Since 2016, approximately 1,200 youth in British Columbia (BC) between the ages of 15 and 24 have died from opioid-related overdoses. This has left families and communities to mourn the loss of their loved ones.
These overdose deaths can be avoided by getting youth the help they need, as early as possible. However, most of the currently available help has focused on adults, under the assumption that what works for adults will also work for youth. Unfortunately, research in BC has recently found that this is not the case. Instead, existing options for help do not meet youths’ opioid treatment needs.
The main goal of this study is to determine how to best help youth who use opioids. To meet this objective, we will engage youth, parents/caregivers and service providers in a research study. This study will explore priorities for opioid use treatment delivery. It will also determine how to best define the benefits of opioid use treatment for youth.
The findings of this study will help service providers and policy makers to deliver opioid treatments in a way that will better meet youths’ unique needs. The findings will also help future researchers to make sure that they are studying what matters most to youth.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an inflammatory lung disease that causes respiratory symptoms such as shortness of breath and is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. While COPD affects both males and females, females, in general, have worse symptoms and more COPD complications compared to males. We still do not have a good understanding as to why COPD behaves differently in females versus males. COPD was thought to mainly affect elderly males who were cigarette smokers; thus, most of the research have focused on males rather than females. To shrink this gap in knowledge, it is necessary to include females in biomedical and clinical studies and investigate the biological reasons behind why sex might affect how COPD develops. We hypothesise that some of the genes associated with COPD have different effects on males and females. In this project we will use a patient’s genetic code and how their genes behave to determine sex-specific signatures in their lungs and airways, and then measure how these signatures can predict the development of future COPD. This project can potentially contribute to the improvement of COPD treatment (particularly in females) and to identify new therapeutic targets for COPD.
Mitochondria are factories in our cells that produce energy and building blocks. Constant delivery of proteins, the factory “workers”, to mitochondria from other parts of the cell is important for proper function of these factories. Defects in delivery occurs in many diseases, including diseases involving nerve cell death (neurodegenerative) like Alzheimer’s. It is thus extremely important and timely to gain more knowledge on how cell health is maintained when protein delivery into mitochondria is damaged.
I discovered a new mechanism, the mitochondrial compromised protein import response (mitoCPR), which protects mitochondria and cells when protein delivery is damaged. I showed that such damage leads to proteins getting stuck and clogging entry sites into mitochondria. My research aims to gain a deeper understanding of how the mitoCPR unclogs mitochondria entry sites and helps them recover under disease and physiological conditions. Using molecular biology and advanced technologies such as gene editing, proteomics, and microscopy, my lab will reveal how the cell keeps mitochondria healthy. This research may uncover new treatment strategies for neurodegenerative and other diseases, caused by improper mitochondrial function.
Obesity is one of many chronic conditions that are rising in Canada, with heart disease as the top killer for women. Social inequalities exist in these conditions, but few studies focus on the social causes of obesity in women versus men, or on how social causes reinforce each other.
My research program aims to fill these knowledge gaps so that interventions to prevent and manage chronic conditions can be better designed and more effective. One of my projects is focused on co-developing novel ways to promote heart health among Indigenous women because of the profound burden of CVD in one of Canada’s most marginalised group. A key program goal is to produce strong research evidence to inform public health strategies and interventions for preventive action on obesity, and to build capacity of the next generation of researchers and healthcare providers to further improve health and health equity in Canada, especially BC.
Antibody therapies have revolutionized modern medicine: they offer highly specific and effective treatments, with applications in oncology and rare diseases. The drawback of current antibody therapies is that they are expensive and must be administered intravenously, which limits widespread use. RNA-based gene therapy is a potential way to encode antibodies to make these treatments more universally affordable and accessible. For example, RNA-based gene therapy is used in the leading COVID-19 vaccines because it is easy to produce rapidly and cost-effectively at large scales. While RNA vaccines or protein replacement therapies have been widely investigated, the application to RNA-encoded antibodies is still in the early development phase. The main challenge is delivering sufficient amounts of RNA to target cells and ensuring the duration of antibody expression is therapeutically relevant. We aim to use self-amplifying RNA (saRNA), a type of RNA that replicates itself in cells, to encode antibodies. saRNA results in higher protein expression than normal RNA using a lower dose of RNA. We hypothesize that by optimizing the formulation saRNA will enable a low-cost, easily administered approach to antibody therapy.
Co-lead:
- Armansa Glodjo
BC Children’s Hospital and
Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children
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Team members:
- Yael Mayer
UBC
- Mor Cohen-Eillig
BCCH
- Janice Chan
UBC
- Natasha Kuzyk
UBC
- Ryan Octosa
UBC
- Kathy Xie
Student
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Children’s overuse of screen time has become a pandemic, even more so during COVID-19, as quarantining and social distancing have increased screen time use. Children with autism spectrum disorder are even more vulnerable when it comes to technology use. They spend more time with screens, and they usually choose isolated activities such as watching videos. Extensive use of screens has many harmful effects, including aggressive behaviour, poor management of emotions, sleep problems, obesity, and engagement in risky behaviours. The ways to decrease risks for children with autism are still unknown.
Currently, there aren’t any clear guidelines on managing screen time for parents and clinicians of children with autism. The existing guidelines do not include clear strategies and are based only on studies of typically developing children. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to create clear and applicable screen time guidelines for parents and clinicians of children with autism. We will collaborate with parents and clinicians to develop strategies and recommendations for using screen time properly and decreasing the risks of screen time misuse among children with autism.
