2024 Gairdner High School Symposium – Monday, October 21, 2024

***REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED. THANK YOU FOR REGISTERING. ELIGIBLE STUDENTS WILL BE CONTACTED. Grade 10-12 students, teachers, and the academic community have the opportunity to hear from two Gairdner award-winning scientists and learn about the BC Children’s Hospital’s research facilities this Fall! Hosted by Dr. Michael Hayden, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, University of British […]

2024 Gairdner High School Symposium – Registration Page

Student Registration ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– All Grade 10-12 students are eligible to participate in the Gairdner High School event. Registration is required. Before registering you will need to: Method of Participation ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– In-person Monday, October 21 | 9:00 am – 12:15 pm Arrange to miss class and plan your own transportation to BC Children’s Hospital. You have […]

Dr. Francesca Capon appointed Senior Scientist – Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT)  / Professor, Department of Medical Genetics, UBC

Joining us from King’s College London, Dr. Capon’s key research interest is the genetic basis of psoriasis, and her research is aimed at characterizing genes that cause auto-inflammation in both rare and common diseases, which the group analyses using genetic (e.g. association studies and whole-exome sequencing) and functional approaches.

CMMT Newsletter July 2024

Dr. Ben LifeA Life-Changing Research Path It was curiosity about Huntington’s disease research that led Benjamin Life to Dr. Blair Leavitt’s lab as a master’s student in 2018. Having completed his undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, Ben had in fact planned to take a year off, live in his van and do […]

CMMT Research Day – September 27th, 2024

Please join us for a day of trainee talks, faculty speakers, poster presentations, lunch, social and more!!! Guest Speaker: Kym M Boycott Senior Scientist, CHEO Research Institute Kym Boycott is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa in Canada, where she is a Clinical Geneticist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), […]

2024 Vancouver Gairdner National Symposium – Monday, October 21, 2024 (SAVE THE DATE)

Hosted by: Dr. Michael Hayden, University Killam Professor, Department of Medical Genetics, UBC, Founding Director Emeritus, Senior Scientist, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, UBC Monday, October 21, 2024 IN-PERSON & ONLINE (Zoom details to follow) ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm PST | Gairdner National Symposium | Venue: Room LSC 1002 LT2 […]

2023 Gairdner High School Symposium – October 23, 2023

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. ELIGIBLE STUDENTS WILL BE CONTACTED SOON. Grade 10-12 students, teachers, and the academic community have the opportunity to hear from two Gairdner award-winning scientists and learn about the BC Children’s Hospital’s research facilities this Fall! Hosted by Drs. Michael Hayden & Bruce Verchere, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, University of British […]

2023 Vancouver Gairdner National Symposium – October 23, 2023

Students, teachers, and the academic community have the opportunity to hear from two Gairdner award-winning scientists and learn about the BC Children’s Hospital’s research facilities this Fall! Monday, October 23, 2023 @ 2:15pm-4pm IN-PERSON & ONLINE LSC 1002 LT2 Life Sciences Institute, UBC, 2350 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver BC, V6T 2A1 Zoom: Meeting ID: 665 […]

CMMT Newsletter March 2023

The Space in Between Seth Parker, an Assistant Professor in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UBC, arrived at CMMT to set up his own lab in 2020, on the heels of Covid 19. Fresh from New York, where he was a postdoctoral fellow at New York University School of Medicine, Dr. Parker […]

Dr. Michael Kobor – Setting the Stage for Healthy Aging

We extend our congratulations to Dr. Michael Kobor who has been appointed the inaugural chair of the new Edwin S.H. Leong Healthy Aging Program at UBC. The Edwin S.H. Leong Chair in Healthy Aging is a UBC President’s Excellence Chair. With Dr. Kobor’s substantial expertise on the epigenetic impacts of environmental factors, he will build […]

Mark Wang

Research Technician

Emily Harvey

Lab Manager & Neuropathology Technician Officially I am the Neuropathology Technician in the lab. I am from Surrey, I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta in Molecular Biology and Genetics. I have a masters degree from the University of Calgary, where I studied neurodevelopment related to Autism Spectrum Disorder using mouse models.  I […]

Wendy Lin

Research Technician I had a personal commitment to biomedical research and its promise of improving the quality of human health. I was equally concerned about the importance of ensuring the health and well-being of animals used in biomedical research. As animal care professional, my main concern is that animals are being treated humanely and fairly […]

Robert Tiszolczi

Finance Manager 3024-950 West 28th Avenue Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4 604-875-3844

Qingwen Xia

Research Technician 950 West 28th Avenue Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4

Jessica Shum

Research Coordinator Jessica is the research coordinator for Dr. Michael R. Hayden, Hayden Lab. She manages various research administration projects and communication functions related to collaborations and research grants. Jessica graduated from the UBC MSc Experimental Medicine program and has over 10 years of research experience.

