Every day across British Columbia, trainees and researchers at the UBC Faculty of Medicine are turning skills into jobs, investments into discoveries, and discoveries into solutions that are transforming health for everyone.

Ranked among the world’s top medical schools with the fifth-largest MD enrollment in North America, the UBC Faculty of Medicine is a leader in both the science and the practice of medicine. Across British Columbia, more than 12,000 faculty and staff are training the next generation of doctors, health care professionals, and medical researchers, making remarkable discoveries to help create the pathways to better health for our communities at home and around the world.

The UBC Faculty of Medicine offers a diverse array of training opportunities including cutting-edge research experiences in the biosciences, globally recognized population health education, quality health professional training, as well as several certificate and online training options. The Faculty of Medicine is home to more than 1,700 graduate students housed in 20 graduate programs (14 of which offer doctoral research options). Year after year, research excellence in the Faculty of Medicine is supported by investment from funding sources here at home and around the globe, receiving approximately more than $1.8B in total research funding since 2016.

We value our trainees and the creative input they have to scholarly activities at UBC. Our priority is to enable their maximum potential through flexible opportunities that provide a breadth of experiences tailored to their own individual career objectives. We maintain high standards of excellence, and work to create a community of intellectually and socially engaged scholars that work collaboratively with each other, the university, and the world, with the overarching goal of promoting the health of individuals and communities.

 

Research Facilities

UBC Faculty of Medicine provides innovative educational and research programs in the areas of health and life sciences through an integrated and province-wide delivery model in facilities at locations throughout British Columbia.

The Life Sciences Centre is the largest building on the UBC Vancouver campus. Completed in 2004, the $125 million, 52,165 sq metres building was built to accommodate the distributed medical educational program and the Life Sciences Institute.

The Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH), a partnership between the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health, unites under one roof research and clinical expertise in neuroscience, psychiatry and neurology in order to accelerate discovery and translate new knowledge into better treatment and prevention strategies. DMCBH has both laboratory and clinical research areas within the Centre proper and in the UBC Hospital Koerner Pavilion. Our core facilities are essential to ongoing collaboration, teaching, and research.

The BC Children's Hospital Research Institute is it the largest research institute of its kind in Western Canada in terms of people, productivity, funding and size. With more than 350,000 square feet of space, the Institute has both 'wet bench' laboratory and 'dry lab' clinical research areas, and other areas to facilitate particular areas of research and training.

Research Highlights

New knowledge and innovation are crucial to successfully identifying, addressing and overcoming the increasingly complex health-related challenges that influence the lives of all of us – in British Columbia, in Canada, and in countries and communities around the globe.

The UBC Faculty of Medicine is recognized nationally and internationally for research innovation that advances knowledge and translates new discoveries to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Research opportunities feature extensive collaborations across other faculties, health institutions and health partners across British Columbia, Canada and internationally.

The Faculty provides and fosters research excellence across the full continuum, from basic science to applied science and then to knowledge implementation, with a focus on precision health; cancer; brain and mental health; heart and lung health; population health; and chronic diseases.

