, breast); health policy, health services research and needs assessment. He is a former Michael Smith Foundation Scholar in Health Services Research and has over 120 publications related to oncology. Dr. Tyldesley is a Co- principal investigator on the Canadian Institute of Health Research funded team for Operations Research in Cancer Care, which is a collaboration between clinicians and administrators at the BC Cancer Agency and operations research scientists at the Sauder School of Business at UBC. He is the chair of the BC Cancer Genitourinary Outcomes Unit and former chair of the BC Cancer Breast Cancer Outcomes Unit.
Dr. Tyldesley will share his clinical and research experiences with our group.
Date: 12 March 2018
Invited speaker: Dr. Fidel Vila-Rodriguez
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UBC
Director, Non-Invasive Neurostimulation Therapies Laboratory & Schizophrenia Program
Dr. Fidel Vila-Rodriguez obtained his Medical Degree from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, followed by a Fellowship at the Saint John of God Mental Health Services focusing on Psychiatry and Schizophrenia. After completing the first Fellowship, he obtained a Masters in Neuroscience from the Universitat de Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain. Dr. Vila-Rodriguez moved to Canada and completed a Fellowship at the British Columbia Mental Health and Addiction Services focusing on Severe Mental Disorders as well as a Fellowship at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
As a Clinician-Scientist, Dr. Vila-Rodriguez has a strong interest in conducting translational research that bridges understanding on the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders with the clinical applications of this knowledge. He is particularly interested in applying this strategy to severe mental disorders such as refractory schizophrenia and treatment refractory depression. His clinical practice is actively focused in those most severely afflicted by such conditions, and his research interests are directed at finding novel therapeutic interventions within Non-Invasive Neurostimulation Therapies (NINETs) that can help mitigate the suffering of those with severe and refractory forms of psychosis and depression. He strongly believes that understanding at a mechanistic level how NINETs work is a critical step towards translating this knowledge to clinical practice. More important, translating that knowledge to clinical practice will have a direct, immediate, and positive impact for those who struggle and suffer the most devastating forms of mental disorders.
Title of talk: “Afraid of failing? A [long] account of failures by a clinician-scientist”
Date: 27 November 2017
Invited speaker: Dr. Ben Chew
Associate Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, UBC
Dr. Ben Chew is originally from Duncan, BC, graduated from UBC Medicine in 1998 and completed his urology residency at the University of Toronto in 2003. His fellowship focused on kidney stones and minimally invasive surgery at the University of Western Ontario. He has been on active staff at VCH since July 2006 where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences. Dr. Chew’s research focuses on how kidney stones form and in particular intestinal absorption of minerals that can form kidney stones (calcium and oxalate). His research focuses on genetically modifying bacteria normally used to make yogurt to express a naturally occurring enzyme that breaks down oxalate, thus preventing its absorption into the body where it can combine with calcium to form kidney stones. This novel type of therapy could be administered in yogurt and help patients prevent painful future kidney stone episodes.
Dr. Chew will make a presentation about his active research, discuss his training background and how he combines clinical work and research, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 10 April 2017
Invited speaker: Dr. John Boyd
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (Critical Care Medicine), UBC
Dr. Boyd received his MD from the University of Western Ontario in 1998, trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, and subsequently trained in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at McGill University from 2001-2004. His Postdoctoral Fellowship was at the Meakins Laboratory in Montreal 2004-2005. He is an Intensivist at St. Paul’s Hospital ICU and an investigator at the Institute for Heart + Lung Health.
Dr. Boyd has over 65 peer-review publications and. He has held grants from CIHR, MSFHR, National Sanitorium Association and others. In 2011, he published that the standard clinical method of administering intravenous fluids and inotropes can worsen outcomes for patients with septic shock. he translated this discovery into clinical practice by founding and co-directing a team at St. Paul’s Hospital that now guides these treatments in critically ill patients based on the research-informed use of ultrasound. This program includes the creation of a training program for acute care physicians. He has been gratified at the outcomes from this effort which has led to a 10% improvement in survival in patients presenting with shock. The improvement to patient outcomes h.as resulted in changes to clinical practice, contained in the 2014 Canadian National Critical Care ultrasound guidelines that he co-wrote.
His translational research occurs in collaboration with Dr. Robert Hancock, one of the members of the CIHR SONRIS sepsis network he led. His laboratory is located at St Paul’s Hospital where septic patients consistently rank among the most severely ill in North America. With tools including high throughput sequencing, his results are poised to lead the field in acute meta-genomic research. They have defined a lethal cytokine profile associated with severe sepsis, shown that immune profiling is superior to clinical data in predicting organ failure, and identified a 31 gene endotoxin tolerance profile which predicts subsequent organ failure.
His mechanistic research found that reverse cholesterol transport is the dominant force behind clearance of bacterial toxins from the circulation. This clearance is impaired by the LDL receptor associated molecule PCSK9. This work identified a role for anti-PCSK9-based sepsis treatment and led to co-founding of Cyon Therapeutics Inc. in 2014.
Dr. Boyd co-founded a UBC spin-off company, Cyon Therapeutics with Drs. Jim Russell, John Boyd and Simon Pimstone. This team has discovered, published and submitted patents showing that inhibition of PCSK9 is associated with improved outcomes of sepsis. The team moved from genomics discoveries using their multiple, large well-validated sepsis genomics registries to study natural human mutations of PCSK9 in sepsis, to pre-clinical models of sepsis using PCSK9 knock-out mice and, in separate studies, antibody to PCSK9 and then to human hepatocytes to confirm that inhibition of PCSK9 enhances endotoxin clearance, and mitigates inflammatory response and organ dysfunction in sepsis. Cyon plans to develop a novel PCSK9 inhibitor in sepsis. Cyon has submitted patents internationally regarding PCSK9 inhibition in sepsis.
