Seek shade and avoid the sun in peak hours. Those are two of the common suggestions for skin cancer prevention. But what if you can’t follow that advice? Outdoor workers—in construction, landscaping and road maintenance—can’t pick and choose when they’ll be outside. And they can’t seek out shade in an open worksite. These workers are in a high-risk category for skin cancer, and researchers are starting to focus on prevention strategies for them. 

Dr. Philip Cohen, a Research Scientist with Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI), has spent 35 years studying how to track and treat cancer using nuclear medicine—a medical specialty that uses radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. 

As a clinical professor of radiology at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Cohen has seen trial after trial fail to significantly improve detection and treatment options. But he is very excited about a new tracer he’s testing for prostate cancer. 

Many people know all too well the difficulty of getting motivated to exercise. It’s not easy. Transitioning from being sedentary to exercising regularly can feel like an uphill battle, but getting started is important. A growing mountain of evidence shows that regular exercise can drastically improve a person’s well-being and prevent major health problems later in life. And it’s never too late to get moving and reap the health rewards, says Dr.

Imagine not recognizing the face of a person you see every day, or even the face of someone you’ve known all your life, like a parent or sibling. Such is the reality for people with prosopagnosia – a selective visual problem caused by damage to the very specific brain circuitry responsible for taking the visual image of a face and recognizing it. Some individuals with prosopagnosia acquired the condition, e.g. due to brain injury or trauma, while others are born with it. 

Q: I don’t have any specific health issues–can I still participate in a clinical trial or research study?

Opening up narrowed veins from the brain and spinal cord is not effective in treating multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study led by the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health.

The conclusions about the so-called “liberation therapy,” which thousands of people with MS have undergone since 2009, represent the most definitive debunking of the claim that patients could achieve dramatic health improvements from a one-time medical procedure.

Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute strives to support and promote excellence in health research. The annual VCHRI Investigator Awards are an opportunity to recognize the efforts of health investigators through peer-reviewed salary support awards. The awards enable investigators to reduce their clinical practice commitments and build their research capacity to expand the possibilities of improving health research. They are supported by VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation and TD Grants in Medical Excellence. 

The 2017 VCHRI Investigator Awards recipients are:  

A made-in-Vancouver group-based language therapy approach that can cut costs and wait times may also rival one-to-one therapy for effectiveness. The unique group approach—called Language Fun Story Time (LFST)—uses the power of books and peer modelling for children who are slower to develop language.