Research Centres
Brain Research Centre
Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation
Centre for Hip Health & Mobility
Centre for Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine
ICORD: International Collaboration on (spinal cord) Repair Discoveries
Immunity & Infection Research Centre
Vancouver Prostate Centre

Other Research Areas
BC Professional Fire Fighters' Burn & Wound Healing Research Laboratory
Diabetes & Islet Cell Transplantation
Emergency Medicine Research
Interventional Cardiology
Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation (CeMCOR)
Ovarian Cancer Research (OvCaRe)
The Centre for Rural Health Research
Skin Sciences and Hair Lab
The Centre for Macular Research

Unravelling the biological enigmas of the brain and understanding how to better treat diseases caused by injury, the Brain Research Centre is home to many of North America's leading authorities on mechanisms of brain function and

Together, depression and bipolar disorder affect approximately 4 million Canadians, with only 25 percent being diagnosed and treated. The social and economic cost of these mood disorders is significant. The Mood Disorders Centre, led by two internationally recognized experts in depression and bipolar disorder, Dr. Raymond Lam and Dr. Lakshmi Yatham, works to improve the treatment of people with mood disorders through innovative research, clinical care, and patient education.

Nov 4, 2011:    Brain Research Center's e-newsletter

Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation
How does organizational change affect health outcomes? What is the utilization of cardiovascular health care by differing population groups?

These are the kinds of questions the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation (C2E2) regularly explores.   Led by Dr. Stirling Bryan, C2E2 develops and supports clinical research and evaluation of clinical programs and provides expertise in clinical research methodology and statistics to other VCHRI investigators and health care policy makers. Investigators have a diverse range of specialties from family practice and emergency medicine to health economics and outcomes evaluation.

Centre for Hip Health & Mobility
Hip fractures and hip osteoarthritis contribute enormously to the cost of health care in Canada. VGH is set to be the home of the world's first Centre for Hip Health & Mobility. Under the direction of Dr. Heather McKay, the centre will bring together researchers from a wide range of disciplines to investigate and treat hip fractures and osteoarthritis, and create new surgical solutions. The group's immediate goals are to reduce hip fractures by 10 percent, detect osteoarthritis earlier, and develop new treatments.

Centre for Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine
The Centre for Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine, led by Dr. John Fleetham, links respiratory research to clinical practice. Multidisciplinary teams made up of physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, and other health professionals are working to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of respiratory and critical care illnesses including lung cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, sleep apnea, and Tuberculosis. Investigators are combining strategies from epidemiology, clinical research, and basic sciences to provide new insights into these serious illnesses.

The Lung Centre at VGH

Centre for Lung Health

ICORD: International Collaboration on (spinal cord) Repair Discoveries
New research discoveries, surgical advances, and new approaches in rehabilitation are all leading to better health outcomes for people with spinal cord injury. Through increased collaboration, researchers at ICORD believe even more significant advances can occur.

ICORD, led by Interim Director Dr. Tom Oxland, has over 50 principal investigators as well as 300 trainees and dozens of national and international researchers. The scope of work includes understanding the growth of nerve cells to improving surgical techniques for patients with spinal cord injuries. The new ICORD facility, located on the VGH campus, is the world's largest and most broad-based spinal cord research group.

Immunity & Infection Research Centre
From auto-immune disorders that lead to diabetes to preventing rejection in organ transplantation, the Immunity & Infection Research Centre team, led by Dr. Neil Reiner, works to understand the immune mechanisms that both fight infectious diseases and cause immune disorders. Investigators are internationally recognized for their work in preventing and treating the rejection of transplanted organs and bone marrow, and in diabetes research involving islet cell transplantation. At the Ike Barber Human Islet Transplant Laboratory, the research team, headed by Drs. Garth Warnock and Mark Meloche, has developed a one-day outpatient procedure in which human islet cells that lead to regular insulin production are transplanted into patients with type-1 diabetes. This procedure is showing successful results, giving hope of a cure for type-1 diabetes.

PREPARE stands for PRoteomics for Emerging PAthogen REsponse. It is a Genome BC/Canada funded project led by Drs. Neil Reiner, Brett Finlay, and Robert Brunham. The research fund is coordinated through UBC. For more information about our project, please visit our website below.

Immunity & Infection Research Centre

PREPARE Project web site

Vancouver Prostate Centre
One in six men will face a diagnosis of prostate cancer in their lifetime; twenty-five percent of them will die from it. Vancouver Prostate Centre, located at Vancouver General Hospital, is Canada's largest comprehensive research and treatment clinic for prostate cancer in Canada. Led by Dr. Martin Gleave, this world-renowned research and clinical team focuses its efforts on fighting prostate cancer through improved understanding of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, as well as patient education.