Dr. Boyd will share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 25 January 2016
Invited speaker: Dr. Torsten Nielsen
Associate Director, MD/PhD Program, UBC
Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UBC
Dr. Torsten Nielsen was born and raised in North Vancouver, BC. He received his B.Sc. from the Department of Biochemistry at UBC in 1991, and graduated from the McGill MD/PhD Program in 1997.
Dr. Nielsen’s active research encompasses two major areas. As director of the Genetic Pathology Evaluation Centre at Vancouver Hospital (working with his close colleagues David Huntsman and Blake Gilks) he leads several active tissue microarray and gene expression profiling projects. A common theme of his work is to make clinical sense out of results from breast cancer and sarcoma basic science investigations, and their translation into diagnostic and predictive tests. As an independent principal investigator, Dr. Nielsen directs his lab in a research program to develop much-needed systemic treatments for sarcomas, particularly synovial sarcoma and myxoid liposarcoma, neoplasms most commonly occurring in the limbs of young adults, and to develop practical clinical tests for the intrinsic subtyping of breast cancer.
Title of talk: “Bench to bedside development of the Prosigna test for breast cancer molecular risk”
Date: 16 November 2015
Invited speaker: Dr. Michael Seidman
Acting Director, Cardiovascular Tissue Registry & Research Histology, Centre for Heart Lung Innovation, Providence Health Care & UBC
Dr. Michael Seidman is soon to be a member of the clinical faculty of Providence Health Care and UBC, focusing on clinical care, education, and research relating to cardiovascular pathology. He was recruited to UBC in 2013 specifically to take on a role in the Cardiovascular Tissue Registry. Dr. Seidman has training in vascular biology, immunology, molecular biology, genetics, and anatomic pathology.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Dr. Seidman grew up in suburban Baltimore, in suburban Chicago, Illinois, in Richmond, Indiana, and in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Cornell University and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences. His undergraduate research was split between two laboratories, one focused on molecular biology and molecular genetics and the other working on the cell biology of viral gene therapy vectors. He was the recipient of the Goldwater Scholarship of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program.
Dr. Seidman spent a year in Cambridge, England, studying as a Churchill Scholar of the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States. He completed a Master of Philosophy degree in Physiology, working on peptide phage display to identify drug targeting ligands. Returning to the States, Dr. Seidman undertook studies in the NIH funded Medical Scientist Training Program at the Weill Cornell / Rockefeller / Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD/PhD Program in New York City. Completing a thesis relating to the genetics and cell biology of leukocyte migration, Dr. Seidman earned his PhD in Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis. Upon completion of his MD, Dr. Seidman initiated a residency in Anatomic Pathology at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Dr. Seidman also conducted subspecialty training in Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Pathology and in Molecular Genetic Pathology, as well as spending a term serving as the Chief Resident. During this time, Dr. Seidman’s academic efforts were focused on translational studies aimed at improving diagnostic understanding of non-neoplastic disease.
Dr. Seidman’s work is a good example of 50-50 split, involving both translational and collaborative research, and he would be happy to share how and why he reached that point.
Date: 28 September 2015
Invited speaker: Dr. Janessa Laskin
Medical Oncologist and Senior Scientist, BC Cancer Agency
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, UBC
Dr. Janessa Laskin is a Medical Oncologist and Senior Scientist at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at UBC. Dr. Laskin completed her medical training including a Fellowship in Medical Oncology at UBC, and also completed a Thoracic Oncology Clinical Research Fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical School in Nashville, TN. She joined the staff at the BC Cancer Agency in 2003.
Dr. Laskin is particularly interested in the treatment of people with thoracic malignancies, particularly lung cancer. Dr. Laskin enjoys the clinical aspect of managing and treating patients and she blends this with a clinical research interest. She is actively involved in initiating research projects, which includes writing protocols, gathering data, analyzing and presenting the results. The next generation of therapy for lung cancer involves an integration of molecularly targeted agents designed to interfere with the growth and proliferation of cancer cells specifically. These projects have many correlative elements with the basic sciences that are exciting and promising.
Dr. Laskin will share with us the story of her career path – evolution of an oncologist.
Date: 22 June 2015
Invited speaker: Dr. Liam Brunham
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, UBC
Dr. Liam Brunham is a graduate of the UBC MD/PhD Program. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at UBC and a Principal Investigator at the Centre for Heart and Lung Innovation. Dr. Brunham completed his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Michael Hayden in Medical Genetics and was awarded the Governor’s General’s gold medal, the most prestigious award offered to graduating doctoral students at Canadian Universities. Dr. Brunham is a general internist with a focus on clinical lipidology and is an attending physician at the Health Heart Program Prevention clinic at St. Paul’s hospital, one of the largest specialty lipid clinics in Canada.
Dr. Brunham’s research focuses on understanding how changes in specific genes contribute to differences in drug-response as well as to alterations in plasma lipid levels and their relationship to metabolic and cardiovascular disease. His laboratory uses cutting-edge approaches in human genetics including genome-wide association studies and next-generation sequencing to investigate the role of genetic variation in these phenotypes. His laboratory also uses genome-editing tools and stem-cell based cellular models to dissect the functional impact of genetic variants and investigate molecular mechanisms underlying adverse drug reactions.
