Chairs Appointed

Macular Research - UBC - Dr. Kevin Gregory-Evans

Dr. Kevin Gregory-Evans has been appointed the Julia Levy B.C. leadership chair in macular research at the University of British Columbia. The chair is funded by the Province’s Leading Edge Endowment Fund, UBC and QLT Inc., a UBC spinoff company co-founded by Levy. QLT developed Visudyne, the first macular degeneration breakthrough, which uses a combination of drugs and laser therapy to treat patients around the world.

“As the baby boomer population ages, the number of people with macular degeneration is expected to double over the next 25 years,” said Gregory-Evans, who came to Vancouver from London, England, where he was a lead researcher at the Imperial College and Western Eye Hospital. “The development of new treatment delivery methods will go a long way to improving the independence and quality of life of the aging population.”

Further down the road, he hopes to develop drug-delivering cells that could be injected into an arm vein instead of the eye. He is also researching genetic causes of retinal diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa, with the goal of developing a genetic screening program that would enable earlier diagnosis and treatment for children and adults to prevent vision loss.

Gregory-Evans is a professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine, a clinical ophthalmologist with the Eye Care Centre at Vancouver General Hospital, a research scientist with the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and a senior member of the Brain Research Centre. He also has links to the Centre for Macular Research (the only one of its kind in Canada) and the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics.

Functional Cancer Imaging – UBC - Dr. Francois Bénard

One of Canada’s foremost nuclear medicine researchers is developing new methods and drugs to diagnose and treat cancer under a partnership between the Province, the BC Cancer Agency, the BC Cancer Foundation and the University of British Columbia. Dr. François Bénard has been appointed B.C. Leadership Chair in Functional Cancer Imaging. Bénard has been internationally recognized for developing novel radiopharmaceuticals that zero in on tumours too small to be found otherwise, and that allow doctors to see quickly whether a cancer is responding to treatment. Before accepting positions with UBC and the BC Cancer Agency as the Scientific Director of the Centre of Excellence for Functional Cancer Imaging, Dr. François Bénard was chief of the molecular imaging centre at the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke in Quebec.  As well as continuing his work on isotopes, Bénard will combine gene science with advanced nuclear medicine imaging to study breast cancer, prostate cancer and lymphoma. He will use genetic predictors of how aggressive these cancers will be – and how likely a specific treatment will be to fail – together with positron emission tomography and computed tomography scanning. This will identify patients who are unlikely to be helped through conventional therapies, and allow them to be offered more promising alternatives.

Sport Technology – Camosun College - Dr. Tim Walzak

The B.C. Regional Innovation Chair in Sport Technology housed in the Pacific Sport Institute at Camosun College will provide resources in sport performance, technology, health and education to help develop new sport-based technologies and innovations.

The Sport Technology Innovation Chair will lead the Sport Innovation Centre (SPIN) which will be linked to the newly-established Camosun Centre for Sport and Exercise Education and the Pacific Sport Institute (PSI) and its external partners including UVIC, UBC, SFU and the University of Calgary.  This will provide an unusual combination of resources in sport performance, technology, health and education to provide the basis for development of new sport-based technologies and innovations. 

Pharmaceutical Genomics and Bioinformatics - Simon Fraser University - Dr. Robert Young

Dr. Robert Young is the Merck Frosst BC Leadership Chair in Pharmaceutical Genomics in Drug Discovery recipient at Simon Fraser University (SFU).

Dr. Young is recognized as a leader in the Canadian and international pharmaceutical industry who has made fundamental contributions in the medicinal chemistry of anti-inflammatory agents and analgesics.  His key work led to the discovery of “Singulair^TM”, one of the first new therapies for asthma in 25 years at Merck Frosst Canada’s research division in Montreal.

At SFU, Dr. Young proposes to embark on a research program to design and use “proof of concept” molecular probes to identify targets for new drugs in four key disease areas: cancer, Parkinson’s disease, atherosclerosis and osteoporosis.  His research will initially focus on osteoporosis and bone degenerative diseases. Osteoporosis afflicts 40- 50 per cent of elderly females and 10-15 per cent of elderly males in Canada and results in a large toll in health care costs and impaired quality of life for sufferers.

Currently, osteoporosis drugs stop bone loss but do not in any significant way re-grow bone. Dr. Young is working on drugs that will stimulate rapid bone growth. His work is also supported by Genome BC and he will work with the Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD).

Aboriginal Environmental Health, UNBC – Dr Laurie Chan
The fifth BC Leadership Chair has been awarded to Dr Laurie Chan of the University of Northern British Columbia on February 3, 2006 with matching funds from the Rix Family Foundation and CANTEST Ltd. Nationally recognized as a researcher and contributor to northern and aboriginal research, Dr Chan was a founding member of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment at McGill. He currently holds research awards totalling more than $600,000 a year from national agencies including NSERC and CIHR.

