A Plug for the Leaky Pipeline
Prof. Strickland was awarded the Nobel Prize for her Doctoral thesis work on chirped pulse amplification, a methodology now used in corrective eye surgery and medical imaging.
Marketing Your Published-To-Be Paper
Finally conquered that PhD? Your paper just got accepted? Is your manuscript weeks away from being published? Now what?
Creating Platelets 2.0: Stronger, Faster, and with Twice the Life-saving Power
The ability to genetically modify a cell is a powerful tool. Genetically modified cells have advanced our understanding of how the body works and how diseases develop.
GMOs: Scientific or Social Uncertainty?
Genetic engineering is the process of altering the blueprints of an organism in order to effect some desired change. Since its discovery in the 1970s, this technology has been used to advance research, industry, medicine, and agriculture.
Open Access and Open Science: The Call for More Transparency in Science
In May of this year, a group of Swedish universities made the decision not to renew their contracts with publishing giant Elsevier. To researchers who rely on these journals for their day-to-day work this may seem like a drastic move, but this new stand-off is part of a movement toward an open-access model in publishing research.
The First Targeted Gene Therapy Approved in North America: Luxturna
RPE65-mediated inherited retinal dystrophy leads to severe deterioration of vision and complete blindness in early adulthood. A small subgroup of patients, approximately 1000 people in the United States, have mutations in both paternal and maternal copies of the RPE65 gene that encodes retinoid isomerohydrolase.
Building Resilience in Graduate School
When I started graduate school at UBC in 2012, I thought I was prepared. I had excellent marks, publications from research done as an undergraduate student, and even an NSERC award.
The Box
At the Centre for Blood Research, my research typically embraces out-of-the-box thinking, addressing biological problems from an open-minded standpoint to gain novel insights. However, recently, I was forced to focus on what’s inside the box, namely the Canadian Blood Services box for transporting human blood products.
The Work of a Bloodsmith: Progress in the Quest for Complete Blood Substitutes
There is an increasing global effort to reduce the demand for blood donations through the development of blood substitutes – synthetically derived molecules and materials which can recapitulate the functional role of blood. These substitutes, however, cannot recapitulate the full array of physiologic functions carried out by whole blood.
Hope Beyond the Hype: The Pursuit of Longevity in Cell Therapies
After years of intensive research and development, cell therapies are finally having their moment. In the past year, the FDA has approved two cell therapies, with stem cell treatments in hot pursuit as they enter late-stage clinical trials. While regulatory body recognition is an important milestone, great challenges in long-term industry sustainability remain.