UBC chemist Stephen Withers is one of five successful applicants to receive the Killam Research Fellowships. Withers’s research is on the emerging field of engineering carbohydrate-modifying enzymes. The Fellowships, totaling $700,000, support scholars engaged in research projects of outstanding merit and widespread interest in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences, engineering and interdisciplinary studies within these fields. For more information, click here.
UBC researchers based out of Professor Konrad Walus’s electrical and computer engineering lab have discovered a technique for growing three-dimensional human airway tissues that almost replicate the lung wall, an improvement to the standard technique of growing sheets of cells in a dish or test tube. The team prints the airway tissues and will soon use it to test drugs that have already gone through clinical trial. The researchers hope to build more complex tissues for testing drugs on more complex systems that imitate the human body. For more information, click here.
A documentary featuring an interview with Tom Boyce, adjunct professor of the Human Early Learning Partnership, will debut on CBC Television’s Doc Zone on March 27 at 9 p.m. The documentary, titled Angry Kids & Stressed Out Parents, follows children and parents enrolled in early childhood interventions that are currently being used or piloted in parts of Canada. The interventions are designed to help children — especially those at-risk because of adverse childhood experiences — master the skills they need to be mentally healthy and successful later in life. View a trailer of the doc here.
In addition to winning this year’s UBC Arts Co-op Student of the Year award, Alex Chen has become the first UBC student to win the national Canadian Association for Co-operative Education Student of the Year Award. Chen has distinguished himself through his work terms as a junior officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, along with his superior academic standing and outstanding extra-curricular achievements. For more on info on Chen, click here.
UBC is presenting a series of talks and events as part of World TB Day on March 24th.
* On March 24, the UBC Centre for Tuberculosis Research is co-organizing short seminars on basic science to clinical aspects of TB management at the BC Center for Disease Control (BC CDC). Dr. Anil Koul, who played a critical role in developing bedaquiline, the first new TB drug in 50 years, will deliver the keynote speech. For more info and to register, click here.
* On March 25, the Life Sciences Institute will present “World TB Day: Eliminating tuberculosis worldwide” with talks by Koul and Dr. Jan Hayek, a clinician who worked with Médecins Sans Frontières in Uzbekistan and South Sudan. More info here.
TB remains an epidemic in much of the world, causing the deaths of over 1 million people each year. In Canada, the incidence of TB is particularly high among First Nations people. In Vancouver, TB is an ongoing concern in the Downtown Eastside.
The First Nation Studies Students Association and the Indigenous Students Association will host an end-of-the-year coffee house to raise funds for the first annual UBC Pow Wow. The evening will include performances from Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, a silent auction and a food buffet.
Date: March 28, 2014
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Place: Sty-Wet-Tan Hall, First Nations House of Learning, 1985 West Mall
Info: Entry by donation. More info here.
Make a donation to UBC during the 2014 UBC start an evolution Faculty and Staff Appeal (February 18 to March 31) and be entered to win a $150 UBC Bookstore gift certificate or a UBC ticket pack that includes a season pass to 2014-15 Athletics and Theatre at UBC. Visit startanevolution.ca/facultystaff to learn more, or to enter the contest without making a donation.
