UBC Research News Releases

The endangered southern resident killer whale population isn’t getting enough to eat, and hasn’t been since 2018, a new UBC study has determined.

The animals have been in an energy deficit, averaged across spring, summer and fall, for six of the last 40 years—meaning the energy they get from food is less than what they expend. Three of those six years came in the most recent years of the study, 2018 to 2020. The average difference in energy is 28,716 calories, or about 17 per cent of the daily required energy for an average adult killer whale, the authors say.

Black people in the U.S. are twice as likely as white people to be coerced into procedures during perinatal and birth care, and to undergo them without their explicit consent, according to a new study by researchers at UBC’s Birth Place Lab and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Pregnant people of other minoritized racial identities also experience pressure from providers at higher rates than white counterparts.

The number of programs and prescribers offering safer supply to reduce risk of overdose increased dramatically in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study looking at services across Canada.

The findings, published this month in the International Journal of Drug Policy, suggest capacity for further rapid scale-up of flexible safer supply prescribing to address the increasing toxic drug supply.

Researchers have mimicked a corn plant’s make-up in the lab to investigate ‘corn smut’, opening the door to finding a cure for the disease. 

Ustilago maydis or ‘corn smut’ is a fungus that presents as soot-like tumors on corn cobs, and can only exist on a host. It costs the United States’ agricultural industry $1 billion annually by disrupting corn seed production.

It’s also considered a delicacy in Mexico. Known as ‘huitlacoche’, it’s prized for its rich, smoky flavour and has been served in dishes since the time of the Aztecs.

Canada ranks third in the world for animal movement between protected areas, finds new UBC research.

Researchers created the first global map of where mammals are most likely to move between protected areas, such as national parks and nature reserves. Lead author Dr. Angela Brennan, a research associate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, says she hopes the data will help countries measure their success at protecting biodiversity over time.

Pretend the COVID-19 pandemic never happened.

People still would have died across Canada, and the number of deaths would have been somewhat predictable based on data from previous years.

Dr. Kimberlyn McGrail, a professor in UBC’s school of population and public health, examined all “excess deaths” across Canadian provinces during the first 19 months of the pandemic, and how many of those were attributed specifically to COVID-19.

Excess deaths are deaths above and beyond what would have been expected under normal circumstances.

The end of plastic pollution—in the oceans, on land and in our air—could be within reach with two UBC ventures working hard on solutions that could make this vision a reality.

“Tonnes of plastic waste pollute our land and oceans,” says Dr. Jordan MacKenzie, co-founder and CEO of Bioform Technologies, a UBC start-up that is working on bringing a completely compostable bioplastic to the market.

“We use the world’s most regenerative materials to create products that sustainably eliminate plastic waste without the green premium.”

Covered in the red dust that sealed its fate, the NASA InSight lander is slowly shutting down, more than 250 million kilometres from home.

With its solar panels now obscured by the red planet’s debris, the four-year-old robot is running out of power. One by one, its instruments are being taken offline: its robotic arm moving into ‘retirement pose’, its seismometer likely to be turned off sometime in June.

Dr. Catherine Johnson (she/her), co-investigator on the InSight science team and professor in the department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences, discusses what the team discovered, what questions are left to answer, and just what will happen to the little lander that could.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) have received $1 million from Canada’s Stem Cell Network to conduct research and a clinical trial for one of the world’s first genetically engineered cell replacement therapies for type 1 diabetes.

The researchers say the study is an important step toward developing a potential functional cure for type 1 diabetes.

The novel investigative treatment, developed by biotechnology companies CRISPR Therapeutics and ViaCyte, is designed to enable type 1 diabetes patients to produce insulin through a small medical implant that contains millions of pancreatic cells derived from CRISPR gene-edited stem cells.

As Canada faces a sixth wave of COVID-19 infections, researchers at the UBC faculty of medicine are urging people who are pregnant to remain vigilant based on data from Canada’s first national, peer-reviewed study on COVID-19 in pregnancy.

The findings, published today in JAMA, show that pregnant people who catch COVID-19 are at greater risk of being hospitalized, being admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) and experiencing an early birth.

University of British Columbia researchers have found a ‘silver bullet’ to kill bacteria and keep them from infecting patients who have medical devices implanted.

The team from UBC and the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute has developed a silver-based coating that can easily be applied to devices such as catheters and stents. Their novel formulation, discovered by screening dozens of chemical components, overcomes the complications of silver that have challenged scientists for years.

You might be surprised to learn how rarely health research accounts for the fact that male and female bodies are different.

Researchers from UBC’s women’s health research cluster and department of psychology have published an analysis of 3,193 neuroscience and psychiatry studies from 2009 and 2019. They found that:

Some elementary school children may be better equipped than others to form cross-racial friendships, new research from UBC’s department of psychology suggests.

The study, just published in Child Development, looked at the relationship between cross-racial friendships and academic and social adjustment among 583 children in Canada and the U.S. at both ends of a recent school year.

We spoke with the study’s lead author, PhD student Hongyuan (Vivian) Qi (she/her), and UBC professor of psychology Dr. Amori Mikami (she/her) about the research, which they conducted with Dr. Julie Sarno Owens of Ohio University.

