The internship describes a novel method for improvement of Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy for cancer treatment. The intern’s team will implement a learning algorithm approach to design the number and value of orientations of the gantry that will optimize the radiation dose to the planned target volume while at the same time minimizing dose and damage to organs at risk. This is very important for cases such as prostate cancer, and will significantly reduce the time in designing cancer treatment protocols.

The proposed research project will assess psychiatric patients shortly before hospital discharge and then conduct follow-up assessments once a month in the community for three months. Assessment will include data collected from interviews as well as file reviews and will focus on the effect of patient perceptions on therapeutic and adverse outcomes.

One of the primary reasons for this regionalization of health care in British Columbia is so that more resources can be spent on direct patient care and less on bureaucracy and duplication. A critical component of this systems approach is equipping selected facilities with the resources to treat the most severely injured patients. Distance to care is hypothesized to be inversely related to patient outcome – as delays in transporting patients to critical care has a known negative effect on mortality and morbidity.

This research project aims to develop a clinical assessment tool that can aid physicians to predict or improve surgical procedure effectiveness for women who suffer from Urinary Incontinence (UI). UI is an epidemic disease that involves loss of bladder and urethral sphincter control to hold urine. It is mainly due to factors including aging, obesity, nervous failure, muscle relaxation due to childbirth or medications intake, pelvic floor muscle dysfunction, failing urethral sphincter and smoking.

Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (NHL)is the 5th most common cancer in Canada and its incidence has been increasing steadily every year. Unfortunately, little is known about the causes of the increased incidence, although it is likely that some combinations of genetic and environmental factors are involved. This internship with the BC Cancer Agency will examine genes that may interact with ultraviolet radiation, organochlorines and other environmental and lifestyle factors. This project will provide an important step in understanding the etiology of NHL.

The overall objective of this pilot study is to develop design, manufacturing and clinical protocols for the application of Klearway’s oral appliance therapy to a child population. By evaluating orthodontic records (questionnaires, x-rays and dental study models) together with blood oxygen levels before and after treatment, new applications for Klearway’s oral appliance use and new protocols in children may be defined. Five to ten children enrolled in the undergraduate orthodontic clinical program at the University of British Columbia will be recruited.

Clinical depression is common among workers and leads to significant personal and economic burden. Previous research has shown that almost a third of workers presenting to Interlock, an Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP), reported symptoms of depression. Although all clients show significant improvement after EFAP intervention, depressed clients continued to have higher scores on work impairment and work absence than clients seeking help for other concerns.

This internship is the first in a series of four which Kinexus is undertaking with ACCELERATE BC which will support its overall ambitious goal of creating high resolution maps of internal cell communication networks that are gender, age, tissue and disease-specific. These maps will be needed for identifying disease diagnostic biomarkers that are phospho-sites and drug targets that are kinases. The dividends of these efforts will be improved diagnostics and therapeutics for personalized medicine delivery.

After a ligament injury to the knee, clinicians must decide on an optimal treatment for their patient. In most cases, they prescribe either conservative therapies (physiotherapy with or without orthotics) or surgery (which allows doctors to use two different grafts). The Centre du genou Emovi proposes a biomechanical assessment to better understand the functional status of the knee and to determine more accurately the appropriate treatment option.

It is estimated that one third of the world’s population is infected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. With the emergence of drug resistant tuberculosis, the World Health Organization has declared tuberculosis a global health emergency. UDP-galactopyranose mutase, an enzyme essential for tuberculosis bacterial growth and infection, will be studied by a protocol which combines advanced NMR and computational modeling techniques.