Title of talk: “Negotiating your first faculty position”
Date: 27 April 2015
Invited speaker: Dr. Nadia Khan
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (General Internal Medicine), UBC
Dr. Khan is a clinician researcher and general internist at St. Paul’s Hospital and scientific member of the Center for Health Evaluation and Outcomes Sciences (CHEOS). Her central motivation is aimed at providing acute and chronic disease management for vulnerable populations. Through these activities she is member of a number of research teams including the Ethnicity Optimal Health Outcomes (ETHOS) team, an Executive Board Member of Hypertension Canada and sits on the scientific advisory board for the South Asian Health Institute.
Having completed a medical degree at the University of Alberta with Honors in research, Dr. Khan completed a general internal medicine fellowship at the University of Calgary, followed by a MSc in Community Health Sciences (Epidemiology) at the University of Calgary where she was mentored by one of Canada’s leading researchers, Dr. William Ghali. This strong foundation has helped Dr. Khan build her research career, with over 100 publications her work has recently been featured in the Vancouver Sun, OMNI television, and Editor’s choice for BMJ Heart in 2012. Dr. Khan is currently leading in a multinational ethnicity acute coronary syndrome study recruiting almost 2000 patients in Canada, China and India.
Dr. Khan will talk about her life stories and her success in her career.
Date: 12 January 2015
Invited speaker: Dr. Paul Yong
Assistant Professor, Divisions of Gynaecologic Specialties and Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility, Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, UBC
Consultant Gynaecologist, Vancouver General Hospital
Research Director, BC Women’s Centre for Pelvic Pain & Endometriosis
Dr. Paul Yong is a graduate of the UBC MD/PhD Program, and completed a Residency in Obstetrics & Gynaecology followed by a Clinical Fellowship in Endometriosis, Pelvic Pain & Advanced Laparoscopic Surgery. Dr. Yong is a Consultant Gynaecologist at Vancouver General Hospital, Research Director at the BC Women’s Centre for Pelvic Pain & Endometriosis, and an Assistant Professor in the UBC Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.
Dr. Yong’s clinical interests are in the surgical and multidisciplinary management of endometriosis and dyspareunia. His research program is focused on the pathophysiology of endometriosis dyspareunia, ranging from psychological, anatomic, cellular, and genomic factors, and was recently funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Title of talk: “10 years after the MD/PhD program: Transition to faculty”
Date: 17 November 2014
Invited speaker: Dr. Adeera Levin
Professor, Department of Medicine, UBC
Head, Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, UBC
Executive Director, BC Provincial Renal Agency
President-elect, International Society of Nephrology
Dr. Adeera Levin is a Professor of Medicine, Head Division of Nephrology at the University of British Columbia, and Consultant nephrologist at Providence Health Care/ St Paul’s Hospital, in Vancouver Canada. She is the Executive Director of the BC Renal Agency, which oversees the care, planning and budgets for Kidney services in the province of British Columbia. In this capacity, she has leveraged her epidemiological training, clinical knowledge and health outcomes research to develop an evidence-based transparent system which enhances the care of patients across the continuum of care (from identification of CKD through to dialysis, transplant and death).
Dr. Levin is active in international activities across the spectrum of kidney activities, and has served as Secretary General of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN), and is now President Elect of ISN. Her major research areas of interest include non traditional risk factors for CVD in CKD patients, (with particular focus on anemia, phosphate and vitamin D, and progression of CKD variability) as well as models of care. She has 268 peer reviewed publications, numerous book chapters, and has co-edited a textbook on CKD.
Dr. Levin has received numerous teaching and research awards from local and national groups. In 2013, she was awarded the Canadian Society of Nephrology Outstanding Contributions to Canadian Nephrology, and 2014 was awarded the Kidney Foundation Research Medal of Excellence, and inducted as a fellow into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. She serves on numerous editorial boards and reviews for major kidney and medicine journals. She is the Principal Investigator on a large cohort study CAN-PREDDICT, and holds numerous peer reviewed grants. She collaborates with investigators across Canada and internationally. She is the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the new Canadian Journal of Kidney Health & Disease.
Dr. Levin will share with us her research, clinical work, and experiences.
Date: 16 June 2014
Invited speaker: Dr. David Scott
Clinician-scientist, Centre for Lymphoid Cancer, BC Cancer Agency
Dr. David Scott is a recently appointed clinician-scientist at the Centre for Lymphoid Cancer, BC Cancer Agency. Dr. Scott undertook his MBChB/PhD training in Auckland, New Zealand prior to fellowship training in Hematology and Pathology. He came to Vancouver in 2010 as a research and clinical fellow in the Centre for Lymphoid Cancer. His research focus is biomarker development in lymphoid cancers and understanding treatment failure in these diseases.
Dr. Scott will make a presentation about his research, discuss his training background and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 28 April 2014
Invited speaker: Dr. David K.B. Li
Professor, Department of Radiology, UBC
Dr. David Li is Professor of Radiology and Associate Member in Neurology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Director of the UBC MS/MRI Research Group. He was formerly Head of Radiology at the UBC Hospital and Interim Head, Department of Radiology, University of British Columbia. After obtaining his medical degree and radiology residency at UBC, which included additional training in nuclear medicine at Harvard Medical School and body CT at University of California (San Francisco), he did postgraduate studies in MRI at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (London). His primary research interest is the application of MR techniques in the study of patients with multiple sclerosis.
In addition to talking about his active research, Dr. Li will also talk about his training background and how he combines teaching, clinical work and research, and share his experiences and opinions on career development options for clinician-scientists.
Date: 27 January 2014
Invited speaker: Dr. Desmond Nunez
Head, Division of Otolaryngology, Department of Surgery, UBC
Dr. Desmond Nunez started as Head of the Division of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery and Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of British Columbia in January 2012. Dr. Nunez’s interest in head and neck surgery were affirmed by a medical student elective attachment to Dr. Harvey Tucker, one of the then doyens of laryngeal surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. A 4th year clerkship under the supervision of Dr. Lennox Jordan Senior Lecturer in Social & Preventative Medicine at the University of the West Indies (UWI), introduced him to the excitement of clinical data collection and statistics.