Graduate Degree Programs

Research Supervisors in Faculty

or browse the list of faculty members in various academic units. You may click each unit to view faculty members appointed in that unit. View the full faculty member directory for more search and filter options.
Name Academic Unit(s) Research Interests
Bansback, Nick School of Population and Public Health inform policies and practices in health through the application of
Barbic, Skye Department of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy Occupational therapy; Rehabilitation medicine; assessment; community integration; health and well-being; Implementation Science; Individual Placement Support; measurement; Mental Health and Society; mental health; metrology; Patient Engagement; Rasch Measurement Theory; recovery; Supported Employment; youth
Barr, Alasdair Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics Mental health and addictions, with a particular emphasis on psychosis and the medications used in its treatment, Anesthesiology
Bartlett, Karen Hastings School of Population and Public Health Medical, health and life sciences; Environmental engineering and related engineering; Occupational and Environmental Hygiene; Indoor Air Quality; Bioaerosols
Barton, Jason Division of Neurology, Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences face perception, object recognition, eye movements, higher visual function, Human vision and eye movement
Bashashati Saghezchi, Ali School of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Bioinformatics; Medical and biomedical engineering; Artificial Intelligence; Computational Pathology; Cancer Genomics; Computational Biology; Digital Pathology; Image Processing; Machine Learning; Ovarian Cancer; Signal Processing; Multi-modal Learning
Basilious, Alfred Other clinical medicine; Ophthalmology; Cataract Surgery
Bassett, Ken Department of Family Practice Gender and Blindness: testing gender specific community interventions in Upper Egypt, an assessment of community ophthalmology projects in Central India, as well as community ophthalmology projects in Nepal and Tanzania.
Bayrampour Basmenj, Hamideh Midwifery Program Psychosocial, sociocultural and behavioral determinants of health; Electronic health (e-Health); Mobile health (mHealth); Midwifery; Health information systems (including surveillance); Perinatal mental health; Perinatal Anxiety; Pregnancy Outcomes; eHealth; mHealth
Beasley, Clare Louise Department of Psychiatry identify changes in the brains of individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder that may elucidate the etiology of these disorders and provide clues to novel treatments; white matter pathology and inflammation; effects of antipsychotic medications on the brain
Bedaiwy, Mohamed Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology Other clinical medicine; Endometriosis; Recurrent Pregnancy Loss; Infertility; Minimally Invasive Surgery
Benard, Francois Department of Radiology Medical isotopes Radioisotopes Nuclear Medicine Cancer Imaging Molecular imaging of cancer Radionuclide therapy, Cancer division, radiology, pancreas centre
Benavente, Oscar Division of Neurology Acute Stroke Trials, Secondary stroke prevention
Bennewith, Kevin Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Oncology; Molecular Pathology & Cell Biology; Cancer research; Solid tumour microenvironment; Hypoxia; Metastasis research; Pre-metastatic niche; Targeting hypoxic tumour cells in therapy; Radiation biology
Beristain, Alexander Guillermo Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology Healthy Starts; cellular and molecular processes that direct trophoblast cell biology in early placental development; Examining the A Disintegrin And Metalloproteinase (ADAM) family in trophoblast biology; Examining the effects of obesity-associated inflammation on the maternal-fetal interface; Identifying gene expression differences in subpopulations of trophoblasts in normal and pathological pregnancies
Bernatchez, Pascal Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics Pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences (except clinical aspects); Cardiovascular diseases; Cardiovascular System; Genetic Diseases; Hypertension; atherosclerosis; angiogenesis; Muscular Diseases; Neuromuscular Diseases; Lipid/Lipoprotein analysis; Lipid Disorders; Pharmacokinetics; Cell Signaling and Infectious and Immune Diseases; endothelial dysfunction; endothelium; Inflammation; lipoproteins; Marfan syndrome; muscular dystrophy; nitric oxide; vascular disease
Besserer, Floyd Department of Emergency Medicine
Bettinger, Julie Department of Pediatrics Public and population health; Epidemiology; Vaccination; Infectious diseases; Health Promotion; Community Health / Public Health; Infectious disease epidemiology; vaccine clinical trials; Vaccine hesitancy; vaccine programs; vaccine safety
Bevilacqua, Micheli
Bhagavatula, Sastry Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics Age-related research, Anesthesiology, plasticity of synaptic transmission, mammalian central nervous system
Birch, Patricia ,
Birol, Inanc Department of Medical Genetics bioinformatics, computational biology, genomics, transcriptome analysis, next generation sequencing, cancer, Bioinformatics, sequence assembly, transcriptomics, gene regulation networks, high throughput informatics for big data
Black, Peter Department of Urologic Sciences Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (especially equality rights); Canadian human rights legislation
Black, Alexis School of Audiology and Speech Sciences Cognitive sciences
Black, Charlyn School of Population and Public Health Public and population health

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Recent Publications

This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Medicine.

 

Publication: Diabetologia
UBC Author(s): Bradford Hoffman (Surgery / Faculty of Medicine), Dan Luciani (Surgery / Faculty of Medicine), Francis Lynn (Surgery / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 0012186X
Volume: 66
Page Range: 1097-1115
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Drug and Alcohol Dependence
UBC Author(s): Maria Socias (Division of Social Medicine / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 03768716
Volume: 247
Publication Date: 1 June 2023

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Publication: Addictive Behaviors Reports
UBC Author(s): Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes (School of Population and Public Health / Faculty of Medicine)
Volume: 17
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Journal of Cardiology
UBC Author(s): Jonathon Leipsic (Radiology / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 09145087
Volume: 81
Page Range: 577-585
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Contemporary Clinical Trials
UBC Author(s): Robert Petrella (Family Practice / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 15517144
Volume: 129
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Neurobiology of Disease
UBC Author(s): Haakon Nygaard (Division of Neurology / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 09699961
Volume: 181
Publication Date: 1 June 2023

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Publication: International Journal of Infectious Diseases
UBC Author(s): Monika Naus (School of Population and Public Health / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 12019712
Volume: 131
Page Range: 75-78
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Resuscitation
UBC Author(s): Brian Grunau (Emergency Medicine / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 03009572
Volume: 187
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: SSM - Qualitative Research in Health
UBC Author(s): Devon Greyson (School of Population and Public Health / Faculty of Medicine)
Volume: 3
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: SSM - Qualitative Research in Health
UBC Author(s): Devon Greyson (School of Population and Public Health / Faculty of Medicine)
Volume: 3
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Biology: X
UBC Author(s): Roxana Geoffrion (Obstetrics & Gynaecology / Faculty of Medicine)
Volume: 18
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials
UBC Author(s): David Wilson (Orthopaedics / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 17516161
Volume: 142
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Pregnancy Hypertension
UBC Author(s): Jennifer Tomek (Obstetrics & Gynaecology / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 22107789
Volume: 32
Page Range: 35-42
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
UBC Author(s): Alexander Rauscher (Pediatrics / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 07403194
Volume: 89
Page Range: 2391-2401
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Journal of Genetics
UBC Author(s): Anna Michelle Lehman (Medical Genetics / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 00221333
Volume: 102
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Radiotherapy and Oncology
UBC Author(s): Juanita Crook (Surgery / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 01678140
Volume: 183
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Surgical Oncology
UBC Author(s): Janice Kwon (Obstetrics & Gynaecology / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 09607404
Volume: 48
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism
UBC Author(s): Diane Lacaille (Rheumatology Division / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 00490172
Volume: 60
Publication Date: June 2023

