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Ranked among the world’s top medical schools with the fifth-largest MD enrollment in North America, the UBC Faculty of Medicine is a leader in both the science and the practice of medicine. Across British Columbia, more than 12,000 faculty and staff are training the next generation of doctors, health care professionals, and medical researchers, making remarkable discoveries to help create the pathways to better health for our communities at home and around the world.
The UBC Faculty of Medicine offers a diverse array of training opportunities including cutting-edge research experiences in the biosciences, globally recognized population health education, quality health professional training, as well as several certificate and online training options. The Faculty of Medicine is home to more than 1,700 graduate students housed in 20 graduate programs (14 of which offer doctoral research options). Year after year, research excellence in the Faculty of Medicine is supported by investment from funding sources here at home and around the globe, receiving approximately more than $1.8B in total research funding since 2016.
We value our trainees and the creative input they have to scholarly activities at UBC. Our priority is to enable their maximum potential through flexible opportunities that provide a breadth of experiences tailored to their own individual career objectives. We maintain high standards of excellence, and work to create a community of intellectually and socially engaged scholars that work collaboratively with each other, the university, and the world, with the overarching goal of promoting the health of individuals and communities.
Most Faculty research is conducted under the auspices of 23 centres and institutes that are part of UBC or affiliated with it, in collaboration with our health partners.
UBC Faculty of Medicine provides innovative educational and research programs in the areas of health and life sciences through an integrated and province-wide delivery model in facilities at locations throughout British Columbia.
The Life Sciences Centre is the largest building on the UBC Vancouver campus. Completed in 2004, the $125 million, 52,165 sq metres building was built to accommodate the distributed medical educational program and the Life Sciences Institute.
The Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH), a partnership between the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health, unites under one roof research and clinical expertise in neuroscience, psychiatry and neurology in order to accelerate discovery and translate new knowledge into better treatment and prevention strategies. DMCBH has both laboratory and clinical research areas within the Centre proper and in the UBC Hospital Koerner Pavilion. Our core facilities are essential to ongoing collaboration, teaching, and research.
The BC Children's Hospital Research Institute is it the largest research institute of its kind in Western Canada in terms of people, productivity, funding and size. With more than 350,000 square feet of space, the Institute has both 'wet bench' laboratory and 'dry lab' clinical research areas, and other areas to facilitate particular areas of research and training.
New knowledge and innovation are crucial to successfully identifying, addressing and overcoming the increasingly complex health-related challenges that influence the lives of all of us – in British Columbia, in Canada, and in countries and communities around the globe.
The UBC Faculty of Medicine is recognized nationally and internationally for research innovation that advances knowledge and translates new discoveries to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Research opportunities feature extensive collaborations across other faculties, health institutions and health partners across British Columbia, Canada and internationally.
The Faculty provides and fosters research excellence across the full continuum, from basic science to applied science and then to knowledge implementation, with a focus on precision health; cancer; brain and mental health; heart and lung health; population health; and chronic diseases.
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Medicine.
| Year | Citation | Program |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Dr. Brown used budding yeast as a model to investigate the cellular response to DNA damage, which is highly conserved between yeast and humans. He revised a recently proposed model of the cellular response to DNA damage and discovered that a scaffolding protein called Rtt107 cooperates with different protein partners to prevent mutations. | Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Genetics (PhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Adams showed that preturbing the machinery necessary for moving calcium and lipids between different components of cells in the testis results in the dysregulation of mammalian sperm release. His work has substantially added to the knowledge of sperm release mechanisms and has provided insight into infertility disorders in men. | Doctor of Philosophy in Cell and Developmental Biology (PhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Tamura elucidated the molecular mechanisms by which beneficial microbes in our gut utilize complex carbohydrates constituting dietary fibers that we humans cannot digest on our own. His research will inform future therapeutics based on targeted manipulation of gut microbial composition, which influences essentially all aspects of human health. | Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Rich's research identified important gaps in the state of the knowledge of chronic disease multimorbidity for transgender people, demonstrated feasibility of innovative methods to identify transgender samples in administrative data, and provided epidemiologic evidence of multimorbidity disparity for transgender people living with HIV. | Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Woodard developed two automated systems for assessing the behaviour of laboratory mice within their home-cage, allowing these animals to be tested in a high-throughput and low-stress manner. These systems were used to study mice carrying the genetic mutation that causes Huntington's disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. | Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Chhina developed a new questionnaire to measure the impact of leg deformities on the quality of life of children. To develop this questionnaire, she interviewed children, parents, doctors, and healthcare workers from six different countries. This questionnaire will be used to measure the impact of treatments on improving quality of life. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Ouyang showed how the number of participants needed in a clinical trial can be reduced by making use of information from outside the trial, by changing how people are assigned to the treatment groups, and by improving the way the data are analyzed. | Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Ye studied the genetic architecture of strabismus, more commonly known as crossed eyes. She identified the likely causal gene in a large family with a history of strabismus, multiple biological pathways, and the involvement of the central nervous system. This research advanced the understanding of strabismus pathology and may improve patient care. | Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (MDPhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Ramzy studied the role that the hormone insulin plays in the development of insulin-producing beta-cells. He examined a gene therapy approach to treat diabetes and subsequently developed a new theory on how beta-cells produce mature insulin. This work revises a decades old dogma and provides insight into new treatment avenues for diabetes. | Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (MDPhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Lake studied the therapeutic and harm reduction applications of cannabis among marginalized people who use illicit drugs in Vancouver. Through demonstrating that cannabis has clinical potential for managing pain and opioid use disorder in this population, her work provided key data to inform future clinical experimentation involving cannabis. | Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD) |