Dr. Nunez undertook postgraduate surgical and research training in the United Kingdom after completing his MB BS (UWI) degree and a one year rotating internship in the Bahamas. This included training in emergency medicine, paediatric and general surgery in addition to otolaryngology. Registrar training was followed by a Research fellowship and a Clinical Tutor in Otolaryngology appointment at the University of Leeds where he developed a range of bench research skills in Professor Michael Wells’ laboratory. He was awarded the Doctor of Medicine (MD, equivalent to a PhD) by the University of Leicester for his thesis “The prevalence of human papilloma viruses in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma a polymerase chain reaction investigation”. Senior registrar (fellowship equivalent) training in Nottingham and Leicester and fellowships at centres in London, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco culminated clinical training.
The training in education Dr. Nunez gained during his University of Leeds appointment provided the basis for making major undergraduate and postgraduate contributions in his career postings first as Consultant and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and University of Aberdeen and then at the University of Bristol and North Bristol NHS Trust. These included the establishment of the East of Scotland Otolaryngology specialist Registrar Training Committee and restructuring of medical student education and assessment at the Universities of Aberdeen and Bristol.
Dr. Nunez has authored over 100 peer reviewed original articles, abstracts, and textbook contributions spanning basic science, clinical research and educational material aimed at otolaryngologists, allied clinicians, scientists, postgraduate trainees and medical students, the latter most recently exemplified by ‘The Essential Clinical Handbook for ENT surgery’ published in September 2013. He has served on surgery in general and otolaryngology examination boards of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh, England, Glasgow and Ireland. He is an assistant editor of the Journal of Laryngology and Otology and a peer-reviewer for several journals, publishers and grant funding bodies.
Title of talk: “Otolaryngology head and neck surgery – an academic view”
Date: 7 October 2013
Invited speaker: Dr. Lynn Raymond
Director, MD/PhD Program, UBC
Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UBC
Dr. Raymond is a Professor in the UBC Department of Psychiatry and Brain Research Centre, and an Associate member of the Department of Medicine, Division of Neurology. She completed an MD/PhD degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, followed by Neurology residency and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore. She continues to practice Neurology, with specialization in Huntington disease, in addition to heading a basic science laboratory. She serves as Director of the Medical Clinic at the UBC Centre for Huntington Disease, as well as Director of the UBC MD/PhD Program.
The Raymond lab is interested in molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic dysfunction and selective neuronal vulnerability in neurodegenerative disease. The focus is on the role of altered NMDA-type glutamate receptor signaling in striatal and cortical neurons, especially in mouse models of Huntington disease. Recent publications from the lab demonstrate that the balance of extrasynaptic to synaptic NMDA receptor activity is altered early in striatal neurons in the YAC128 HD mouse model, and that the use-dependent, extrasynaptic NMDA receptor-selective antagonist memantine normalizes this altered signaling, improving motor learning and expression of the pro-survival transcriptional regulator, phosphorylated CREB. Current studies focus on exploring the mechanisms underlying NMDA receptor mis-localization, and consequences for synaptic plasticity and survival/death signaling, in striatal neurons of YAC128 HD mice.
Title of talk: “Combining neurology practice with basic neuroscience research: Huntington disease as a model”.
Date: 6 May 2013
Invited speaker: Dr. Evelyn Stewart
Associate Professor, Division of Clinical & Behavioural Neurosciences, Department of Psychiatry, UBC
Senior Clinician Scientist, Child & Family Research Institute
Dr. Evelyn Stewart is the Founding Director of the Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Clinic and Research Program at B.C. Children and Women’s Health Centre. She is a clinical, genetic and neuroscience researcher, as well as a child and adult psychiatrist. Her research focuses on genomic, phenotypic, and treatment aspects of childhood-onset neuropsychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Dr. Stewart has authored over 50 original papers, reviews and chapters on genetic, clinical, and treatment aspects of OCD, Tourette’s Disorder, and related illnesses. She sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the International OCD Foundation, on the Medical Advisory Board of the Tourette Syndrome Association and is Co-director of the International OCD Foundation Genetics Collaborative.
Dr. Stewart will share her story on how she was able to build a successful career and balance the demands of clinical work and research.
Date: 28 January 2013
Invited speaker: Dr. Graeme Boniface
Chief Operating Officer, Vancouver Prostate Centre
Chief Operating Officer, PC-TRiADD
Dr. Graeme Boniface joined the Prostate Centre in 2008 as COO, after more than 20 years in drug development in both the academic and private industry sectors. Most recently he was Senior Director of Clinical Research at QLT Inc. where he oversaw the clinical development of the company’s drug platform in Oncology, Urology, Dermatology, and Endocrinology indications. Trials conducted by his team have led to successful regulatory marketing approvals by the US FDA, Canadian, and European agencies.
Title of talk: “Translational research, the academic: Industry interface”
Date: 5 November 2012
Invited speaker: Dr. Jeffrey Brubacher
Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, UBC
Scientists, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation
Scholar, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research
Dr. Jeffrey Brubacher focuses his research on injury prevention with a special interest in drug impaired driving, substance abuse and injury, and patient safety in the emergency department.
Dr. Brubacker will give a talk on his research experience and his clinical work.
Date: 16 April 2012
Invited speaker: Dr. David Ansley
Clinical Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics, UBC
Dr. David Ansley is a clinician scientist with 25 years experience in clinical care, research and teaching. His area of specialization is cardiac anaesthesiology.