Based at the Community Health program of UNBC, Dr Chan’s work will encompass wide-ranging issues pertaining to health, the environment and Aboriginal communities and will involve both basic and applied research in environmental toxicology and nutritional toxicology. It is expected that research results will contribute to a better understanding of the toxicology of environmental contaminants found in the environment, the sources of different nutrients in the diet, and environmental factors that can affect the availability of local resources. As the BC Leadership Chair, he will integrate research activities with UNBC colleagues in the First Nations, Northern Medical and Environmental Studies programs, as well as maintain active collaborations with research colleagues at McGill, UQAM, Laval, and UBC and UVic, and ongoing collaborations with Health Canada and Assembly of First Nations and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami organizations. More Information

Depression Research, UBC – Dr Allan Young
The third BC Leadership Chair has been awarded to Dr Allan Young of UBC on November 18, 2005 with matching funds from the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation. Dr Young, who has come from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, is a pioneer in the application of brain imaging technology to the study of mental illness. As a leading clinician-scientist, the Chair will promote BC as a centre for innovative research on the causes and treatment of mental illnesses by focusing on translational clinical neuroscience that will develop novel pharmacotherapies and diagnostics.

Dr Young will be an integral member of the UBC Brain Research Centre which was created in 1997 jointly by UBC Faculty of Medicine and Vancouver Hospital. He will also serve as Associate Director of the UBC Institute of Mental Health. The primary goal of these facilities is to develop a world-class effort in neuroscience, focusing especially on diseases that affect the brain and fundamental mechanisms of brain function. The BC Leadership Chair will build on the research excellence in depression at the Department of Psychiatry and UBC Institute of Mental Health, whose mission is to improve clinical care for people with mood disorders through research and education. By bridging the gap between bench and clinical science, the Chair will expedite the transfer of new information about the brain to therapeutic advances that can be tested in the clinical populations served by the facilities.

Prostate Cancer Research, UBC – Dr Martin Gleave
In July 2005, Dr Martin Gleave was appointed to the BC Leadership Chair in Prostate Cancer Research, with matching funds through the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation. Dr Gleave, a urologist, surgeon and Director of Clinical Research at the Prostate Centre at VGH, is a leader in developing and applying new therapeutics for prostate cancer treatment.

The Prostate Centre’s Translational Research Initiative For Accelerated Discovery and Development (PC-TRIADD) will be supported by this Chair and apply state of the art genomic/proteomic approaches to the analysis and treatment of prostate cancer. The Centre consolidates under one "banner" the expertise of scientists and clinicians in fields such as urology, cellular and molecular biology, physics, immunology, pharmacology, socio-behavioral sciences, functional genomics, nursing, radiation oncology, medical oncology, cancer endocrinology and epidemiology, and has been named as one of only two Research and Education Centres for Prostate Cancer in Canada.

Spinal Cord Injury Research, UBC –

*UPDATE SUMMER 2010 - Dr. John Steeves completed his term as chairholder in 2010 and a search is uderway to appoint a successor.

The first BC Leadership Chair, awarded in 2002, was the ICORD chair at UBC with matching funds from the Rick Hansen Foundation. Dr John Steeves holds the John & Penny Ryan BC Leadership Chair in Spinal Cord Injury Research. Dr Steeves has achieved pre-eminence in his field through his discoveries in areas such as axon regeneration and immunological suppression of myelin to promote regeneration and recovery after spinal cord cord injury.

ICORD (International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries), a partnership of the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and the Rick Hansen Man In Motion Foundation, supports and strategically links researchers regionally, nationally and internationally, encouraging scientists and clinical investigators to work collaboratively on relevant research to accelerate the translation of discoveries into valid therapeutic interventions, bio-technical devices, surgical practices and rehabilitation therapies. A dedicated research centre at VGH is the multidisciplinary home for clinical investigators, basic scientists, rehabilitation researchers, and community-based providers collaborating to develop the most effective strategies for the promotion of functional recovery after SCI.

Proposals Receiving Preliminary Approval
The following institutions have been invited to submit full proposals for Leading Edge Endowment Fund chairs.

Aboriginal Prenatal Health – Thompson Rivers University (TRU)
Recent evidence suggests that the First Nations communities in the interior of BC experience rates of infant mortality significantly higher than the provincial average. Preventable problems such as fetal alcohol syndrome also have higher incidence rates. The proposed Chair in Aboriginal Prenatal Health will develop innovative methods of identification, education and prevention.

Genetic Medicine – UBC
The BC Leadership Chair in Genetic Medicine will build on the outstanding foundation in genetic research at the Children's and Women's Health Centre of BC. The chair will work with the group of established researchers at the hospital's Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics to generate knowledge vital to the understanding of the genetic causes, diagnosis, and treatment of many devastating inherited diseases.