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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

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.

 

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
2019 Dr. McGirr used mouse models of stress to study large scale brain network changes. He also studied how existing and novel treatments rescue normative network function. Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD)
2019 Dr. Li characterized a new-in-class NMDA receptor positive allosteric modulator. The new drug has applications as a research tool and potential therapeutic in psychiatric and neurological disorders. Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (MDPhD)
2019 Dr. Chern studied the chemotherapy resistance mechanisms in colon cancer. She found that HSP47 proteins promote drug resistance, and the interaction between SPARC and GRP78 proteins enhances the stress level and increases cell death in cancer cells under chemotherapy. Her findings provide insights into overcoming chemoresistance in colon cancer. Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD)
2019 Dr. Parappilly assessed the determinants of a healthy life-style profile of stroke survivors. Her study revealed that many patients lack knowledge about stroke and those with better stroke knowledge have better health-related behaviours. These findings demonstrate the importance of strengthening current stroke prevention programs. Doctor of Philosophy in Rehabilitation Sciences (PhD)
2019 Dr. Kozicky studied the mechanism of action of the widely used drug intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg). She found that IVIg causes immune cells called macrophages to become anti-inflammatory and produce the cytokine IL-10.This knowledge will help in using IVIg more effectively and designing replacement therapies, as IVIg is a limited blood product. Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD)
2019 Dr. Becker dos Santos discovered that essential genes for human fetal lung development are being reactivated in lung cancer. By exploring the downstream consequences of such reactivation, she identified a novel biomarker for lung cancer aggressiveness and patient outcome. Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD)
2019 Dr. Novakowski developed new tools for delivering proteins and nucleic acids to platelets, which are small cells required to stop the flow of blood during injury. This may ultimately lead to platelets with an improved ability to stop bleeding, and potentially extend the range of diseases that can be treated using platelets. Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PhD)
2019 Dr. Nouri showed that prostate cancer cells treated with hormone therapy might undergo a transformation to a more stem-like cell to promote therapy escape and disease progression. By capturing, analyzing, and targeting key pathways in these cells, he explored a pre-clinical therapeutic regimen that could potentially prevent prostate cancer recurrence. Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD)
2019 Dr. Woodsworth developed a cell-to-cell delivery system, in which a therapeutic molecule is inserted into a delivery cell, carried to a disease site and transferred to a specific target cell. This will allow for smart, active therapeutic devices capable of engaging directly with the fundamental cellular and molecular causes of disease. Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (MDPhD)
2019 Dr. Chan studied signaling pathways that control cellular metabolism. He defined the role of specific enzymes that regulate the synthesis of lipids at a transcriptional level. His research builds on our understanding of cellular metabolism and pathways involved in metabolic diseases including obesity and diabetes. Doctor of Philosophy in Cell and Developmental Biology (PhD)

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