CO2 is a common biological gas that triggers adaptive responses in various organisms. In humans, it’s abundantly produced as a byproduct of oxidative respiration and plays crucial roles in health and disease. For example, elevated CO2 levels can lead to airway constriction and respiratory distress. Additionally, pathogens like Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli use CO2 within the human host as a crucial cue to trigger virulence. Targeting these CO2-dependent responses offers significant potential for therapeutic development. However, understanding the fundamental biochemical mechanisms of CO2 sensing is crucial and remains largely unexplored. A promising mechanism involves CO2 forming a reversible covalent bond with specific protein sites, called Prot-CO2, which acts as a regulatory switch. However, this mechanism is scarcely characterized due to a lack of identification methods. Here, we present a suite of innovative high-throughput techniques for discovering Prot-CO2 sites across the proteome and illuminate their detailed biochemical mechanisms of sensing. By studying CO2 sensing in pathogens and airway constriction, we aim to uncover knowledge that can be used to develop new therapeutic approaches targeting cellular CO2 sensing.
Program: Scholar
Advancing an anti-racist implementation science approach to redress social and mental health inequities
Systemic racism and discrimination drive social and mental health inequities, including intergenerational trauma. People with lived experience of systemic racism and discrimination need to design and lead solutions to redress historical exclusion and bridge the gap between academic research and community needs. This research program fills this need with lived experience leaders co-designing, implementing, and evaluating a community mental health promotion program, and a national health system training program. With a foundation of equitable community-health system-university partnerships, it aims to: 1. adapt, scale, evaluate, and sustain Building Roads Together (BRT), an effective social inclusion and mental health program; 2. advance an anti-racist implementation science approach; 3. build capacity in anti-racist implementation research among academic trainees, early career researchers, and lived experience researchers. This research will: promote social and mental health equity; build anti-racist research capacity; contribute to BC Anti-Racism Act commitments to advance racial equity, and healing for those harmed by systemic racism; and Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy commitment to dismantling systemic racism in health systems.
Amplifying Urban Indigenous Voices in Health Research in British Columbia: Pathways for Culturally Safe Engagement
Urban Indigenous people in British Columbia, representing 78% of the province’s Indigenous population, are largely underserved by health research, which often lacks meaningful engagement, limits their agency, and inadequately represents their diverse Nations, cultures, and lived experiences. This five-year program aims to address these gaps by co-developing scalable, culturally responsive health research governance models that center urban Indigenous perspectives. Guided by Indigenous and Community-Based Participatory Research methodologies rooted in relational accountability, respect, and reciprocity, the program will engage urban Indigenous health leaders, community members, and health researchers through surveys, interviews, sharing circles, and workshops to co-create community-informed pathways for health research engagement. These models will inform future research policies and practices, enhancing the relevance of health research for urban Indigenous populations. Ultimately, this will advance the field by embedding Indigenous perspectives into health research, ensuring that health studies better reflect and serve urban Indigenous communities across BC.
Dynamic Microbe-Interfacing Nanomaterials to Study and Treat Bacterial Biofilm Infections
The majority of bacterial infections grow as biofilms: bacteria surrounded by nanoscale structures made of biomolecules such as DNA, sugars, and proteins. Antibiotics often attach to these sticky nano-architectures and fail to reach their bacteria targets, leading to severe antibiotic resistance. Nanoparticles (NPs) can act as tiny drug carriers that protect drugs within NPs until they reach their targets. However, it is unknown how NPs should be designed to travel within biofilms and deliver antibiotics most effectively. This challenge in designing NPs is compounded by a lack of benchtop biofilm models that represent the biofilm nano-architecture found in infections. My lab develops nanoscale materials such as NPs that have directed bacterial interactions to guide them within the biofilm environment and trigger drug release. This will improve drug efficacy and reduce side effects. We are also developing nanomaterials that mimic the natural biofilm architecture to be used as a new biofilm model that will help us develop next generation nano-therapeutics. By using advanced microscopy and mouse models of infection, we will assess and optimize nanomaterial design to improve antibiotic efficacy and treat resistant biofilm infections.
Improving Wildfire Supports of Rural People with Dementia and Care Partners in Interior British Columbia: Awareness, Needs, and Mitigation Strategies
Wildfires are a growing issue in Canada, especially in British Columbia, where increasing drought is expected to intensify the number of wildfires. Rural older adults with dementia may be highly vulnerable during wildfires due to stress, limited public transportation, and cognitive challenges. However, there is little research that examines wildfire preparedness and dementia. Guided by lived experience, this research program aims to examine wildfire awareness, needs, and actions to support rural older adults with dementia and family care partners in interior British Columbia.
This research program will include three studies that collectively work to improve the wildfire supports of rural people with dementia. Drawing on group discussions and interviews, the findings will provide important information to enhance wildfire preparedness at the individual, community, and policy levels. The findings will be shared using different activities such as journal articles, reports, and community workshops.
Building scalable computational tools to decode molecular processes in cancer, child health, and development
Our bodies contain unique molecular markers that can reveal important information about our health, but analyzing these markers is challenging due to the vast amounts of noisy and complex data. Our research aims to develop new computational tools that make it easier and more cost-effective to interpret these molecular signals, with two main goals: First, we’re creating methods that could be applied to detect cancer earlier through blood tests by detecting fragments of DNA from various organs in the body. Second, we’re studying how environmental factors in early life influence prenatal and long-term health by examining what causes these molecular changes. We will create user-friendly software tools that enable scientists and doctors to analyze molecular data more effectively and affordably. This could lead to better cancer screening tests and help us understand how early-life experiences affect health. We’ll also evaluate how well these tests work in different healthcare settings to ensure they benefit diverse patient populations. Ultimately, our work will advance both cancer detection and our understanding of child development while making cutting-edge molecular analysis more accessible to the research community.
Examining the individual, community, and system-level impacts of innovative mental health and substance use services for youth in British Columbia: a multi-methods research program
In Canada and British Columbia, youth (ages 12-24) struggle to find health care for mental health and substance use concerns, like depression, vaping, and drinking.
In the last ten years, British Columbia has tried to improve access to care for mental health and substance use by launching integrated youth services. These bring together health and social services and providers, such as doctors, nurses, and counselors, that a youth might need in one place. While this might be a promising way to help youth, we do not currently have a lot of research about these services.
The goal of my research is to answer important questions about what impacts these new services are having on youth, communities, and the health care system and how we can improve these services. I will talk to youth, families/caregivers, service providers, and decision makers to hear more about their experiences with these services. I will also compare information, like the number of hospital visits, between youth who access the services and youth who do not access the services. I will work closely with youth, families, service providers, and decision makers so that my research answers the questions that are most important to them.
Non-permanent residents in Canada: An examination of work and health inequities under Canada’s 2025-2027 immigration levels plan
Non-permanent residents (NPRs) comprise 7% of the Canadian population, arriving through numerous immigration programs to fill labour market gaps. The jobs available are typically deskilled, low waged, and do not have the same employment standards and protections as those jobs secured by Canadian-born workers or immigrants arriving through programs granting permanent resident status. As the federal government launches new immigration level plans between 2025-2027 that limits transition pathways of NPRs to permanent residency, this research seeks to explore how immigration policy changes may continue to perpetuate inequities in working conditions, work injury risk, and work disability among non-permanent residents. Specifically, this research will use multiple data sources to examine NPRs lived experience of work and health, with a focus on NPRs arriving on a student visa, work visa or as temporary foreign workers, as they navigate ongoing policy changes and economic (in)security in a new country. Evidence of different experiences will provide actionable insights and priority setting that can inform decision-making in immigration, compensation and health policy to reduce inequities where they may exist.
Profiling tissue metabolism at near-cellular scales with ambient ionization mass spectrometry imaging
Our body is powered by small molecules, called metabolites, that serve as the precursors, intermediates, and products of cellular metabolism. Measuring a comprehensive profile of metabolites helps us understand how tissues function and can give us clues into how diseases impact tissue function. However, traditional methods for studying metabolites in biology involve breaking down tissue samples, which can overlook important details about how metabolites are distributed across different areas within the tissue. This can overlook important unique tissue micro-metabolic regions that may have altered metabolism due to a disease such as cancer. My research program aims to address this gap by developing novel technology that directly maps metabolite distributions in tissue samples. Specifically, we will construct custom metabolite imaging techniques to map cellular metabolism at the cellular scale and apply this technology to explore how altered metabolism in cancer can supress the function of our immune system and limit the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies. Overall, this research program will drive new science at the forefront of health research by providing new and important insights into spatially resolved tissue metabolism.
Understanding the Importance of Health Behaviours in Addressing the Youth Mental Health Crisis: A Longitudinal Perspective
One in five Canadian youth experience mental health problems (e.g., depression) and most youth are not able to access mental health supports, calling for the need to identify accessible and low-cost interventions such as health behaviours (e.g., physical activity). Yet, less than 6% of Canadian youth achieve the recommended Canadian 24-hour guidelines for physical activity, sleep, and sedentary behaviours. We have little information on what helps (or hinders) teens to engage in healthy behaviours at the daily level and how this relates to emotion and mental health, particularly for underrepresented youth. This project addresses research gaps and asks, do health behaviours influence emotion and mood among adolescents (and vice versa)? If so, what are the contexts that optimize this connection? Are associations/contexts similar or different for underrepresented (i.e., racialized, affectional and gender minority) youth? Findings will help us understand how, when, under what conditions, and for whom health behaviours and emotions are related among adolescents. With this information, we can work with teens to develop innovative interventions to promote engagement in health behaviours, and thus mental health, for our Canadian youth.