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Publication: Life science alliance
UBC Author(s): Joanne Aiko Matsubara (Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences / Faculty of Medicine)
Volume: 6
Publication Date: 1 June 2023

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Publication: Cell Reports
UBC Author(s): Joerg Gsponer (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology / Faculty of Medicine)
Volume: 42
Publication Date: 30 May 2023

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Publication: Developmental Cell
UBC Author(s): Susan Homewood (School of Population and Public Health / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 15345807
Volume: 58
Page Range: 825-835.e6
Publication Date: 22 May 2023

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Publication: iScience
UBC Author(s): Alexander Wyatt (Urologic Sciences / Faculty of Medicine), Mads Daugaard (Urologic Sciences / Faculty of Medicine)
Volume: 26
Publication Date: 19 May 2023

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Publication: Blood
UBC Author(s): David Scott (Division of Medical Oncology / Faculty of Medicine), Christian Steidl (Pathology & Laboratory Medicine / Faculty of Medicine), Kerry Savage (Division of Medical Oncology / Faculty of Medicine), Alina Gerrie (Division of Medical Oncology / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 00064971
Volume: 141
Page Range: 2493-2507
Publication Date: 18 May 2023

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Publication: Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
UBC Author(s): Natalie Strynadka (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 14337851
Volume: 62
Publication Date: 15 May 2023

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Publication: Food Chemistry
UBC Author(s): Caigan Du (Urologic Sciences / Faculty of Medicine)
ISSN: 03088146
Volume: 408
Publication Date: 15 May 2023

View Publication

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Recent Thesis Submissions

Doctoral Citations

A doctoral citation summarizes the nature of the independent research, provides a high-level overview of the study, states the significance of the work and says who will benefit from the findings in clear, non-specialized language, so that members of a lay audience will understand it.
Year Citation Program
2023 Dr. Scott identified genetic predictors for two chemotherapy-related adverse drug reactions: cisplatin-induced hearing loss and anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity. This research informs the development of genetic tests to predict and prevent these adverse reactions and ultimately improve the quality of life for cancer patients. Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Genetics (PhD)
2023 Dr. Ahmed showed the mechanistic pathway by which the growth factor myostatin increases the invasion of human placenta into the mother's womb to support the developing baby. Her study illustrates a role for myostatin in pregnancy. It also helps in understanding the effects of its dysregulation in several pregnancy complications. Doctor of Philosophy in Reproductive and Developmental Sciences (PhD)
2023 Dr. Syed studied the acute effects of air pollution on lung function and exercise responses in individuals with & without COPD. He found that air pollution negatively affected exercise responses more in healthy individuals compared to COPD. This work has implications for physical activity guidelines during periods of increased air pollution. Doctor of Philosophy in Rehabilitation Sciences (PhD)
2023 Dr. MacAldaz examined blood stem cells capable of life-long blood production. She identified a strategy to isolate these cells at high purity from fetal sources and discovered culture conditions that preserve their potent regenerative properties. This research will enable the development of ways to manipulate these cells for clinical applications. Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD)
2023 Dr. Vappala developed cationic polymeric agents that are safe and effective in treating sepsis. They reduce thrombosis and hyperinflammation in sepsis by targeting polyanionic mediators. Doctor of Philosophy in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PhD)
2023 Dr. Ji characterized the unique proteomic and metabolomic landscapes of clear cell ovarian carcinoma. She subsequently identified a metabolic vulnerability as a potential therapeutic target in uncommon ovarian cancers. Her work provided further insight into this aggressive malignancy and rich resources for the ovarian cancer research community. Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (MDPhD)
2023 A family of viruses called dicistroviruses contains many copies of a protein, a rarity for viruses. Dr. Warsaba investigated the reasons for this and explored the conservation of this duplication. Reid found that these viruses duplicate this protein to produce the correct amounts of their viral proteins, revealing insights into virus evolution. Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PhD)
2023 Dr. Aceves investigated the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation in healthy brains. Her research centered on the evaluation of neurotransmission and brain function, providing insights into the therapeutic applications of this brain-stimulation technique. Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD)
2023 Dr. Stubbs studied how traumatic brain injury affects the health of people who are homeless. He identified that serious brain injury is common in this population, and he used quantitative brain imaging to show how it affects health and functioning over time. His findings have implications for individual-level treatments and system-level policies. Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD)
2023 Dr. Trinder showed that common and rare genetic variation can be used to predict an individual's risk of cardiovascular disease. He used these findings to implement genetic testing for cardiovascular disorders at St. Paul's Hospital's Healthy Heart Program. This work highlights the promise of genomic medicine for preventing and treating cardiac disease. Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (MDPhD)

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