Research in Dr. Ansley’s group has mainly centred on patient oriented, translational clinical investigation of anesthetic mediated cardioprotection. Dr. Ansley has been principle investigator funded from competitive sources such as Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) and Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society (CAS). He has collaborated with other research groups at UBC, and at national and international levels in multicentre studies of perioperative myocardial ischemia and blood conservation strategies for cardiac surgery. He has more than 100 published manuscripts, abstracts and conference proceedings. He is an invited reviewer for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society, and he is a sought after reviewer for nearly one dozen scientific journals.
In addition to talking about his research, Dr. Ansley will also talk about his experiences and opinions on career development options for clinician-scientists.
Date: 12 December 2011
Invited speaker: Dr. Steven Miller
Canada Research Chair in Neonatal Neuroscience
Scholar, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research
Senior Clinician Scientist, Child & Family Research Institute
Associate Professor, Division of Neurology, Department of Pediatrics, UBC
The focus of the neonatal neurology research group is to better understand brain development and injury in the newborn. Using advanced magnetic resonance (MR) techniques and bedside brain monitoring we study how white matter injury and systemic illness affects brain development in critically ill newborns. A better understanding of the factors that impact brain development and injury will allow us to directly improve the neurodevelopmental outcome of high-risk newborns.
Neurodevelopmental impairments are common in newborns delivered prior to term age and in newborns with heart birth defects, and result in a large burden of long-term disability. White matter injury, abnormal brain development and systemic illness are interrelated abnormalities that commonly follow preterm birth or heart birth defects, with focal non-cystic white matter injury being the characteristic pattern of brain injury. Though focal non-cystic white matter injury is associated with diffuse abnormalities of motor and cognitive function, how this happens is unknown. Systemic illness (e.g. infection) and therapy (e.g. steroids) may also be associated with diffuse abnormalities of motor and cognitive function.
Dr. Miller will make a presentation about his active research and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 24 October 2011
Invited speaker: Dr. Stephen Yip
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UBC
BC Cancer Agency, Centre for Translational and Applied Genomics, Vancouver Cancer Centre, BCCA
Dr. Stephen Yip obtained his combined MD-PhD degree at UBC in 1999. His PhD thesis, under the supervision of Julia Levy, was on the use of a photosensitizer for the purging of contaminating leukemic cells in autologous bone marrow transplantations. He was then accepted into the neurosurgery training program at VGH and completed four years of residency training before switching to the neuropathology program at VGH and obtained his FRCPC certification in 2006. Next, he completed two years of Royal College-funded research fellowship in molecular neuro-oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital under the supervision of David Louis. Dr. Louis, chief of pathology at MGH, through his description and characterization of 1p19q chromosomal loss in oligodendroglioma, propelled the field of molecular diagnostics in neuro-oncology. His research was focused on the molecular characterizations of recurrent glioblastomas specifically somatic mutations in the mismatch repair gene MSH6. He then completed fellowship training in molecular genetics pathology at Harvard Medical School under the supervision of John Lafrate at MGH. This one year clinical training consisted of rotations in different clinical molecular diagnostic laboratories affiliated with Harvard Medical School. He was exposed to different advanced molecular diagnostic techniques and was involved in trouble-shooting clinical molecular diagnostic problems.
Dr. Yip returned to Vancouver in 2009 and is physically located at BCCA Vancouver Cancer Centre. His clinical appointment is to provide clinical molecular diagnostics and neuropathology signouts. He is also affiliated with the Centre for Translational and Applied Genomics (CTAG) and involved in the developments of novel molecular diagnostic assays. His current research interests are in the genomic and epigenomic profiling of cancers especially primary brain tumours, taking advantage of the local expertise at the Genome Sciences Centre, BCCRC, and CTAG. Currently he is using 2nd generation sequencing technology to study oligodendroglioma, ependymoma, chordoma as well as meningioma. Ultimately he wants to take novel genomic/epigenomic discoveries to the clinic – by developing clinical molecular assays and then be used to better stratify cancer patients and to identify those that might respond to novel molecular targeting agents. He is also associated with the development of BrainCare, a local effort to develop multidisciplinary seamless care for brain tumour patients in this province and also in the establishment of a local neuro-oncology research network which includes the development of a brain tumour tissue bank. He is the course director for Oncology 502 (Concepts in Oncology) that is offered under the Interdisciplinary Oncology Program (IOP) and is a member of the IOP executive committee as well as the UBC MD/PhD admission and advisory committee.
Dr. Yip strongly believes in the integration of molecular genetics with clinical pathology and the rapid translation of cancer genomic discoveries in medicine.
Title of talk: “Next generation sequencing – principles, practice, and translational applications in medicine”
Date: 18 April 2011
Invited speaker: Chris Sibley
MD/PhD Trainee, University of Calgary
Chris Sibley completed his Bachelor and Masters degrees at McMaster University in the Department of Biology under the tutelage of Dr. Turlough Finan. His PhD training was carried out at the University of Calgary in the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases with the mentorship of Dr. Michael Surette. This work primarily focused on studying the complex airway infections in cystic fibrosis patients, which emphasized the translational benefit of studying human-associated microbial communities with a personalized approach to bench-to-bedside research. He recently received the Cangene Gold Medal Award for the Canadian Graduate Student of the Year for his doctoral work. Throughout his training he has received funding from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the University of Calgary Leaders in Medicine Program. Chris is currently in the second year of his MD degree and the seventh year of the MD/PhD Program at the University of Calgary.
