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Can improving sleep quality protect older adults from cognitive decline? New research presented today at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) suggests that improving circadian regulation by “resetting” an individual’s biological clock can improve sleep quality in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.
Pictured: Dr. Christoph Birkl (left) celebrates with supervisor and Principal Investigator Dr. Alex Rauscher (right) from Innsbruck, Austria. Image source: Dr. Alex Rauscher.
Congratulations to our members who recently received Project Grants from the Canadian Insitutes of Health Research (CIHR). CIHR Project Grants support research projects with a defined endpoint, allowing researchers to pursue innovative, high-risk research questions with potential to improve health outcomes in Canada.
For the first time, scientists have captured high-resolution, three-dimensional images of an enzyme in the process of precisely cutting DNA strands.
The images—captured using a technique called cryogenic electron microscopy, or cryo-EM—reveal new information about how a gene-editing tool called CRISPR-Cas9 works, which may help researchers develop versions of it that operate more efficiently and precisely to alter targeted genes.
Dr. Annie Vogel Ciernia opened her lab at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health today; she joins the University of British Columbia as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, having completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California–Davis (UC Davis). Dr. Ciernia’s research program will focus on how genes control development in the brain, and the mechanisms by which disruptions in gene regulation can negatively impact brain function.
Asma Bashir (pictured) is exposing a world that is invisible to many, offering a glimpse at the researcher behind the research in Her Royal Science, a podcast launched this week that looks at the lives of scientists in and outside of the lab. For Bashir, it’s an opportunity to introduce listeners to some of the most interesting people working in science, technology, engineering, and math-related (STEM) fields, but it’s also an opportunity to dig into individual life stories and learn about the variety of experiences that make people who they are.
Pictured, left to right: Dr. Siegfried Kasper, Professor of Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna; Dr. Lakshmi Yatham, President-Elect of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry; Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, Nobel Laureate (2009); and Dr. Raymond Lam, Local Organizing Committee chair for the World Congress of Biological Psychiatry, which took place in Vancouver in June. Image source: Dr. Lakshmi Yatham.
Pictured: Dr. Cheryl Wellington (right) with graduate student Jasmine Gill (left) with the Simoa HD-1 Analyzer in the Wellington lab at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health. Image credit: Paul Joseph/UBC.
Dr. Michalak and research coordinator Caden Poh outside of the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health.
Pictured: Dr. Dermot Kelleher (front, left) and Dr. Jianping Fan (front, right) sign a memorandum of understanding at DMCBH on June 13, 2019. Image credit: Paul Joseph/UBC.
This week, the Government of Canada announced the next phase of funding for the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA). From 2019 to 2024, CCNA will receive $46 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and 11 other partner organizations.
Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH) researchers have received a $540,000 investment from CCNA; there are 13 CCNA-affiliated researchers at DMCBH, five of whom have leadership roles, highlighting the centre’s depth of expertise in dementia:
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