Faculty-old version

Understanding the dynamics of biochemical networks is important for understanding life at the systems level and has practical implications for Medicine, Engineering, Biology, and Chemistry. The complex network of hemostasis consists of over 100 coupled reactions and has the death-defying function of regulating blood coagulation. Research in the Kastrup laboratory focuses on three problems related to blood coagulation: understanding the biophysical mechanisms by which blood clots form and degrade, controlling these processes to eliminate unwanted coagulation, and using coagulation as a scaffold for delivering therapeutics to diseased vasculature. This research lies at the interface of Chemical Biology, Bioengineering and Medicine. The techniques used include microfluidics, reconstituted protein systems, biomaterial synthesis, numerical simulations, and disease models of coagulation and atherosclerosis.

For more information about Dr. Kastrup’s research, please visit Google Scholar.

Other Affiliation: Electrical & Computer Engineering

Dr. de Boer’s lab aims to understand how the genome is regulated using high-throughput experimental approaches and machine learning. Our genome sequence is identical in every cell of your body, and yet the cells perform many different functions. Their diverse functions come from the genes each cell expresses, which is encoded in the sequence of the DNA. Regulatory DNA is interpreted by proteins termed “transcription factors” that recognize specific DNA sequences and alter the regulatory environment where they bind. This regulation can be further modified by genomic context, chromatin state, and the expression of nearby regulatory RNAs. The creation of genomic “big data” will allow us to decipher this complex problem. One important application of our work is in understanding susceptibility to common complex inherited diseases, like autoimmunity and heart disease. Here, many of the mutations thought to contribute to disease lie in the regulatory regions of the genome. By creating high-throughput measurements of regulatory activity, and applying machine learning approaches, we hope to make sense of how the genome is regulated so we can better understand gene regulation in health and disease. 

For more information about Dr. de Boer’s research, please visit Google Scholar.

Dr. Wilson investigates the links between joint mechanics, clinical symptoms, and the success of treatment procedures. His research makes connections between biomechanics and problems like osteoarthritis and chronic pain. In his research, Dr. Wilson uses many medical imaging procedures, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, and ultrasound. He also works to develop new, more accurate methods for measuring the biomechanics of the spine, hip, and knee based on these imaging techniques. Dr. Wilson’s work translates to functional improvements by improving surgical treatments for diseases and injury. Having a better understanding of the causes of these conditions allow researchers to outline risk factors and therefore provide more effective prevention and treatment strategies.

For more information about Dr. Wilson’s research please visit Google Scholar.

Dr. Kizhakkedathu’s research program at the Centre for Blood Research, UBC, is based on tailoring the molecular-level interactions of synthetic polymers with biological systems to design novel biomaterials in a translational setting. The Kizhakkedathu Lab takes an integrative, interdisciplinary approach combining advanced polymer synthesis with the understanding of the pathophysiology of diseases along with well-designed biological assays and animal models towards the discovery of novel polymers as therapeutics, and technological for boimedical and clinical use. The Lab primarily engages in four independent yet closely related themes and actively collaborates with clinicians and engineers to realize our research goals.

Other Affiliation: Electrical & Computer Engineering

Other Affiliation: Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Research Interests:

My research area lies at the interface between computational, engineering and biomedical sciences. I am interested in developing machine learning and signal processing algorithms and software infrastructure to combine various sources of omics and imaging data with major emphasis on discovering novel complex biological information related to different diseases including cancer.

For a list of Dr. Bashashati’s publications please refer to Google Scholar.

Currently accepting graduate and post-doc applications.

Dr. Karsan is Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC, and Distinguished Scientist at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at BC Cancer. Dr. Karsan has been supported by several prestigious awards over the years, including 10 years as a Clinician-Scientist awardee of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, 10 years as a Scholar of the Michael Smith Foundation of Health Research and currently as the recipient of the John Auston BC Cancer Foundation Clinical Scientist Award.

