Amrit Singh

December 13, 2024

Amrit Singh

Assistant Professor

St. Paul’s Hospital

Faculty Bio

Dr. Singh received his Honours BSc in Biology and Mathematics from McMaster University and PhD in Experimental Medicine from the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Scott Tebbutt. Dr. Singh then pursued a post-doctoral fellowship with the PROOF Centre of Excellence with Drs. Bruce McManus and Raymond Ng. Dr. Singh was a principal statistical analyst at Bayer Pharmaceuticals prior to starting his faculty appointment in 2022 in Heart and Lung Pharmacogenomics. Dr. Singh leads a computational biology lab focused on biomarker discovery and developing methods and tools for multiomics data integration and visualization. Dr. Singh’s research focuses on the identification of biomarkers for heart and lung disease such as asthma and heart failure using high throughput biological (“omics”) datasets. Dr. Singh developed DIABLO, an integrative multiomics classification method as part of the mixOmics data integration project (mixomics.org). Through active collaborations with clinicians and wet-bench scientists, Dr.

Singh’s research incorporates patient cohorts with model systems with single cell and spatial technologies dissecting molecular mechanisms of disease, for the eventual goal of drug repurposing.

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website: https://cbl-hli.med.ubc.ca/

Social Media: https://linkedin.com/in/amrit-singh

Research Interests

Multimodal Data Integration, Biomarkers, Digital Pathology, Heart and Lung disease, Single-cell and Spatial Multiomics data

Research Theme(s)

Cardiopulmonary Sciences and anesthesiology

Publication Link(s)

Clinical Interests

Services

Teaching

PCTH_V 400

PCTH_V 548F

MEDI_V 570

BIOF_V 520

Matthew Wiens

December 13, 2024

Matthew Wiens

Assistant Professor

BC Children’s Hospital

Email: matthew.wiens@bcchr.ca

Faculty Bio

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website: https://www.bcchr.ca/mwiens

Social Media: https://twitter.com/matthew_wiens

Research Interests

Prediction modeling, Risk-differentiated care, Digital health, Sepsis, Global health

Research Theme(s)

Clinical Outcomes and Patient Safety, Evidence-based medicine and knowledge translation, Pharmacoepidemiology

Publication Link(s)

ORCID: 0000-0002-3287-5181

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=wiens+MO&otool=icaubclib

Google Scholar:https://scholar.google.ca/citations?hl=en&user=XHN8VkQAAAAJ&inst=17001591832933267808

Clinical Interests

Services

Teaching

Catrina Loucks

December 13, 2024

Catrina Loucks

Assistant Professor

BC Children's Hospital Research Institute

Email: clouks@popi.ubc.ca

Faculty Bio

Dr. Catrina Loucks is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia (Departments of Pediatrics and Anesthesiology, Pharmacology &Therapeutics), an Investigator at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute and a Member of the Academy of Translational Medicine. She hasexperience uncovering genetic causes for rare disorders from her MSc work at the University of Calgary, under the supervision of Drs. Micheil Innes andJillian Parboosingh. She then sought to explore functional impacts of uncovered genetic mutations by pursuing a PhD under the supervision of Dr. MichelLeroux at Simon Fraser University, using the simple roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans, as a model. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of BritishColumbia, Catrina worked with Dr. Bruce Carleton and the Canadian Pharmacogenomics Network for Drug Safety to understand how genetic variationcontributes to variable responses to medication. Her current research program, the CFI-JELF funded Loucks Pain Management Pharmacogenomics Lab,is developing a pipeline from genetic discoveries to predictive genetic testing to help select the safest and most effective pain relievers for children.

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website:

Social Media: https://www.bcchr.ca/cloucks

Research Interests

Pharmacogenomics, Pain and pain management, Precision medicine, Drug safety and effectiveness – Children

Research Theme(s)

Acute and Chronic Pain Management, Clinical Outcomes and Patient Safety, Equity in Medicine, Evidence-based medicine and knowledge translation, Neurosciences and anesthesiology, Pediatric anesthesiology

Publication Link(s)

ORCID: 0000-0003-1167-3721

Clinical Interests

The Loucks Pain Management Pharmacogenomics Lab partners with clinicians to advance the discovery, validation and implementation of geneticpredictors of individual pain/opioid responses.

