Open a medicine cabinet in Canada and you’ll likely find a few containers of old or expired medications. Some of those medications might be leftover opioids – strong painkillers, such as oxycodone, hydromorphone, and morphine, which are often prescribed to treat short-term moderate to severe pain after surgery. Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist Dr. Raymond Tang finds such easy accessibility to opioids troublesome, particularly given the increasing rates of opioid addiction in Canada and the U.S.
Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) scientist Dr. Andrew Krahn would not normally describe himself as “the old man”, but when talking about the next generation of heart and lung researchers recently recruited at VCH and the Centre for Heart and Lung Health, the title does not bother him at all.
In 2013, the small Vancouver Island seaside municipality of Sidney drafted a resolution to regulate the use of three- and four-wheeled motorized scooters because of the safety risks they were posing to pedestrians, traffic, and the scooter operators themselves. Regulation was seen as an opportunity to mandate operation and safety training for the motorized mobility devices. Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) scientist Dr. Ben Mortenson is currently conducting a scooter training and education feasibility study, in part because of such community-identified safety issues.
It’s a familiar scenario: after a stressful day at work, the last thing most people want to do is make a time-consuming dinner. Instead, they’ll choose to eat something quick and low-effort at the expense of taste and nutrition. A recently published paper co-authored by Vancouver Coastal Health Research Scientist Dr.
In recent months, B.C. has seen a sharp increase in the rate of accidental overdose deaths with drugs like fentanyl and W-18, which can be fatal at very low doses, hitting the streets disguised as other street drugs. But even prior to recent events, illicit drug overdoses have been on the rise in the province since 2011. The current system alerting people who use drugs (PWUD) about dangerous contamination or a spike in overdose deaths lags a week or two behind the data, putting lives at risk and highlighting the need for a better warning system.
When Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) scientist Dr. Horacio Bach was approached by Dr. Thomas Grünewald from the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Institute of Pathology, to help him find possible antibody therapies for Ewing sarcoma – an aggressive cancer that affects mostly children and adolescents – Dr. Bach was moved by his intentions.
The culmination of more than 20 years of research looking into the properties of intravenous anesthetic propofol by Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist Dr. David Ansley and his team of researchers is reflected in Dr. Ansley’s recently published, and controversial, paper in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia.
Vitamin B6 plays a key role in keeping the human body healthy. Although research shows that dietary intake of vitamin B6 among Canadians is low, no clear data exists as to whether Canadians are living with suboptimal or deficient vitamin B6 biochemical status levels. And this is a point of concern for Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute affiliated investigator Dr. Yvonne Lamers, especially when it comes to women’s health.