Dr. Karsan is internationally recognized in the field of blood cancer research. His translational research lab has generated seminal work on the role of noncoding RNAs and innate immune signaling in blood cancers. He currently leads a team of six principal investigators in a Terry Fox Research Institute Program Project in acute leukemia research. He is a member of various international hematology committees including: the International Working Group for Prognosis in Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS), the Experimental Hematology Subcommittee of the Society for Hematopathology, and the Laboratory Assays Working Group for the Myeloid Malignancies Precision Medicine Initiative. In 2002, he co-founded the Centre for Blood Research at UBC with nine other principal investigators.

Research Areas:

– Tissue engineering
– Regenerative medicine
– Biomaterials scaffolds for controllign stem cell differentiation

Research Interests:

Dr. Usprech is interested in incorporating cellular/tissue engineering design into the SBME undergraduate curriculum – an area typically reserved for graduate study. As an instructor, she aims to utilize and investigate teaching strategies that promote retention of material, critical thought, and wellness in the classroom.

Dan Kirouac is the Director of Systems Biology at Notch Therapeutics, where he integrates bioinformatics and dynamical modeling to support research and development programs.

His roles have focused on applying computational biology and mathematics to drug development, spanning early discovery through late-stage clinical trials.

Sid Fels has been in the department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at UBC since 1998. Dr. Fels received his PhD and MSc in computer science at the University of Toronto in 1994 and 1990 respectively and his BASc in electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo in 1988. He was recognized as a Distinguished University Scholar at UBC in 2004. He was a visiting researcher at ATR Media Integration & Communications Research Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan from 1996 to 1997.

Dr. Fels previously worked at Virtual Technologies Inc. in Palo Alto, CA. He is internationally known for his work in human-computer interaction, 3D displays, biomechanical modeling, neural networks, intelligent agents, new interfaces for musical expression and interactive arts. His lab website is at hct.ece.ubc.ca. Dr. Fels is also the director of the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC) at UBC (www.magic.ubc.ca)

Neural stem cells; neurotrophin regulation of neuronal survival; growth and connectivity; p53 family in the nervous system; molecular regulation of neurogenesis.

The focus of Dr. Garbi’s multidisciplinary research laboratory is on visual computing in biomedical imaging. Her lab develops novel computational techniques for efficient, reproducible, accurate and robust analysis of structural and functional multi-dimensional biomedical data. This can be in the form of novel medical image-based metrics or biomarkers to assess and track disease and evaluate therapies, or automated techniques for computer aided intervention.

For more information about Dr. Garbi’s research, please visit Google Scholar.

A celebrated Vancouver biomedical engineer, James McEwen’s leadership and expertise have spread far beyond the Lower Mainland, benefitting Canadians and people around the world.

Best known for the microprocessor-controlled automatic surgical tourniquet system he invented, Dr. McEwen and his team have developed numerous medical devices that have changed the way health care is delivered in Canada and internationally. The tourniquet system is now standard equipment in operating rooms worldwide and is used in an estimated 20,000 surgical procedures every day.  It works to protect patients by improving the precision, speed and safety of surgery.

A UBC alumnus, Dr. McEwen is considered one of the founders of the Canadian biomedical engineering industry. He helped establish several medical technology companies, invested in many others and was a driving force behind the creation of biomedical engineering programs here at UBC and at Simon Fraser University.

James McEwen was appointed to the Order of British Columbia, BC’s highest form of recognition, in 2021.

Professor Edelstein-Keshet’s career is dedicated to using mathematics as a tool for research in the life sciences. She has become recognized as one of the world leaders in the area of mathematical biology, in which she has been at the forefront for 25 years. Her work spans many topics, from the sub-cellular to the ecological. For the past decade, she has focused on biomedical research, including autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes. She also researches Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Edelstein-Keshet earned her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Mathematics from Dalhousie University and received her doctorate in Applied Mathematics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel in 1982. She held teaching positions at Brown University and Duke University before joining The University of British Columbia (UBC) as Associate Professor in 1989, becoming Professor in 1995. Her book Mathematical Models in Biology (Random House) is regarded as the definitive textbook in the rapidly growing field of mathematical biology.

She has been awarded the Canadian Mathematical Society’s Krieger-Nelson Prize, which recognizes outstanding research by a female mathematician, and, at UBC, the Faculty of Science Award for Leadership. She has also served as President of the Society for Mathematical Biology.

Other Affiliation: Orthopaedics

Dr. Shahriari leads the BioAugmentative Interfaces Laboratory at ICORD with research at the intersection of materials science, electrical engineering, and medicine. The team develops neuroelectronic devices, sensors, and smart biomaterials to interface with biological tissues and thus provide new capabilities for tissue regeneration and organ augmentation.

Watch Dr. Shahriari’s TEDx talk, which captures her dedication to transcending disability.

Matthias Görges is a Principal Investigator at the Research Institute, BC Children’s Hospital, where he co-leads the Clinical & Community Data, Analytics & Informatics group. He is a biomedical engineer with extensive clinical research experience, and an Assistant Professor (Partner) in the Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics department at the University of British Columbia. As part of an inter-disciplinary team of engineers, computer scientists, and health care providers, he is involved in a wide range of projects focusing on the development and application of new technologies in the pediatric anesthesia and intensive care setting. His research interests are patient monitoring alarms, medical displays, decision support systems, mobile health applications, and data integration/communication platforms. Matthias’ goal is to extract clinically-useful information from vital signs and other clinical data, and to transform these data into information for better, timelier, and more efficient decision-making by clinicians.

For more information about Dr. Görges research, please visit Google Scholar.

Dr. Conway is a Professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Director of UBC’s Centre for Blood Research, and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Endothelial Cell Biology. He has established successful research groups in vascular biology both in Canada and abroad (Belgium), organized graduate educational programs, and coordinated collaborations with industry.

Dr. Conway’s research goal is to catalyze translational research between basical and clinical scientists. His research is designed to characterize the interplay between the vasual endothelium, coagulation, and complement using a range of technologies, from bench to bedside. He is supported by grants from the CIHR and NSERC and industry.

Tim Murphy’s laboratory contributes to understanding of how the mouse cortex adapts after stroke, resulting in remapping of brain function from damaged to surviving areas using mouse models. The lab is developing new in vivo imaging and optogenetic tools that have parallels to human brain imaging and stimulation tools. They are currently developing fully automated methods of mouse brain imaging using home-cage technologies that enable remote control of experiments through the internet. The lab evaluates mesoscale functional connectivity using genetically-encoded sensors with the aim of piloting treatments for circuit-level activity imbalances that accompany diseases of the nervous system. These tools enable 24 h/day monitoring of sensory-motor function in mouse home cages.

Dr. Grecov’s work has been highly interdisciplinary, involving collaborations with clinicians, but also chemical engineering, computer science, material science, and physics. Her expertise is in biofluid mechanics, non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, rheology and mathematical modeling. She has 22 years of experience in complex fluids research, constitutive modeling development, and numerical simulations. Specific projects include: rheology of liquid crystalline materials, modeling and simulation of complex fluid and nanomaterial flows, design and characterization of new high performance bio- lubricants, hydrodynamics and rheological characterization of synovial fluid, fluid-structure interaction simulations in heart valves and aneurysms, modeling and simulation of industrial processes.

For more information about Dr. Grecov’s research, please visit Google Scholar.

Other Affiliation: Microbiology & Immunology

Research Interests:

Dr. Tropini’s interests lie at the nexus of medicine, microbial biophysics, and engineering. Working in the field of the gut microbiota, she is applying novel tools to longstanding questions regarding the stability of microbial communities and their response to perturbations during disease. By combining imaging, microfluidics and computational techniques to animal studies, she is building a comprehensive and quantitative understanding of the complex interactions between microbes and their hosts. Dr. Tropini is also keenly interested in teaching and outreach, particularly with the goal of building a common language between physicists and engineers, biologists and clinicians.

For more information about Dr. Tropini’s research please see Google Scholar.

Research areas:

Micro-energy sources, protein-MEMS interaction, MEMS-based photonic devices, design, fabrication and packing of MEMS for biological applications.

For more information about Dr. Chiao’s research, please visit Google Scholar.

Dr. Tang’s research interest is in biomedical optical imaging systems and devices, including multiphoton microscopy, optical coherence tomography, and micro-endoscopy systems for biomedical applications.

Dr. Peter Lansdorp (MD, PhD) was born and raised in the Netherlands. In 1985 he moved to the Terry Fox Laboratory at the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver, where he worked on the purification and biology of human and murine blood forming stem cells. This work led him to studies of telomere biology for which his laboratory developed fluorescence in situ hybridization (Q-FISH) techniques. These techniques have become standard in the telomere field. In 2011 he became the first Scientific Director of the European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing (ERIBA) at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. In 2016 he returned to the Terry Fox Laboratory in Vancouver to continue his work on development and applications of Strand-seq. Peter Lansdorp is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Academia Europaea.

Dr. Lansdorp’s main research interest include stem cell biology, telomere biology and understanding genotype- phenotype relations in aging and cancer.

For more information about Dr. Lansdorp’s research, please visit Google Scholar.

I am interested in using non-invasive imaging techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging, in order to help scientists and clinicians better understand brain health and disease, and how to treat an unhealthy brain. MRIs are incredibly useful for these purposes as, unlike an X-ray or a CT scan, they do not give off any harmful radiation, so people can be scanned multiple times, including babies and pregnant mothers. Additionally, MRIs are magnificently diverse in what information they can provide, including high resolution anatomical information, the activity of the brain, specific chemicals or metabolites and their concentrations, and more. Additionally, when these scans are combined, they can often give us more information together than the sum of their parts. I am interested in improving these techniques, exploring how they can be combined in novel ways, and ultimately in seeing how they can be used to tell us something new about the brain that we did not know before. It is in doing so that I hope to help treat various insults, injuries and diseases of the brain in order to help people lead better lives, or in the case of infants, setting them up on the right track.

Research area:

Anxiety, Big data, Bioinformatics, Cell types, Computation, CRISPR-Cas9, Fear, Genetics, Modeling, Neural circuits, Neuroscience, Neuroscience of memory, PTSD, RNAseq.

Dr. Dumont’s current research interests are: adaptive control, distributed parameter system control, control loop performance monitoring, predictive control, with applications to the process industries, mainly pulp and paper. Recently, he has expanded his interests to biomedical engineering, particularly to biomedical signal processing and automatic drug delivery.

Dr. Dumont also co-directs the Electrical and Computer Engineering in Medicine (ECEM). This is a multidisciplinary team made up of control, signal processing and biomedical engineers, computer scientists, and clinicians. The team’s diversity in expertise allows them to contribute to a wide range of innovative projects; they are primarily focused, however, on the development of technology to enhance clinical and ambulatory physiological monitoring. They do so through the application of advanced signal processing and control theory.

Research Areas:
Early detection of skin cancer, epidemiologic research on skin cancer, artificial intelligence for analysis of skin lesion images, hand-held diagnostic imaging devices

Dr. Lee’s research interests intercept the areas of computing, skin and cancer. Specifically, his lab develops innovative computer algorithms, based on artificial intelligence techniques, for the analysis of digital pigmented skin lesion images. These computer algorithms facilitate early skin cancer detection and follow-up. Another focus of Dr. Lee’s lab is to design hand-held in vivo imaging devices based on laser speckle and polarization properties of coherent light. These devices are aimed for differentiating malignant melanoma from other skin conditions. The effectiveness of the devices is tested on a large group of skin patients in clinical settings. The Lee lab also investigates epidemiologic research on the relationship between environmental and genetic risk factors of melanoma.

The Leslie Lab is working at the interface of physics and biology with a particular interest in quantifying the dynamics of individual molecules. Dr. Leslie’s research provides insights into the biophysical properties of molecules and cells, including therapeutics with the ultimate goal of propelling quantitative health sciences. Her team is developing single-molecule and single-cell imaging and analysis tools, as well as mathematical models of molecular interactions, to help guide the rational design of new therapeutic molecules and delivery vehicles. These discoveries will elucidate the process of how molecules search for and bind to a target and perform their therapeutic function in a complex living environment, with a particular focus on nucleic acid interactions and advancing genetic medicines. Current projects include: understanding the biophysics of nucleic acid hybridization, understanding the mechanisms of antisense oligonucleotides, protein-protein interactions, and single- molecule activity in whole cells.