Services

Member, Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics Research Advisory Committee, University of British Columbia Expert PanelMember, Motile Ciliopathy Gene Curation Expert Panel, Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen): https://www.clinicalgenome.org/affiliation/40102/

Teaching

PCTH_V 325

PCTH_V 404

PCTH_V 548F

WACH_V 501

PHAR_V 302

GSAT_V 502

Donald Griesdale

December 13, 2024

Donald Griesdale

Associate Professor

Vancouver General Hospital

Email: donald.griesdale@ubc.ca

Faculty Bio

Don is an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician at Vancouver General Hospital and Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology,Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia. Following his clinical training, he completed a Masters of Public Health inQuantitative Methods from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2008. His clinical and academics areas of interest include neurocritical care of patientswith traumatic brain injury and hypoxemic ischemic brain injury following cardiac arrest. He is an active member of the Canadian Critical Care TrialsGroup. Collaborating with Dr. Penny Brasher, he was the Principal Investigator on a 2023 /2024 Grant-in-Aid from the Heart and Stroke Foundation ofCanada that will investigate the effect of VV-ECMO on cerebral blood flow in patients with ARDS. He is currently the Assistant Director at the Centre forClinical Epidemiology & Evaluation at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute.

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website (or Lab):

Research Interests

Hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, critical care epidemiologic outcomes, neurocritical care

Research Theme(s)

Clinical Outcomes and Patient Safety, Intensive Care, Transplant and Transfusion Medicine, Neurosciences and anesthesiology

Publication Link(s)

ORCID: 0000-0001-5985-8624

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Griesdale+D

Clinical Interests

I practice critical care at Vancouver General Hospital. My clinical and research interest span two major areas: neurocritical care and epidemiologic outcomes from critical illness.

Services

I’m currently the Assistant Director at the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation. I’ve previously served as the Associate Vice-President of Medicine, Quality and Safety at Vancouver Coastal Health.

Teaching

PCTH_V 201

PCTH_V 400

I’ve also taught a variety of medical undergraduate lectures. I also teach medical undergraduates and residents while on clinical service.

Matthias Görges

December 13, 2024

Matthias Görges

Associate Professor

BC Children’s Hospital

Email: mgorges@bcchr.ca

Faculty Bio

Matthias Görges is an Associate Professor (Partner) in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, and Therapeutics. Based at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, where I co-lead the Digital Health Innovation Lab and formerly the Pediatric Anesthesia Research Team, my team conducts innovative research blending technology and patient care. The introduction of information technology in medicine has enabled a transformational change in recent decades, and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic further accelerated the application of virtual health solutions. My primary focus is using technology to enhance patient outcomes through design, implementation, and evaluation. Therefore, we collaborate transdisciplinaryly with engineers, computer scientists, and healthcare professionals, primarily in pediatric anesthesia and related specialties. Nowadays, most of my work focuses on a) digital health platform development and b) applications for predictive analytics, while in the past, I also worked on c) data displays for clinical decision support, d) vital signs collection infrastructure, and e) closed-loop control of anesthesia.

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website:

https://bcchr.ca/mgorges

https://bcchr.ca/PART

https://bcchr.ca/dhil

Social Media:

https://x.com/MatthiasGoerges

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgoerges/

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthias-Goerges

Research Interests

Digital health platform development, Applications for predictive analytic, Clinical decision support, Human factors engineering, Pediatric anesthesia and pediatric critical care

Research Theme(s)

Acute and Chronic Pain Management, Clinical Outcomes and Patient Safety, Intensive Care, Transplant and Transfusion Medicine, Pediatric anesthesiology, Peri-operative technology integration

Publication Link(s)

Clinical Interests

Services

Teaching

BMEG_V 423 Clinical Informatics

BMEG_V 580 Biomedical Engineering Topics at the Interface of Medicine and Engineering

PCTH_V 548F Research Methods in Pharmacology

SURG_V 517: Clinical Research Methods for Surgical Procedures with Global Surgical Comparisons

Tillie-Louise Hackett

December 13, 2024

Tillie-Louise Hackett

Professor

Vice Chair, Research – Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics
Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Asthma and COPD Lung Pathobiology & Therapeutics
Investigator, Centre for Heart Lung Innovation

