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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.
Most Faculty research is conducted under the auspices of 23 centres and institutes that are part of UBC or affiliated with it, in collaboration with our health partners.
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.
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.
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Medicine.
| Year | Citation | Program |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Dr. Aleksandrova studied ketamine, a rapid-acting antidepressant. Her research suggests that ketamine may have pro-cognitive effects due to its ability to restore normal synaptic plasticity, the ability of the brain to adapt and change, in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a key brain region implicated in depression. | Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Cromwell built a whole disease health economic decision model to better inform health system decision makers of the influence of different policies in oral cancer. His work demonstrated that the whole disease model approach enables decisions to consider both upstream and downstream policies. The work has implications for and beyond oral cancer. | Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Holman studied social behahaviour and its underlying neurobiology during adolescence using a well-established animal model of prenatal alcohol exposure. He found that prenatal exposure to alcohol impairs development of adolescent social behaviour, which was associated with altered neural activity and development of the oxytocin/vasopressin systems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Steer found that early life stresses induce signals in neonatal lungs which confer enhanced susceptibility to allergic sensitization. Therefore, airway allergen exposure in the early postnatal period leads to heightened responses to allergens later in life. Dr. Steer's results underline the importance of the neonatal period for immune education. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Ajaykumar studied cellular and mitochondrial toxicities of HIV antiretrovirals. He showed that some HIV drugs used in pregnancy increase the amount of mitochondrial DNA in infants, and that a newer drug increases mitochondrial toxicity. His research advances our understanding of the long-term safety of HIV therapy, for both mother and child. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Ehlers investigated how stress influences how we learn which things or actions are associated with something good. She showed that stress can both be beneficial and detrimental. Results further demonstrated that in the brain, novel associations are represented by our emotional response to them. Her work may have important clinical implications. | Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Zhao studied the effect of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) on placental development during pregnancy. He found that BMP2 positively regulates human placental cell invasion and the underlying mechanisms involved, which may inform advances in clinical diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for pregnancy disorders. | Doctor of Philosophy in Reproductive and Developmental Sciences (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Windt extended knowledge in sport and exercise medicine by exploring why some athletes get hurt and others do not. He analyzed novel international data sets using advanced methods to unpack the association between sport participation and injury. His discoveries will reduce the burden of sports injury and allow athletes to perform their best. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Singh studied cerebral vessel growth in Alzheimer's disease. She repurposed drugs used in cancer therapy to reduce pathogenic blood vessel formation and improve cognition in mouse models of Alzheimer's. Findings from these studies improve our understanding of how an altered blood vessel growth can contribute to pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease. | Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Genetics (PhD) |
| 2019 | Myxoid liposarcoma is a type of cancer that predominantly affects young adults. Dr. Yu's doctoral studies examined the role of how a mutant protein functions as the main cause of myxoid liposarcoma. Her research uncovered a new function of the mutant protein that can form the basis of future treatment strategies for this disease. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |