Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) is committed to fostering a culture of mentorship and supporting the next generation of health researchers through the Summer Program Advancing Research Knowledge and Skills (SPARKS). This program offers a unique opportunity for a select group of highly qualified undergraduate and medical students to explore their interest in health research and gain hands-on experience by undertaking a summer project with a VCHRI principal investigator.
A self-proclaimed Type A personality, David Walker squeezes every drop out of life that he can while managing the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD). A former executive with Prostate Cancer Canada, World Vision and Alzheimer Society of B.C. and Yukon, Walker was diagnosed with PD four years ago, providing a clear explanation of the range of symptoms he had been experiencing, including two significant falls that resulted in a broken left and then right foot.
Vitiligo is a painless but often psychologically distressing autoimmune condition that causes the loss of skin pigmentation. Tens of thousands of British Columbians have the chronic disorder, which affects around one per cent of the global population. Accurately assessing depigmented lesions — patches of skin that have lost their colour — is essential for tracking disease and treatment outcomes.
Advancing research from discovery to real-world application is essential to improving health systems and patient outcomes. Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) is proud to support investigators and their groundbreaking health research with the Innovation and Translational Research Awards. This year’s recipients are putting new knowledge into practice, implementing research in clinical settings and advancing innovations with the potential for commercialization.
The 2026 Innovation and Translational Research Award recipients are:
Ahead of the world's largest sporting event taking place in Vancouver this summer, VCHRI researcher Dr. Jackie Whittaker discusses what we can learn from how elite athletes train to reduce injury risk and what prevention strategies recreational athletes and people returning to exercise should consider.
A tackle on the football field and a header in a soccer match may appear very different, but new research led by Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) researcher Dr. Lyndia Wu and University of British Columbia (UBC) PhD student Zaryan Masood suggests the brain may experience some of those impacts in surprisingly similar ways.
Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) is proud to support future research leaders with the Top Graduating Doctoral Student Awards and the Rising Star Awards. These awards recognize the outstanding efforts of VCHRI trainees whose pursuit of research has made them exceptional role models and valued contributors to the Vancouver Coastal Health and University of British Columbia research community.
The 2026 Top Graduating Doctoral Student Award recipient is:
Health care systems are increasingly recognizing their environmental footprint, with the global sector accounting for an estimated four to five per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