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Co-lead:
- Michael McKenzie
BC Cancer
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Team members:
- Leah Lambert
BC Cancer, UBC
- Annette Brown
UBC
- Kelli Stajduhar
UVic
- Stuart Peacock
BC Cancer
- Fuschia Howard
UBC
- Jagbir Kaur
BC Cancer
- Scott Beck
UBC
- Helen McTaggart-Cowan
SFU
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Early diagnosis and timely treatment are vital to ensure the best outcomes for cancer patients. While major advancements have improved cancer outcomes, alarming differences exist for people who experience social and health inequities. Often, people from marginalized populations present with advanced cancers and have challenges accessing care for diagnosis and treatment due to effects of: structural inequities; impacts of racism, discrimination and stigma; and mismatches between usual approaches to care and individuals’ needs.
Through a series of four virtual meetings, we will bring together healthcare providers, operational leaders, community partners and academic experts to reflect on and discuss the ways in which current cancer care practices, policies and systems are contributing to inequities. Meetings will be aimed at discussing health equity and the state of cancer differences in BC to develop a clear understanding of the problem and to identify challenges and opportunities. Our goal is to establish collaborative partnerships, facilitate knowledge exchange and develop a research proposal to investigate recommendations and solutions for promoting equity in cancer care and improving disparities in cancer outcomes in BC.
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Co-lead:
- Jiak Chin Koh
Providence Health Care
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Team members:
- Douglas Manuel
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
- Health Analysis Division of Statistics Canada
- University of Ottawa Departments of Family Medicine, and Public Health
- Kimberly McGrail
Centre for Health Services and Policy Research
- Health Data Research Network Canada (and SPOR Canadian Data Platform)
- Population Data BC
- UBC Health
- UBC School of Population and Public Health
- Deirdre Hennessy
Health Analysis Division of Statistics Canada
- Natalie Walshaw
Cardiac Clinic, Royal Columbian Hospital, FH
- Courtenay Hopson
University Hospital of Northern BC, Northern Health
- Jennifer Brown
The Ottawa Hospital Bariatric Centre of Excellence
- Alison Quinlan
BC Ministry of Health
- Food, Nutrition and Health Program, UBC
- Carol Anderson
Interested Public / Community User
- Adelia Jacobs
Human Nutrition and Dietetics, Food, Nutrition and Health Program, UBC
- Julia Chen
Dietetics, UBC
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A healthy lifestyle is the cornerstone of disease prevention and improvement of health. While most Canadians know that healthy eating can reduce the risk of chronic disease, they may not appreciate their own dietary pattern, and specifically may not know its associated health risks, or ways of improving it. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) dietary pattern is effective for reducing high blood pressure (hypertension) and heart disease (cardiovascular disease) risk, yet adherence to this dietary pattern in Canada is low. With this grant support, our team of healthcare professionals and researchers will develop and distribute a web-based, mobile-friendly DASH-Dietary Pattern Calculator that addresses this gap by providing a personalized estimate of the DASH dietary pattern and cardiovascular disease risk. The tool, which we call the DASH-Heart and Stroke (DASH-HAS) calculator will also provide individualized suggestions on how to improve dietary patterns to be in line with established DASH dietary recommendations.
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Co-lead:
- Theresa Healy
UNBC Health Research Institute
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Team members:
- Magda Aguiar
UBC
- Glory Apantaku
UBC
- Lara Frederick
Northern Health
- Kim Jong
Northern Health
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We aim to create a website that health economics researchers, policy makers and Northern BC community members can use to explore issues related to resource allocation in the north, to interact with each other and generate new aligned research questions. We are merging health economics research with arts-based research to expand the reach of the and impact of our research activities and attract the attention of diverse audiences.
We will use qualitative methods to explore how contextual factors in rural and remote settings in Northern BC might challenge common assumptions of efficiency, imply different priorities and what this means for health economics methods. We will combine traditional qualitative methods of data collection — focus groups — with novel, arts-informed research to fully represent diverse ways of knowing and experiencing the world, and build relationships with rural communities that goes beyond academic inquiry. In the context of rural and remote health, visual ways of expression will create more impactful results and emphasize unique challenges people face in accessing health care such as scarcity of resources, low population density and isolation, which may not be appreciated by those living in urban settings.
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Co-lead:
- Jessica Sutherland
BC Women's Hospital & Health Centre
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Team members:
- Heather Noga
Women's Health Research Institute
- Kiran Parmar
UBC
- Natasha Orr
UBC
- Rebecca Coxson
UBC
- Sarah Lett
Mass Velocity
- Endometriosis Patient Research Advisory Board
BC Women's Centre for Pelvic Pain & Endometriosis
- Catherine Allaire
BC Women's Hospital
- A. Fuchsia Howard
UBC
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Endometriosis is a debilitating disease characterised by tissue similar to that from inside the uterus growing outside the uterus affecting ~10% of females. Chronic pain, menstrual pain, infertility and painful sex are common, but endometriosis often goes undiagnosed for years due to stigma and normalization of symptoms. Painful sex can be particularly challenging to discuss with partners and healthcare providers. Imagine fearing intimacy, ridicule, degradation of relationships and an inability to conceive because sex is too painful and having limited resources for validation and trustworthy information.
Over the last 10 years, the Endometriosis Pelvic Pain Laboratory has built a patient-oriented research program with over 70 scholarly publications. In 2018, we established a multidisciplinary team to design an online educational resource. The Sex, Pain & Endometriosis website, launching in Fall 2020, provides a respectful, inviting and visually appealing environment of evidence-based information. The proposed campaign will create awareness of this resource and establish the site within the endometriosis community. Success will be determined by website visits and measured by tracking online engagement and visitor metrics.