Title of talk: “Culture enriched molecular profiling of the cystic fibrosis airway microbiome”
Date: 17 January 2011
Invited speaker: Dr. Jason Barton
Professor, and Canada Research Chair, Department of Medicine (Neurology), UBC and Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, UBC
Director, Clinical Neuro-ophthalmology, UBC
Director, Human Vision and Eye Movement Laboratory, UBC
Dr. Jason Barton is a visual cognitive neuroscientist and a clinical neuro-ophthalmologist. He obtained his MD from the University of British Columbia in 1984 and his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1996, for studies of the cerebral processing of motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements. He was assistant and associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School until September 2004 when he returned to the University of British Columbia as Professor and Canada Research Chair. He has received the Francis McNaughton Award from the Canadian Neurological Sciences Federation, the Young Investigator Award from the North American Neuro-ophthalmological Society, and the Norman Geschwind Prize in Behavioural Neurology from the American Academy of Neurology. The Human Vision and Eye Movement Laboratory is focused on understanding high-level visual processing and cognitive control of saccadic responses, using behavioural, functional neuroimaging, and neuropsychological studies in healthy and clinical populations. In object recognition, the lab has contributed significantly to our knowledge of face recognition processes and structure-function correlations in prosopagnosia and described the new condition of developmental topographic disorientation. In eye movements it has defined the modulatory effects of task-switching, described the nature of historical and expectation-based influences on antisaccade programming and their anatomic correlates, and shown how these are altered in schizophrenia and autism.
In addition to talking about his active research, Dr. Barton will also talk about his training background and how he combines teaching, clinical work and research, and share his experiences and opinions on career development options for clinician-scientists.
Date: 20 December 2010
Invited speaker: Dr. Intan Schrader
Alumnus, Clinician Investigator Program, UBC
Dr. Intan Schrader was born in Melbourne, Australia, however grew up here in Vancouver, BC. After a semester at UBC, she returned to Australia to study medicine at the University of Melbourne and commenced a six and a half year commute to Australia. Having completed her medical degree, she returned to Canada in 2004 to begin her residency in Medical Genetics and has thus far completed her third year of clinical training. In 2007 she was accepted into the Clinician Investigator Program where she began graduate studies in the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. Dr. Schrader has been investigating the association of germline mutations in the E-cadherin gene with lobular breast cancers under the mentorship of Dr David Huntsman at the BC Cancer Agency.
Title of talk: “A family’s tie between bones and blindness; insight through next-generation sequencing”
Date: 18 October 2010
Invited speaker: Dr. Don Sin
Professor, Department of Medicine, UBC
Canada Research Chair in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease (COPD)
Senior Scholar, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research
Head of Respiratory Medicine at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver
Dr. Don Sin is a Professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC), a Canada Research Chair in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and a Senior Scholar with the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR). He is also the site head of Respiratory Medicine at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.
Dr. Sin is the only sitting Canadian member of the international Global initiative for chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) scientific committee and has authored more than 180 peer-review articles.
His main research focus is to discover novel biomarkers to improve the care and diagnosis of patients with COPD and to better understand how lung inflammation leads to cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer in men and women.
Dr. Sin would be delighted to talk to the students about a future career as an academic internist. Title of talk: “Why you should choose UBC internal medicine program for your residency?”
Date: 12 April 2010
Invited speaker: Dr. Poul Sorensen
Johal Chair in Childhood Cancer Research
Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UBC
Senior Scientist, BC Cancer Research Centre
Dr. Poul Sorensen undertook his undergraduate, medical, and PhD degrees at UBC. After completing postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, he returned to UBC in 1993 to start his own laboratory.
Dr. Sorensen is currently the Johal Chair in Childhood Cancer Research, based at UBC/BC Cancer Agency. His research focuses on the aberrant signaling pathways that are involved in the development of childhood and breast cancers. The pathways responsible for these changes in childhood tumours have not received as much attention as their counterparts in cancers that tend to affect adults. However, Dr. Sorensen’s laboratory has identified numerous proteins that are specifically altered in a range of childhood cancers, and is in the process of determining how these molecules transmit the signals that cause cells to become cancerous. This will allow rapid implementation of strategies to target these proteins therapeutically, which is already underway.
Dr. Sorensen will make a presentation about his active research, discuss his training background and how he combines clinical work and research, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 7 December 2009
Invited speaker: Dr. Sam Wiseman
Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, UBC
Dr. Sam Wiseman graduated from medical school at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and also completed his residency training in General Surgery at the same institution, obtaining his Fellowship in Surgery from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 2000. He subsequently moved to Buffalo New York where he spent three years in subspecialty fellowship training at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI). At RPCI he completed an American Head and Neck Society Advanced Training Council approved Head & Neck Surgery Fellowship, a Society of Surgical Oncology approved Surgical Oncology Fellowship, and an oncology research fellowship that was focused on studying the molecular biology of cancer. After completing his training Dr. Wiseman joined the staff at St. Paul’s Hospital in 2003 and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of British Columbia.
Dr. Wiseman’s surgical practice is concentrated on the treatment of thyroid tumors and parathyroid disease, he still also carries out other cancer surgeries (such as sentinel node biopsy and lymph node dissection), and General Surgery operations (such as laparoscopic cholecystectomy and hernia repair). While his clinical and basic research are especially focused on thyroid and parathyroid disease, Dr. Wiseman has also continued to study other human cancer types in the laboratory including; breast, colon, rectal, and lung cancers. His research has taken a translational approach, or applied new knowledge/discoveries learned in the laboratory to address important clinical diagnostic, prognostic and treatment questions. Dr. Wiseman has many research collaborators (both clinicians and scientists) and is involved in the training and supervision of many undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students.
