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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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Dr. Jabalee examined the molecular changes that occur during cancer progression. He identified silencing of the SMPD3 gene as a driver of cell motility and demonstrated the presence of morphological alterations in non-cancer cells adjacent to tonsil tumors. This work opens the door to development of novel tests for early tumor detection. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Mathae discovered the role of an immune cell population in sex bias in asthma prevalence. She also found that these cells migrate from the lung to the liver upon activation, linking the lung and liver immunity. Her work highlights the complexity of the local and systemic immune regulations. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Palis studied cocaine use among patients receiving treatment for opioid addiction at North America's first injectable opioid agonist treatment clinic. Her dissertation quantified and explained variation in patients' patterns of cocaine use. These findings can inform treatment and service provision for people who use both cocaine and opioids. | Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Yue developed economical, high-throughput research techniques to track hundreds of cell signalling proteins in biological models with high sensitivity. He then applied these to map the architecture of signalling systems involved in cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease to uncover potential therapeutic and diagnostic opportunities. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Davies studied the user interface design aspects of how to best present large and complex patient genomic data at the point of care to improve frailty risk assessment. Her research is a step towards integrating big data into routine primary care usage. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Samiea studied the role of Interleukin-10, an anti-inflammatory regulator, on immune and cancer cells. She found that its action is not limited to immune cells deactivation but it can also contribute to prostate cancer progression. Her findings will aid on the development of new therapies for inflammatory diseases and prostate cancer. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Bulaeva developed a new model of acute myeloid leukemia by overexpressing a gene called MYC in normal human blood cells. Using this model, she found that these cells require signals also present during inflammation to initiate leukemia and behave normally in their absence, suggesting that inflammation may play a role in human leukemogenesis. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Collins demonstrated that Inuit children with the p.P479L variant of the gene encoding CPT1A had higher rates of infectious illness and low blood sugar in the first days of life than children without the variant. These results demonstrate how underlying genetic susceptibilities can influence infant and early child health outcomes. | Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Genetics (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Marchand examined patients' experiences with injectable opioid agonist treatment, a novel treatment for opioid use disorder. Her research showed that this treatment was optimized when patients and providers establish positive therapeutic relationships. This evidence informs a conceptualization of patient-centered care for this disorder. | Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Wu developed a versatile microscope for noninvasive human skin characterization and diagnosis. This microscope provides information on three-dimensional tissue structure, cellular morphology, micro-volume biochemicals, and dynamic physiology, with a large field of view. It was also demonstrated to be useful for precise laser micro-surgery. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |