Sexual assault support centres and services across Canada are working to adapt their resources to the reality that an increasing number of young Canadians are meeting romantic and sexual partners through geo-social networking apps (GSNAs): dating and hook-up apps like Tinder and Bumble. Combined, the world’s top four GSNAs have over 90 million users. While recent research has focused on the misogyny, sexism, and harassment that users endure on social media, there is little research into understanding what roles GSNAs are playing in sexual and gender-based violence online.
Persons with disabilities encounter many barriers to workplace inclusion. Prior research on strategies to mitigate such barriers has primarily been focused on recruitment and access to entry-level positions, with limited consideration given to career success. However, mentorship has been identified as an important element of career success for persons with disabilities—even though we know little about the design and implementation of disability inclusive mentorship programs, or how successful mentor-mentee relationships are fostered and sustained for persons with disabilities.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating disease that affects many parts of patients’ lives, such as the abilities to think, move, and speak. Speech problems in ALS can have a substantial effect on patients’ quality of life. They are also related to faster disease progression and shorter survival time. It may be possible to detect the onset of ALS head and neck muscle problems early using speech recordings, which could improve planning of care for ALS patients. Speech recordings may also be useful measures for ALS clinical trials.
Persons with disabilities encounter many barriers to workplace inclusion. Prior research on strategies to mitigate such barriers has primarily been focused on recruitment and access to entry-level positions, with limited consideration given to career success. However, mentorship has been identified as an important element of career success for persons with disabilities—even though we know little about the design and implementation of disability inclusive mentorship programs, or how successful mentor-mentee relationships are fostered and sustained for persons with disabilities.
This project aims to improve how people with Parkinson Disease (PD) walk. Typically, people with PD develop a shuffling gait and limits walking for health and fitness and can also lead to falls and fractures. This project is based on a SMART sensor, Heel2ToeTM, that attaches to the outside of the shoe and gives a “beep” when the wearer makes a good step, one in which the heel is the first point of contact with the surface. Starting a step with a strong heel strike, changes a stooped shuffling gait to one that is upright and striding.
This study will develop a novel smart rehabilitation device and gaming software that is versatile and will provide highly effective, individualized exercise programs with embedded electronic records, timely feedback, and support for safe independent use in community centers and private homes. Through this study we will further gain deeper insights into the type of person who will find “therapeutic” games compelling, fun, and effective, and why this works.
Precision medicine, where treatment is tailored to the individual patient, offers much potential to improve outcomes for children with cancer. However, selecting the right drug for each child remains challenging and new approaches to identify the most effective therapy are needed. In this project, interns will work directly with staff at BC Children’s Hospital (BCCH) and UBC researchers to establish preclinical screening of patients’ cancer cells with specific drugs to see which one works best.
This research study will allow PhD candidate Charlotte Smith, mentored by Dr. Malenfant and Dr. Spencer, to engage a team of at-risk and homeless youth in a collaborative study by working closely with the community partner, Operation Come Home. Charlotte and Malenfant will provide 5 youth with research training including methods, ethics and more. The research team will then work collaboratively to collect and analyze data during weekly meetings.
Over 3 million Canadian suffer from bone disease resulted from trauma, tumor removal and cancer and the number increasing with aging population every year. We plan to use hydrogels to create bioactive scaffold using 3D bioprinting extrusion method with potential for local drug loading and slow drug release for bone regeneration. We develop bioinks with proper mechanical strength and fidelity to keep the shape of the scaffold. I this work with incorporate bone growth factors to accelerate repair of bone defects.
We have observed that chemotherapy agents can induce RNA degradation in tumour cells, a phenomenon called “RNA disruption”. Interestingly, we also found that high tumour RNA disruption after 2-3 cycles of chemotherapy predicts for complete tumour destruction after treatment and improved cancer patient survival. We and Rna Diagnostics, Inc. are using this knowledge to identify patients with non-responding tumours early in treatment, who might benefit from discontinuing chemotherapy (and its side effects) and moving on to alternate treatments.
