News and Announcements:
Dr. Pieter Cullis Named 2022 Canada Gairdner Award Laureate
Drs. Pieter Cullis, Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman received the 2022 Canada Gairdner Award for their pioneering work on nucleoside-modified mRNA and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) drug delivery. Their pivotal discoveries enabled the rapid availability of highly effective and safe COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, and opened avenues to revolutionize the future delivery of effective and safe vaccines, therapeutics and gene therapies. For more information, please visit med.ubc.ca.
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UBC Co-Developed Nasal Spray Effectively Treats COVID-19 in Mice
A recent study published in Nature, led by UBC researcher Dr. Francois Jean, demonstrated the effectiveness of a nasal spray in mice, treating the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants of COVID-19. The spray was developed by an international team of researchers, including from British Columbia. For more information, please visit vancouversun.com. To read the research article, please visit nature.com.
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Harnessing the Regulatory Process to Fuel Bio-Innovation
As demonstrated by the speed of COVID-19 vaccine development, the pandemic spurred a boom in healthy system collaboration, data sharing and the use of real-world evidence. UBC’s Academy of Translational Medicine brought together regulatory landscape experts from local and international industry and academia to establish a Regulatory Advisory Council, which will reduce the time and cost of bringing life-changing bio-medical innovations to patients. For more information, please visit med.ubc.ca.
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Lower Tocilizumab Dose for Severe COVID-19 Patients Shown Effective
Tocilizumab, an immunosuppressive drug originally developed to treat inflammatory arthritis, has been in short supply since early 2021 after it was discovered to effectively treat severe COVID-19. A recent study led by Dr. Luke Chen at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute found that a lower, fixed-dose tocilizumab strategy is both clinically and economically effective. For more information, please visit vchri.ca.
Funding Opportunities:
Michael Smith Health Research BC Match Funding
Michael Smith Health Research BC offers match funding to qualifying BC-based researchers and research teams applying to non-BC government-funded research competitions that require applicants to source match funding as a condition of the application. Funding requests for COVID-19 research will be fast-tracked. For more information, please visit msfhr.org.
Resources for Investigators:
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UBC Faculty of Medicine Research Technology
The University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine Digital Solutions Research Technology team is dedicated to delivering the highest quality of support to health research through access, consultation, training, and support for data and infrastructure management tools for research. To access services and view current projects, please visit the Research Technology website. For more information, please visit restech.med.ubc.ca.
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COVID-19 Patient Database for Research
The COVID-19 Consent to Contact Registry Database (CCRD) contains the contact details of people who have previously tested positive for COVID-19 and have given their consent to be contacted about related research. Qualified BC researchers can access the registry and connect with participants about research opportunities across the province. For more information, please visit bccdc.ca and crci.med.ubc.ca.