Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease(COPD) are the two common lung conditions in British Columbia(BC). Given the dynamic character of these two diseases and modified treatment options in recent years, this proposed study aims to assess and update the economic burden of asthma and COPD in British Columbia and determine regional differences and the impact of social-economic aspects on the burden of asthma and COPD.

A continuous observational pool of individuals with asthma and COPD will be built utilizing BC health administrative data from 1997 to 2021.

Cells have developed an intricate system called ubiquitination to control the quantity of certain proteins. As this is frequently hijacked in various cancers, the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) intends to inhibit components of ubiquitination with small molecules for therapeutic benefit. Partnership of the SGC with the cell biology expertise of Barsyte-Lovejoy group will allow for cellular investigation of new and specific compounds that can manipulate the ubiquitination machinery as an anticancer therapy.

Factors that contribute to the generation of misinformation and distrust in Canadians around drug and vaccine safety and effectiveness include the impact of poor-quality or underpowered studies to influence the perception of therapeutic effectiveness, research priorities, and resource allocation; and the lack of understanding in the processes involved in drug and vaccine research, development, monitoring, and approval.

Translation of scientific bench-top discoveries into a commercial enterprise can be one of the hardest transitions for academic groups. Additionally, there are very few therapeutic options for neurodegenerative diseases, and a great need exists for the development of new drug candidates to treat diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Our proposal seeks to continue with the development of new neurodegenerative therapeutics, while simultaneously analyzing and developing commercialization strategies for the translation of drug discoveries into start-up enterprises.

Asthma affects 1 in 8 Canadian children and is the leading cause of pediatric hospitalizations with costs to Canadian health caresystems estimated to exceed 4.2Billion/year by 2030. While the causes are still debated, infant prematurity is a strong predictor forasthma.

Market approval of generic products requires that such products are shown to have equivalent safety and efficacy as the innovator product currently on the market. In general, generic topical dermatological products require comparative clinical trials in patients which require a large number of patients, are expensive and lengthy. This has led to a shortage of generic medicines that are meant to be applied to the skin. We developed a surrogate method to assess the safety and efficacy using tape stripping of human skin which is a relatively non-invasive technique.

Designing new anticancer agents using structure based drug design and the 3D structure of the biological targetis becoming an increasingly important field of study. The main objective of this project is to develop and identifyanticancer drug candidate(s) for advanced preclinical testing, with the end goal of identifying drug candidatessuitable for clinical trials and commercialization. Currently, we have synthesized several novel drug candidatesdesigned to mitigate the increased toxicological effects observed in a significant proportion of patients receivingcurrent therapies.

The project aims to use models that describe clotting factor activity in blood after an infusion in patients with hemophilia to calculate their pharmacokinetics (PK). PK is used in this disease to help in selecting the right dose for the patient. The partnership with Hemalytic will provide them with necessary expertise in the use of these models. The PK model are central to the objective of analyzing data from various sources to assess the use of extended half-life clotting factor products in Canada.

G protein coupled receptors (GCPRs) are proteins found at the surface of cells are responsible for activating numerous intracellular signaling pathways and thus are involved in regulating about every physiological response. Activation of GPCRs occurs via a diverse array of stimuli as varied as photons, lipids, ions, small hormone or neurotransmitters through to larger peptidic and protein molecules. Currently, GPCRs are currently the target of up to 40% of marketed drugs.

In about 4% of patients that have had an abdominal surgery ranging from a C-section, to appendectomy, to removal of the gall bladder, they will develop bands of scar tissue that can cause extreme pain and/or life-threatening complications such as bowel obstruction which requires emergency operation. The only temporary cure is a second operation which usually only provides temporary relief. No therapeutic is available to prevent adhesion formation. We have the technology to look inside the belly and see these adhesions form and we discovered how this happens.