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Sex Differences in Islet Stress Responses Support Female β Cell Resilience
This week Science in Vancouver profiled a recent publication in Molecular Metabolism from the labs of Drs. Elizabeth Rideout and James Johnson at UBC, with first author George Brownrigg. This article is an exact replication with minor changes. Can you provide a brief overview of your lab’s current research focus? In the Rideout lab we are […]
Eight LSI researchers awarded funding through Fall 2022 CIHR project grant competition
Congratulations to the successful applicants in the CIHR Fall 2022 Project Grant competition! Listed below are the LSI-based PIs on the six funded projects. These include one bridge grant and one Priority Announcement Grant. This amounts to 21.4% of submitted applications receiving funds to a total of $3.77 million from this competition, where overall funding rate […]
Osteoporosis drug shows promise as life-saving breast cancer treatment
Research by Dr. Josef Penninger lays groundwork for treatment that promotes disease-free survival in breast cancer patients and markedly improves quality of life A drug originally designed to prevent osteoporosis is now expected to save and improve the lives of millions of people with breast cancer, thanks in part to decades of foundational research by […]
Av-Gay Lab identifies infection-halting compound, broadly effective from COVID-19 to the common cold
Researchers at UBC’s Life Sciences Institute have identified a compound that shows early promise at halting infections from a range of coronaviruses, including all variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the common cold. The findings, published this week in Molecular Biomedicine, reveal a potential path toward antiviral treatments that could be used against many different pathogens. “Beyond COVID-19, […]
LSI researchers draw more than $8M in CIHR Spring 2022 Project Grants
Congratulations to the successful applicants in the CIHR Spring 2022 Project Grant competition! Listed below are the PIs on the ten funded projects. LSI Director Dr. Josef Penninger and Deputy Director Dr. James Johnson described the results as a remarkable success: 42% of the LSI applications were approved, whereas the Canadian national and UBC averages are […]
The LSI becomes a GREx: announcing the launch of the Biological Resilience Initiative
We are proud to announce that The Life Sciences Institute has been designated a UBC Global Research Excellence Institute (GREx) and is ready to formally launch the Biological Resilience Initiative (BRI). As the first initiative in Canada to study life science questions through the lens of innate resilience, the BRI will be a generative hub, […]
LSI researchers funded in CIHR’s COVID-19 Rapid Research competition
Five LSI research groups have been awarded funding through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid Research competition. Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Director Dr. Josef Penninger and Dr. Eric Jan, are lead applicants, and Drs. François Jean, Natalie Strynadka and Chris Overall are co-investigators on four separate grants announced […]
Three Early Career LSI Investigators Receive the MSFHR Scholar Award 2019
Congratulations to LSI’s Early Career Investigators for winning 3 out of 20 MSFHR Scholar Awards Effects of cellular origin on the development of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the third leading cause of cancer related deaths mostly due to the absence of symptoms as the cancer develops. This leads to diagnosis […]
CIHR Project Grant Competition Spring 2019, Funded Projects
Congratulations to LSI PIs who were funded in the Spring 2019 Competition. Elucidating and disrupting the neural substrates of fear memory Principal Investigator: Mark S. Cembrowski Amount awarded: $963,900 Role of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1) in triglyceride metabolism and heart health Principal Investigator: Susanne M. Clee Amount awarded: $807,076 Epigenetic regulation and function […]
Stress signals affect a protein critical to the maintenance of heartbeat
New Research from the Van Petegem lab published in Molecular Cell shows that stress signals can result in heart arrhythmia even in the absence of genetic predisposition to arrhythmias When our heart muscles need to contract, calcium ions play a special role. The Sarcoplasmic Reticulum (SR) is a specialized organelle that forms a large intracellular […]