St. Paul’s Hospital

Email: tillie.hackett@hli.ubc.ca

Faculty Bio

BSc. (2002) in Biochemistry and Pharmacology, University of Southampton, United Kingdom. Ph.D. (2006) in Cellular and Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, United Kingdom. Post-doctoral Fellow (2006), Centre for Heart Lung Innovation, University of British Columbia. Post-doctoral Fellow(2010), University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands. Dr. Hackett is an internationally recognized leader in ultra-resolution biomedical imaging modalities and human in vitro models to investigate and treat the pathobiology of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which daily affects the ability of over 4.5 million Canadians to breathe. Dr. Hackett’s research has been formally recognized by over 40 awards, including the Parker B. Francis Fellowship (2012), Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award (2014), and the UBC Faculty of Medicine Distinguished Researcher Award (2018). In 2018, she was named an Inaugural American Thoracic Society Fellow (100 awarded), a mark of distinction and recognition for accomplishments and dedication to the society and field of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. In 2021, Dr Hackett was awarded at Tier I Canada Research Chair in asthma and COPD pathobiology & therapeutics. Dr. Hackett has published over 120 peer-reviewed articles and ranks in the top 0.2% of 157,339 published authors worldwide on obstructive lung diseases (Expertscape.com). Since 2014, Dr. Hackett has served as the Director of the HLI James C. Hogg Lung Tissue Biobank. Established in 1977, it is one of the largest biobanks in the world, enabling researchers from academia, health authorities, and industry to access comprehensively phenotyped lung samples from over 3,000 patients. Between 2013 – 2018,Dr. Hackett served as the Associate Director of the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation. Dr. Hackett has served as the primary supervisor for 5 MSc and 11PhD students, 6 postdoctoral fellows, 10 co-op students, 12 summer students, 3 clinical fellows, and 5 BSc Honours students, who have collectively won over 97 fellowships, travel awards, and best presentation awards. Since 2017, she has been recognized annually by the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences for Excellence in Student Teaching.

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website (or Lab): https://hackettlab.med.ubc.ca/

Research Interests

Biomedical Imaging; Asthma; COPD; Fibrosis; In vitro lung models

Research Theme(s)

Cardiopulmonary Sciences and anesthesiology

Publication Link(s)

ORCID: 0000-0001-7134-3287

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=hackett+TL

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=n_1As1AAAAAJ&hl=en

Clinical Interests

Asthma, COPD, Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

Services

Since 2021, Dr. Hackett has served as the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics. Since 2014, Dr.Hackett has served as the Director of the HLI James C. Hogg Lung Tissue Biobank. Established in 1977, it is one of the largest biobanks in the world,enabling researchers from academia, health authorities, and industry to access comprehensively phenotyped lung samples from over 3,000 patients.Between 2013 – 2018, Dr. Hackett served as the Associate Director of the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation

Teaching

PCTH_V 325

PCTH_V 400

PCTH_V 548F

PATH_V 521

PCTH_V 518

MEDD 411 (COPD week lead for the Medical School Program)

Peter Choi

December 13, 2024

Peter Choi

Professor

Vancouver General Hospital

Email: Peter.choi@ubc.ca

Faculty Bio

Peter Choi completed medical school at UBC in 1993. He then completed residency in anesthesiology (1998) and an MSc in clinical epidemiology at McMaster University before returning to UBC in 2003. He currently practices anesthesiology as a member of the VGH / UBCH Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care. He is a Professor in the UBC Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics and is the interim Department Head.

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website (or Lab):

Research Interests

Research Theme(s)

Evidence-based medicine and knowledge translation

Publication Link(s)

Clinical Interests

Services

Interim Head, UBC Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics Department Head Representative, Faculty Development Council, UBC Faculty of Medicine Dean’s Representative, UBC Medical Alumni Advisory Council

Teaching

MEDD_V 411 Foundations of Medical Practice

MEDD_V 431 Clinical Clerkship

PCTH_V 400 Systematic Pharmacology

PHAR_V 426 Advanced Anesthetics and Analgesics

Sastry Bhagavatula

December 13, 2024

Sastry Bhagavatula

Professor

Email: sastry.bhagavatula@ubc.ca

Faculty Bio

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website (or Lab):

Research Interests

Synaptic plasticity, Neuropharmacology.