Dr. Wiseman has published many clinical and scientific research papers and his research has been presented at countless meetings locally, nationally and internationally, and has been recognized with many honours and awards. In 2005 Dr. Wiseman was the first surgeon in the history of British Columbia to receive the prestigious Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award. In 2007 Dr, Wiseman was selected from surgeons world-wide to receive the prestigious American College of Surgeons Travelling Fellowship to Japan. In 2008 Dr. Wiseman was a recipient of a Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award — a prestigious national award program that annually honours 40 Canadians in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors under the age of 40.
Throughout his career Dr. Wiseman has contributed to his profession and society in many different ways (other than clinical, research, and teaching contributions) including serving as a reviewer and editor for many medical journals, acting as a grant reviewer for several granting agencies, member of the Executive Council of the British Columbia Cancer Agency Surgical Oncology Network, department of surgery representative for the University of British Columbia Clinical Investigator Program, Director of Research for General Surgery at St. Paul’s Hospital, and Director of Research for General Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the University of British Columbia.
Dr. Wiseman will make a presentation about his active research, discuss his training background and how he combines teaching, clinical work and research, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 5 October 2009
Invited speaker: Dr. Jane Buxton
Physician Epidemiologist, BC Centre for Disease Control
Associate Professor, School of Population & Public Health, UBC
Dr. Jane Buxton received her medical degree from the University of London, UK. Dr. Buxton completed an MHSc and FRCPC in Community Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Buxton is a Physician Epidemiologist at the BC Centre for Disease Control. She is also an Assistant Professor and Director of the Community Medicine Residency Program (2001-2008) in the School of Population & Public Health at UBC. Her areas of interest include: communicable disease control, outbreak investigation, breast cancer risk, hepatits A, B and C, transfusion transmissible diseases, illicit drug use epidemiology and harm reduction, and social context of health behaviour.
Dr. Buxton will make a presentation about her active research, discuss her training background and how she combines clinical work and research, and share her advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 6 April 2009
Invited speaker: Dr. Ken Bassett
Professor, Family Practice, Anaesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, UBC
Associate member, School of Population & Public Health, Anthropology & Sociology, UBC
Chair, Drug Assessment Work Group, Therapeutics Initiative, UBC
Director, BC Centre for Epidemiologic and International Ophthalmology
Dr. Bassett directs the Drug Assessment Working Group of the Therapeutics Initiative, in the Department of Anaesthesiology Pharmacology and Therapeutics at UBC. He serves on the Canadian Expert Drug Advisory Committee, the principal committee of the Common Drug Review program which is designed to centrally review all newly approved prescription drugs in Canada. Supported by the UBC Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. Bassett maintains an international teaching program (health services methods, epidemiology & anthropology) focused the prevention and treatment of blindness in Tibet, Tanzania, Nepal, India and Egypt. As Director of the BC Centre for Epidemiologic and International Opthalmology, UBC, he works closely with eye care program methods, data management, and report production.
Dr. Bassett’s research focuses on the systematic review of drug therapy and drug funding policy. He has received recognition for his skill in the critical appraisal of drug therapies, and has considerable background in the practical issues impacting public plan formularies. He is also conducting several pharmaco-epidemiologic studies of serious adverse events associated with prescription drug therapy in British Columbia and Ontario.
Dr. Bassett is a practicing physician with a PhD in medical anthropology from McGill University. He will make a presentation about his active research, discuss his training background and how he combines clinical work and research, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 1 December 2008
Invited speaker: Dr. Dianne Miller
Associate Professor and Division Head, Gynaecologic Oncology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, UBC
Dr. Dianne Miller is the Division Head of Gynaecologic Oncology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of British Columbia. She is also the Provincial Gynaecology Tumour Group Chair for the Province of British Columbia. Dr. Miller obtained her BSc. in Microbiology and Immunology at UBC in 1976, her MD at UBC in 1980. She then interned at the Toronto Western Hospital prior to working as a Family Doctor in Yellowknife NWT. In 1988, Dr. Miller completed her Royal College certification in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at UBC. This was followed by completion of a Royal College Fellowship in Gynaecologic Oncology in Toronto in 2000. Dr. Miller has been employed at BCCA/UBC since that time. Dr. Miller is actively involved in both clinical trials and in collaborations with translational and basic scientists. She is particularly interested in looking potential screens for early diagnosis and in targeted therapies.
Dr. Miller will make a presentation about her active research, discuss her training background and how she combines clinical work and research, and share her advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 12 May 2008
Invited speaker: Dr. Peter Rieckmann
Professor, UBC Department of Medicine (Neurology)
Director, Multiple Sclerosis Program at Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and UBC
Regional Director (Pacific Northwest), endMS National Research and Training Network
Dr. Peter Rieckmann is a renowned clinician scientist and international expert in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and neuroimmunology. Treating and studying multiple sclerosis as a multidimensional disease and bringing more recognition to the impact of MS on patients are cornerstones of his vision.
Dr. Rieckmann’s research is focussed on the pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis and related diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). This includes regulation of immune cells, functional aspects of the blood brain barrier and extended phenotype/genotype interaction during the course of disease. Multiple sclerosis is still a leading course for permanent disability in young adults. An imbalance of auto-aggressive immune reactions and impaired endogenous repair mechanisms is one likely explanation, but we still do not completely understand the relevant components and their interactions in this scenario.
Studying disease modifying genes in MS, his research group identified co-stimulatory molecules, like CTLA-4 and PD-1 as potential candidates having an impact on the course of the disease. The neurotrophic factor, CNTF, was demonstrated to be associated with better recovery after attacks and in the EAE model was associated with better outcome and less axonal damage. Currently, Dr. Rieckmann’s research is orchestrated around the blood brain barrier – the important interphase between immune system and CNS. His research group has identified specific genes in cerebro-endothelial cells as mediators of immune cell migration and potential modulator of regenerative processes within the brain.
