UBC Medicine

Imagine your boss coming to your cubicle and, in the course of dumping yet another assignment on your desk, says, “Oh, and one more thing: Eat more fruits and veggies. You’ll thank me for it. Carry on!” A more subtle version of that scenario is unfolding at three universities in B.C., thanks to research by Carolyn Gotay, [...]

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The best innovations often arise from the joining of two distinct, independently developed innovations. Two members of the Faculty of Medicine are on their way to proving that principle yet again. Peter von Dadelszen, a specialist in high-risk pregancies, has devised a model for diagnosing pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure during pregnancy) that is geared toward developing countries. Mark [...]

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The biggest challenge facing life scientists — beyond curing disease, of course — is explaining what they do. Most of them are labouring on molecular mysteries that are difficult to visualize and involve a cascade of processes, and thus elude easy comprehension by the general public. And in these attention-deficient times, if it’s not easily understood, people move [...]

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The Verisante Aura detects melanomas. The VELscope highlights oral cancers. The PortaMon looks for bladder disease. Three distinct devices, but all three are examples of UBC researchers developing or deploying various forms of light to find pathologies that elude old-fashioned examination with the naked eye. The Verisante Aura (demonstrated in photo at right by one [...]

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Mark Ansermino (on left) is an anesthesiologist, whose job is to protect patients from pain or complications during surgery. Guy Dumont (on right) is an electrical engineer, whose specialty is control processes for wood pulp processing. Not a whole lot in common — at first glance. But these two UBC professors have been working together for years to make [...]

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When researchers make a significant new finding, the news is typically shared through publication in a journal, or perhaps a presentation at a conference; if they’re lucky, it might even get some coverage in the news media. But Dianne Miller and her team at BC’s Ovarian Cancer Research Program weren’t content to let their discovery [...]

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Power wheelchairs have brought a new level of mobility to disabled people, particularly for those who don’t have the strength or dexterity to propel themselves in a conventional wheelchair. But the machines aren’t so easy to use, and are often abandoned because of the users’ declining cognitive capabilities — or simply because they were never properly trained. [...]

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When a patient is harmed or comes close to being harmed in a health care setting, the first impulse is to blame the worker caring for the patient at the time. That person often winds up losing their job — a justifiable outcome to a public that is increasingly demanding accountability. But Sam Sheps is convinced it’s neither a [...]

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Multiple sclerosis patients in Canada have been galvanized over the past few months by news reports about an Italian doctor who claims to have hit upon a cause — and treatment — for their disease. Paolo Zamboni’s theory is called chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI, and posits that the large veins that drain blood from the [...]

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The prognosis for someone with chronic liver disease is grim. The only real cure is a transplant, and more than a third of those waiting for a donated liver die before one becomes available. Compounding that dire situation is the disease’s association with alcohol consumption — a stigma felt acutely by members of the First [...]

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