Research Theme(s)

Neurosciences and anesthesiology

Publication Link(s)

Presynaptic effects of morphine and methionine-enkephalin in feline spinal cord

Action of morphine and met-enkephalin-amide on nociceptor driven neurones in substantia gelatinosa and deeper dorsal horn

Methylation of hippocampal phosphatidylethanolamine and proteins during long-lasting potentiation

Associative Induction of Posttetanic and Long-Term Potentiation in CA1 Neurons of Rat Hippocampus

The involvement of nonspiking cells in long-term potentiation of synaptic transmission in the hippocampus

Postsynaptic mechanisms underlying long-term depression of GABAergic transmission in neurons of the deep cerebellar nuclei

Quantal release of transmitter at a central synapse

Gaba-ergic transmission in deep cerebellar nuclei

Activity-mediated shift in reversal potential of GABA-ergic synaptic currents in immature neurons

Theta bursts set up glutamatergic as well as GABA-ergic plasticity in neonatal rat hippocampal CA1 neurons

The involvement of GABA-C receptors in paired-pulse depression of inhibitory postsynaptic currents in rat hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons

Activity-mediated plasticity of GABA equilibrium potential in rat hippocampal CA1 neurons

Sleep-Deprivation Induces Changes in GABA_B and mGlu Receptor Expression and Has Consequences for Synaptic Long-Term Depression

Are presynaptic GABA-Cρ2 receptors involved in anti-nociception?

Regulation of GABA Equilibrium Potential by mGluRs in Rat Hippocampal CA1 Neurons

G-protein coupled receptors and synaptic plasticity in sleep deprivation

Clinical Interests

Services

Teaching

PCTH_V 400 Course Director

PCTH_V 402

PCTH_V 502

Alasdair Barr

December 13, 2024

Alasdair Barr

Associate Professor

Member, BC Mental Health & Addictions Research Institute / Member, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health

Email: al.barr@ubc.ca

Faculty Bio

The central focus of my research is mental health and addictions, with a particular emphasis on psychosis and the medications used in its treatment. My research program is based on a multidisciplinary and translational approach that spans from “bench to bedside,” as I maintain productive research programs in both clinical and related preclinical research.

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website (or Lab):

Research Interests

Psychosis; Addictions; Mental Health; Cannabis; Psychopharmacology

Research Theme(s)

Acute and Chronic Pain Management, Neurosciences and anesthesiology

Publication Link(s)

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=boOfkM8AAAAJ

Clinical Interests

Services

Teaching

PCTH_V 325 Course Director

PCTH_V 548F Co-Director

Anshula Ambasta

December 13, 2024

Anshula Ambasta

Assistant Professor

Email: anshula.ambasta@ubc.ca

Faculty Bio

Dr. Anshula Ambasta is a general internal medicine physician, an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesia, Pharmacology and Therapeutics at UBC’s faculty of medicine, and a member of the Therapeutics Initiative. She is an early career researcher who earned a Masters in Public Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Clinical Effectiveness. Her research focuses on improving the value of healthcare services using evidence-based implementation strategies. She has been awarded grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, University of British Columbia, Choosing Wisely Alberta, Alberta Health Services, and the University of Calgary. Most recently, Anshula has been awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Project Grant to Re-Purpose the Ordering of Routine laboratory Tests in hospitalized medical patients (RePORT), using multi-modal evidence-based de-implementation strategies across 30 hospitals in British Columbia and Alberta. RePORT study will be implemented and evaluated in a cluster-randomized stepped-wedge design, in close partnership with a dedicated RePORT Patient Advisory Council.

Social Media / Lab or Research Website

Website (or Lab): https://www.ti.ubc.ca/

Research Interests

Optimization of laboratory testing and testing algorithms; Medication effectiveness and safety; Quality Improvement and Patient Safety

Research Theme(s)

Clinical Outcomes and Patient Safety, Evidence-based medicine and knowledge translation, Pharmacoepidemiology

Publication Link(s)

ORCID: 0000-0002-0211-8654

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=ambasta+anshula

Clinical Interests

Evidence based and rational use of testing and medications

Services

Co-Chair, Education Working Group, Therapeutics Initiative; Chair, Portrait Committee, Therapeutics Initiative; College of Reviewers, Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Teaching

PCTH_V 400

PCTH_V 548F