Dr. Rieckmann will make a presentation about his active research, discuss his training background and how he combines clinical work and research, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 10 March 2008
Invited speaker: Dr. Rusung Tan
Professor, UBC Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Head, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, BC Children’s and Women’s Hospital
Dr. Rusung Tan was raised in the Okanagan Valley and finished high school at Vernon Senior Secondary. He completed a B.Sc. (Honours) in Physiology (1982) and an MD (1986) at the University of British Columbia. Following an internship at St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal, his medical career has been varied. He began by practicing family medicine in Toronto, Northern Ontario and British Columbia before returning for residency training in pathology (Medical Microbiology). He subsequently obtained research training with Professor Hung Sia Teh of the University of B.C. and Professor Andrew McMichael of the University of Oxford, where he completed a Ph.D. Since returning to Vancouver, Dr. Tan has been engaged in academic pathology, teaching and basic research as a medical microbiologist at C&W Hospital.
Dr. Tan’s research interests are in childhood immunity and autoimmunity, particularly the role of T cells, natural killer cells and natural killer T cells in protection from viral infection, and pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes. He is the finder of a novel mutation in the protein responsible for X-linked lymphoproliferative disease (XLP). This discovery solved a longstanding mystery of young male deaths in a large first nations family, led to some basic immunological findings, and has been used for prenatal diagnosis in the family. Clinically, this has led to early cord blood transplantation, and better prognosis.
Dr. Tan will make a presentation about his current research, discuss his background and training, how he incorporates research into his practice alongside his clinical responsibilities, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 21 January 2008
Invited speaker: Dr. Alan So
Assistant Professor, Department of Urologic, UBC
Sciences Research Scientist, Prostate Centre, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
A graduate of the University of Alberta, Dr. Alan So came to the Prostate Centre as a Clinical Fellow in 2002, following completion of his residency at Dalhousie University. He worked with Dr. Martin Gleave on the mechanisms of development of hormone resistance, bone metastasis of prostate cancer, and in the development of novel intravesical therapeutics for bladder cancer.
During his post-doctoral fellowship he has published more than 10 peer-reviewed papers. He is a recipient of many awards, including the Vancouver General Hospital Foundation’s “In It For Life” Clinician Scientist Award, an ASCO “Young Scientist Award”, and a prestigious Michael Smith Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award.
Dr. So’s current research focuses on the study of development of novel therapeutics for bladder cancer and determination of the functional role of GLI1/2 in the progression of prostate cancer to its lethal stage of androgen independence. He has characterized the functional role of different survival genes (including clusterin and Hsp27) in different tumor models (prostate, breast, lung, and bladder) in cancer progression. He is active in clinical trials across Canada and is a member of National Cancer Institute of Canada GU Clinical Trials Group and Canadian Uro-Oncology Group.
Dr. So will make a presentation about his active research, discuss his training background and how he combines clinical work and research, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 19 November 2007
Invited speaker: Dr. Youwen Zhou
Associate Professor, Department of Dermatology & Skin Science, UBC
Director, Chieng Genomics Centre and Laboratory of Predictive Medicine and Therapeutics, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
After completing his Bachelor of Science at Nankai University, China, and his Masters of Science at Tulane University, New Orleans, Dr. Youwen Zhou earned his PhD in Molecular Genetics at the State University of New York, followed by his medical degree at the University of Toronto. He completed his residency in dermatology at the University of British Columbia.
In his clinical practice, Dr. Zhou specializes in medical dermatology, skin oncology and laser skin surgery. He is active in scientific research on melanoma, skin pigmentation, rosacea, hyperhidrosis and psoriasis.
Dr. Zhou will make a presentation about his active research, discuss his training background and how he combines clinical work and research, and share his advice for clinician-scientist trainees.
Date: 22 October 2007
Invited speaker: Dr. Del Dorscheid
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, UBC, The James Hogg iCAPTURE Centre for Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Research
Dr. Del Dorscheid grew up in Alberta, and was the first graduate from the formal combined MD/PhD program at McGill. He graduated from Medicine in 1993, and completed his PhD thesis in Experimental Medicine. He moved onto the University of Chicago where he completed his Internal Medicine residency and subsequently a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, including post-doctoral research with Dr. Steve White. After one year on the Faculty at the University of Chicago, he relocated with his family to Vancouver in 2000 to take a position in Critical Care Medicine at UBC.
Dr. Dorscheid is a member of the Divisions of Critical Care Medicine and Respirology at St. Paul’s Hospital. He attends in the medical intensive care unit at St. Paul’s and is a researcher at the iCAPTURE Centre, leading an active research group investigating inflammatory airway diseases including asthma and ARDS. He is also an MSFHR Scholar.
Dr. Dorscheid will make a presentation on his current research, and discuss his training background and advice for prospective clinical scientists.
Date: 17 September 2007
Invited speaker: Dr. Andrew Weng
Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, UBC
Senior Scientist, Terry Fox Laboratory, BC Cancer Research Centre
Dr. Weng received his PhD and MD degrees at the University of Chicago and joined the UBC faculty in 2005. His research focuses on signal transduction via the Notch receptor in lymphoid cells. By understanding the role of Notch in cancer development, he hopes to develop methods for manipulating Notch activity to shut down the growth of established cancer cells, and perhaps also to prevent it from occurring in the first place.
Dr. Weng has a background in hematopathology, and in addition to talking about his research, he will also talk about his experiences and opinions on career development options for clinician-scientists.