Career Opportunities

Research Interests: Pharmacogenomics, Pain management, Medical genetics, Model organism genetics, Drug reactions

Potential project areas:

In our work, we strive to make a meaningful impact on maternal and child health by contributing to leading-edge research aimed at improving pain management.

Safe and effective pain management is influenced by individual genetic differences that dictate both how we feel pain and how we respond to specific pain relievers. Using pharmacogenomics, the study of how genetic variability contributes to individual drug responses, we are identifying genetic factors that can help predict an individual’s need for, and subsequent response to, specific pain relievers.

As part of the multi-disciplinary Canadian Pharmacogenomics Network for Drug Safety (CPNDS) based at the University of British Columbia, candidates will work closely with clinicians, scientists, and patients across Canada to develop a pipeline from genetic discoveries to predictive genetic testing to help select the safest and most effective pain relievers for women and children based on their unique genetic signatures. Candidates will lead projects within one of two interconnected research themes focused on improving pain management through pharmacogenomics:

1. Design, conduct, and disseminate findings of genetic association studies aimed at uncovering genetic factors that contribute to differences in pain perception and response to pain relievers
   • Focused on predicting variability in morphine-based pain relief for children and occurrence of painful toxicities resulting from childhood cancer treatment (e.g., methotrexate-induced mucositis)
   • Opportunities to explore other pain management questions stemming from collaborative pursuits and develop clinical practice guidelines to enable clinical implementation of genetic testing
2. Establish a C. elegans platform to discover and validate genetic factors that contribute to differences in pain perception and response to pain relievers
   • Encompassing discovery of novel genetic components of pain/nociception (e.g., influencing noxious mechanosensation) and response to pain relievers (e.g., morphine)
   • Validating roles for novel genetic factors uncovered through clinical genetic association studies (described in the research theme above) in relevant pain and/or medication response pathways

Candidates will conduct research at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute where they will have access to state-of-the-art molecular biology, genotyping, sequencing and analysis platforms housed within CPNDS-developed laboratories for drug safety research and implementation.

Research Interests: Colonial Legal History, Critical Theory, Oceans and Maritime Worlds, Philosophy, History and Comparative Studies, Race and Racism, Time and Temporality

Research Interests: Healthy Aging, Exercise , Fall Prevention, Cognitive Aging, Randomized Controlled Trials , Physical Activity, Mobility, Neuroimaging, Sleep

Potential project areas:

Increasing precision in exercise prescription to promote cognitive and brain health. The neural interplay between cognitive function and mobility. The relationship between sleep and cognitive function. Preventing falls in high-risk older adults.

Research Interests: Arthritis / Osteo-Arthritis, Biomechanics, Exercise, Joints (Articulations), Musculoskeletal, Musculoskeletal Deformation, Neuromuscular Diseases, Orthoses and Prostheses, Physical activity, Rehabilitation

Research Interests: CRISPR/Cas, Diabetes, Human pluripotent stem cells, Transcriptional regulation, ß-cell biology, ß-cell development

Potential project areas:

Research in the Lynn lab is targeted at understanding the insulin-producing pancreatic β-cell, how it fails during diabetes mellitus and how we can make surrogate cells to cure diabetes. We use a variety of models to study the regulatory pathways important for embryonic β-cell genesis and function. The current focus of research in the lab is understanding how DNA-binding transcription factors regulate β-cell formation and function, how they are reguated post-translationally and how they prevent β-cell dysfunction and diabetes. We currently have positions available for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars interested in studying the regulation of pancreatic β-cell development and function. Please contact me personally by e-mail with a cover letter outlining your interests, why you would like to join my lab, and please include your vita. Experience in cell and developmental biology, molecular biology or stem cell biology is preferred. More important are curiosity and passion about stem and developmental biology, and a talent for independent research, supported by a strong publication record.

Research Interests: Liquid metal processing, Casting processes, Additive Manufacturing, Directed Energy Deposition, Powder Bed Fusion, Light Metals Processing, Aluminum Alloys, Titanium Alloys, Mathematical Process Modeling: Heat Transfer, Fluid Flow, Mechanical Deformation

Research Interests: Clinical exercise physiology, Cardiorespiratory physiology, Mechanisms and management of breathlessness and exercise intolerance, Chronic respiratory diseases

Research Interests: Biological Oceanography, Environmental Virology, Marine Environment, Marine Microbiology, Microbial Diversity, Phage, Viral Discovery, Viruses

Potential project areas:

post-doctoral scholars will normally need fellowship support

Research Interests: Implementation science, Rural health , Virtual health innovation, Research partnerships, Health promotion , Rehabilitation

Potential project areas:

My implementation science research program focuses on improving (virtual) health services and care for equity-deserving groups in rural, remote, and other isolated communities. My research involves studying the implementation processes of health innovations in real-world settings from different perspectives. To maximize the quality and impact of my work, I meaningfully engage research users as partners throughout the research process. My research involves various types of health innovation. Example research project areas include, but are not limited to: 

• Drone Transport Initiative: exploring the implementation of drones for transporting medical supplies to rural and Indigenous communities.
• Improving healthcare for people with spinal cord injury living in rural and remote communities via educational workshops for rural clinicians (in partnership with Praxis Spinal Cord Institute). 
• Implementation of smoking cessation services in urban and rural areas in B.C. (in partnership with Legacy for Airway Health). 
• Improving guidance for virtual health innovation partnerships with rural and remote communities.
• Canadian Disability Participation Project 2.0. 

Research Interests: Partial differential equations, mathematical physics