Vancouver Prostate Centre's goal is to advance understanding of the biology of prostate cancer and to translate that understanding into practical therapy to improve the length and quality of life of patients.

BC Professional Fire Fighters' Burn & Wound Healing Research Laboratory
Vancouver General Hospital is poised to be an international leader in burn and wound healing with the recently established BC Professional Fire Fighters' Burn & Wound Healing Research Laboratory. Director, Dr. Aziz Ghahary and his team have discovered communication among different types of cells in the skin is crucial to successful healing. They have isolated a protein that is key to the communication. This discovery is essential to learning how to prevent formation of scar tissue after a burn, as well as understanding why other wounds fail to heal. The team will be developing a shelf-ready topical cream containing the purified protein, as well as an actual skin substitute that can be applied to burns and wounds to allow the skin to heal properly. The result will be significantly less scarring from burns and improved healing of wounds. These groundbreaking achievements, which may be ready for clinical trials in 1-3 years, could radically change patient care and health outcomes for burn and accident survivors, diabetics, and many others.

Diabetes & Islet Cell Transplantation

The Islet Transplant Program, at the Ike Barber Human Islet Transplant Laboratory at VGH, is an example of the cutting-edge work that is taking place. Led by Dr. Garth Warnock (who is also Head of the Department of Surgery at UBC and Surgeon-in-Chief at VGH) and Dr. Mark Meloche (also Head Section of Surgery at the BC Transplant Society), the program provides an alternative to pancreas transplant. Recently, investigators have had a breakthrough, which may make it possible for more type-1 patients to receive treatment.

BC Islet Transplant Program

Emergency Medicine Research
The VGH Department of Emergency Medicine Research Division, under the direction of Dr. Riyad B. Abu-Laban, has a broad clinical research program and are involved in multiple national and local studies. Key areas of investigation include cardiac arrest, trauma, substance abuse, toxicology, pharmacology, clinical decision rules, hyperbaric medicine, respiratory illnesses, falls in the elderly, and domestic violence.

Interventional Cardiology
The Interventional Cardiology team, led by Dr. Jaap Hamburger, is the largest such program in Canada. Encompassing researchers and clinicians at Vancouver General Hospital and St. Paul's Hospital, the Vancouver Interventional Cardiology team delivers clinical cardiac care as well as investigates cardiac function and disease. The team initiated stem cell research for cardiovascular repair. They also design and manage clinical trials, and share clinical and research expertise internationally through the annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference - one of the world's largest medical conferences.

Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation (CeMCOR)
Vancouver General Hospital is world-renowned for its extensive archive over 1,000,000 cancer tissue samples dating back over 50 years. Using microarray technology, members of the OvCaRe team, led by Dr. Dianne Miller, are mining the database of ovarian cancer tissue samples to study potential markers for ovarian cancer progression and its response to therapy.

At the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research (CeMCOR), led by Dr. Jerilynn Prior, researchers study the science of the menstrual cycle and ovulation physiology from adolescence to menopause. A major focus of the Centre is the study of the effects of progesterone therapy on metabolism, endothelial function, and bone changes. A significant component of activities also involves public education and the translation of research findings into changes in clinical practice.

Ovarian Cancer Research (OvCaRe)

.......... coming soon

OvCaRe web site

The Centre for Rural Health Research (CRHR)
The Centre for Rural Health Research (CRHR) aims to improve the health of rural and remote British Columbians in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority through the creation of new knowledge and subsequent translation into practice. The centre, co-directed by Drs. Stefan Grzybowski and Jude Kornelson, encompasses the Rural Maternity Care Research New Emerging Team (RM-NET) and the BC Rural and Remote Health Research Network (BCRRHRN). The Centre, with links to the Northern, Interior, and Vancouver Island health authorities facilitates the development of rural health research capacity through encouraging the identification of research questions of importance to rural populations, supporting the growth of multidisciplinary approaches to answering these questions and building and nurturing rural community-academic partnerships to support the research and knowledge exchange.

Skin Sciences & Hair Lab
78,000 patient visits are made each year to the Skin Care Centre. Led by Dr. Harvey Lui, physicians and investigators focus on research in cancer epidemiology and biology, skin cancer detection, hair disorders, lipids and the skin barrier, and skin immunology. Through the Skin Care Centre's Clinical Trials Unit, clinicians are able to provide the latest experimental drug, surgical, and laser treatments to patients under careful medical supervision.

UBC Dermatology Site

The Centre for Macular Research

One in three Canadians will experience macular degeneration. It is the leading cause of age-related blindness. Thanks to research done at the Centre for Macular Research (CMR), the progression of this disease can now be halted. The goal of the CMR, led by Drs. Robert Molday and Michael Potter, is to combine its strength in basic and translational science with the centre's clinical expertise to develop new treatments and cures for retinal disease.

Centre for Macular Research