In the process of researching public opinion about gene therapy, a medical procedure aimed at delivering new genetic material into a person to prevent or treat a disease, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist Dr. Julie Robillard unexpectedly found that beyond personal risk concerns, people were most troubled by the lack of information around the experimental treatment.
Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, is a bacteria that can cause infection when the balance of normal bacteria in the digestive system is upset. Approximately 5% of the population may carry C. difficile without any health problems1. But for others, carrying it can damage the bowel, lead to diarrhea and dehydration, and in extreme cases cause life-threatening complications.
Stroke researcher Dr. Lara Boyd has never worked with children before but a unique curriculum at Eaton Arrowsmith School has inspired the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist to investigate if and how the adolescent brain changes in response to a mental physiotherapy-like regimen of daily, repeated, cognitive exercises. With this project, Dr. Boyd becomes one of the first scientists to research the concept of building up brain matter for education purposes, to improve learning response among children with learning disabilities.
For more than 30 years, Dr. John Fleetham has been investigating sleep – or lack thereof due to snoring and sleep apnea. Dr. Fleetham is a respirologist and medical director of the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) Sleep Disorder Program. His specific research area of interest is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and over the past three decades he has led a research program investigating its causes, prevalence, consequences, diagnosis, and treatments.
A novel pacemaker is demonstrating that good things really do come in small packages. This past September, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist and cardiologist Dr. Matthew Bennett implanted the Nanostim leadless pacemaker, Canada’s first and smallest leadless pacemaker, into an elderly female patient’s heart at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH). Dr.