Betty Nguyen

Research Technician 950 West 28th Avenue Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4

Dawn Ng

Executive Assistant to Dr. Michael R. Hayden

Neel Mehta

Postdoctoral Fellow I am a Post-doctoral fellow working under the supervision of Dr. Michael Hayden and Dr. Colin Ross at the University of British Columbia in the Dept. of Medical Genetics. I am currently working on utilizing and optimizing adeno-associated virus (AAV) as safe and efficient tools for targeted delivery of genetic material for the […]

Jessica Dawson

Postdoctoral Fellow Jessica is an early career Medical Scientist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Human Genetics with a keen interest in exploring modifiers of neurodegenerative disease and genetic diversity. Jessica’s research has focused on the allele sequence diversity and genetic modifiers of Huntington disease and its phenocopy Huntington disease-like 2 in an understudied population. Jessica […]

Yun Ko

Research Technician 950 West 28th Avenue Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4

Chris Kay

Research Associate Dr. Chris Kay is a geneticist and molecular biologist working to understand the pathogenesis of Huntington disease (HD). He earned his doctorate in Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia under the guidance of Dr. Michael Hayden, leading target discovery of genetic variants for therapeutic silencing of the Huntington disease (HTT) gene. […]

Dr. Michael R. Hayden

Dr. Hayden is a Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia, the highest honour UBC can confer on any faculty member. Only 4 such awards have ever been conferred in the Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Hayden is also a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, UBC. Dr. Hayden was the […]

Nicholas Caron, PhD

Contact: ncaron@cmmt.ubc.ca Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is an accessible biofluid whose molecular composition reflects structural and functional changes in the brain, making it a promising biofluid for biomarker discovery in neurodegenerative disorders. My primary research interests focus on the identification and validation of molecular biomarkers for Huntington disease, which offer the potential to monitor cell-type and/or […]

Stephanie Bortnick

Huntington Disease (HD) Biobank Manager Stephanie manages the collection, storage, and sharing of biological samples from the HD community to facilitate research into more effective treatments for HD. Stephanie has worked with gifted patient samples for the past decade. Sample integrity, clinical comprehensiveness, and donor privacy are the cornerstones of research excellence, and Stephanie reflects […]

Dr. Michael Kobor awarded the 2022 Geoffrey L. Hammond Lectureship

Dr. Michael Kobor has been awarded the 2022 Geoffrey L. Hammond Lectureship. The former, and inaugural, director of the Healthy Starts Research Theme at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute (BCCHR), senior scientist at the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT) and professor at The University of British Columbia (UBC) was nominated for his pioneering research, visionary leadership, and dedication to mentorship. […]

CMMT Newsletter June 2021

Big Picture Thinking It’s hard not to be impressed by Dr. Michael Kobor.  At once down to earth with a good sense of humour, he is a scientist known for his out of the box thinking.  He began his career studying chromatin biology in model organisms (specifically S. cerevisiae) and has since expanded his research program to answer […]

Dr. Michael R. Hayden – University of Alberta Dean’s Lecture on Precision Health

Title: From Mutations in a few to Drugs for Many – Journey of a Physician-Scientist Objectives: To understand how rare mutations can give insights that have relevance for many To understand the process of drug development To define how precision diagnosis can lead to improved approaches therapy

CMMT Newsletter March 2021

The Man Behind IT Jonathan Chang is the CMMT’s Information Technology (IT) specialist. In fact, he’s the only IT person at the CMMT, a one-man shop for all things IT, and he loves it. But becoming an IT specialist was not the path he expected to take. A self-confessed computer geek, Jonathan began tinkering with […]

Virtual: CMMT 2021 Spring Symposium

Thursday, March 4, 2021 | 10:00 – 11:30 am Join trainees from the UBC Centre for Molecular Medicine & Therapeutics (CMMT) to learn more about genetic research and the translation of basic knowledge into new therapies. Trainees will demo a lab experiment, talk about their personal journey into science, talk about what drew them to UBC, talk about challenges […]

CMMT Newsletter January 2021

Bruce’s message Happy new year all! I hope everyone had a restful holiday season and was able to connect with family and friends in some way, even if not in person. Like all of you, I am glad to see 2020 in the rear-view mirror and am looking forward to a much more productive and […]

Virtual: 2020 Vancouver Gairdner National Symposium

Watch the video of the 2020 Gairdner National Symposium: HERE The Vancouver Gairdner High School & National Symposium is held each fall to give students, teachers, and the academic community the opportunity to hear from two Gairdner award-winning scientists and learn about the BC Children’s Hospital’s research facilities. Time: 2:00- 4:30 pm, Monday, October 26, […]