By Corrie Belanger, PhD Candidate, Hancock Lab
The Centre for Blood Research has many talented graduate students, postdocs and faculty doing cutting edge research in important fields, but they also have exciting lives outside of the lab. In the CBR Newsletter, we have started a column to honour the secret talents and skills that CBR members have. Last month I introduced Lauren Wilkinson a Microbiology and Immunology alumni and Olympic athlete. This month I interviewed Dr. James Baylis, biomedical engineer by day and entrepreneur by night.
Dr. James Baylis has recently defended his PhD in Biomedical Engineering where he focused on Biomaterial and nanomedicine for management of bleeding. In addition to long hours spent in the lab, he also managed to find time to co-found the start-up company CoMotion Drug Delivery Systems and fill the role of chief technology officer all while still a graduate student! His company is an extension of a successful project that James worked on in his PhD. Ultimately this work developed a technology for self-propelling particles that enhance the delivery of therapeutic agents into wounds, and is a direct example of how research at UBC can be directly applied to improve clinical treatment of patients and have an impact on human health. Though the basic research was part of James’ thesis, his team was required to make a lot of improvements on the technology for medical use, which lead to the development of a company which could receive the required funding and allocate the proper resources. Though health science is clearly James’ passion, he also finds time to do other cool activities such as play the piano, kick box and surf, and he believes that anyone who feels strongly enough about their passions will find the time to complete them, even when time becomes limited in the graduate school environment. The development of this company has definitely helped James learn new skills that are not necessarily accessible to research based graduate programs. He hopes to continue to build CoMotion and to develop his skills for whatever comes next.
James is just one of many exceptional graduate students in the CBR exhibiting impressive talents outside of research. If you would like to be featured in next month’s column or know someone with a talent to be showcased in the CBR newsletter email, the Education Program Manager for the CBR, Stefanie Mak (stefanie.mak@ubc.ca).