Most of B.C.’s LGBTQ teens experience safer environments and fewer health risks than previous generations, but more work is still needed to get them to where their straight peers are, according to a new report by UBC’s Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre (SARAVYC) and the McCreary Centre Society.

The report used data from the B.C. Adolescent Health Survey from 2008, 2013 and 2018, each of which sampled around 30,000 students in grades 8-12 across the province.

Negative online reviews and low-star ratings are generally known to be bad for brands, so much that there are entire businesses devoted to reversing the damage. But a new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business found that this isn’t always the case.

UBC Sauder Associate Professor Dr. Lisa Cavanaugh (she/her) and her research team have found that negative online comments have little effect in cases where brand relationships are strong and consumers personally identify with a brand’s products. In some instances, they found negative reviews can actually have positive effects for brands.

UBC professor Dr. Pieter Cullis has been named a 2022 Canada Gairdner International Award laureate for his pioneering work developing the lipid nanoparticle delivery technology that enables mRNA therapeutics such as the highly effective COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.

The Gairdner Awards recognize scientists whose discoveries have had a major impact on biomedical and global health research. Nicknamed Canada’s Nobel Prize, many of the annual Canada Gairdner Award laureates have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize.

In B.C., most people don’t leave small towns for big cities—they go the other way. It’s a trend that’s been happening for decades, but it has accelerated since 2015.

For decades, most intra-provincial migration has gone to smaller cities like Victoria, Kelowna and Chilliwack. Citizens are searching for more affordable housing, more living space and a high quality of life. Although metropolitan Vancouver and Victoria remain the top choices for people migrating to B.C. from other provinces and territories, interprovincial migration to small towns has surged since 2015.

Cherry blossoms attract huge crowds in spring, but predicting when they’re at their peak is no easy feat. In order to do that accurately, scientists look at many factors including recent local weather patterns, temperatures and amount of daylight.

This year UBC climate change biologist Dr. Elizabeth Wolkovich in the faculty of forestry and colleagues had an idea. Why not get the public involved in determining peak bloom? Citizen scientists could draw on publicly available data and records to form predictions. Such a process could promote awareness of climate science and help scientists in their modelling work.

Renowned biomedical researcher Dr. Michael Kobor has been appointed to lead the Edwin S.H. Leong Healthy Aging Program – a new UBC research program aimed at helping people live longer, healthier lives.

As the inaugural Edwin S.H. Leong UBC Chair in Healthy Aging – a UBC President’s Excellence Chair, Dr. Kobor will build a permanent program focused on deepening understanding of the aging process and developing innovative, practical strategies to improve how people age. The program, housed within UBC’s faculty of medicine, is supported by a visionary and transformational gift of $24-million from Hong Kong businessman, philanthropist and UBC alumnus Edwin Leong.

Using drones instead of ambulances for emergency delivery of perishable blood products in Rwanda resulted in blood arriving for transfusions 79 minutes faster on average. It also reduced the number of wasted blood units by two-thirds.

In 2016 Rwanda became the first known African country to integrate drone deliveries into its healthcare system. Researchers from the University of British Columbia’s school of population and public health collaborated with researchers in Rwanda to analyze outcomes from more than 12,000 deliveries over four years. Their findings appear today in The Lancet Global Health.

In the marathon towards a more gender-balanced and representative games, the Paralympics lags far behind the Olympics, according to a recent UBC study.

Dr. Andrea Bundon, an assistant professor in UBC’s school of kinesiology, estimates that in the upcoming 2022 Beijing Paralympic winter games there will be a roughly 75 per cent to 25 per cent split between men and women competitors represented.

If you’re feeling like the pandemic is never-ending, you’re not alone. Sixty-four per cent of British Columbians are worried the COVID-19 pandemic will be around for years to come, with concerns about climate change adding fuel to the fire.

The latest results from a national mental health survey led by UBC researchers, in partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), found that this sentiment was reflected nationally, with 57 per cent of respondents worried that COVID-19 will continue to circulate among the population for years to come. In BC, 65 per cent of people are worried about new strains and nearly half, 48 per cent of respondents in the province are worried about the compounding effects of COVID-19 alongside the climate crisis.

What exactly motivates people to have children? Over time, researchers have attributed it to reasons like biological drive, social pressures and emotional fulfillment. But according to a new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business, advertising and social media should be added to that list.

The research team found that viewing positive parent-child images, like going to the park, having dinner, drawing, taking fun trips or playing with their children, reliably boosted young adults’ desire for their own little bundle of joy. This response is mostly driven by people’s empathic emotions.

What exactly causes that ‘skunky’ odour emitted by cannabis production facilities, and what do these emissions mean for air quality, workers, and the general public?

We should address these and other knowledge gaps while the industry is still developing, according to a new study led by Davi de Ferreyro Monticelli, a doctoral student in UBC’s department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences. In this Q&A, he discusses what’s missing in our knowledge about cannabis production emissions, their potential impacts on communities living nearby, and just how their smell stacks up against other odours.

Today is the United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

Role models for women in Science, Tech, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are important: 2010 statistics in Canada show women made up 44 per cent of first-year STEM students aged 19 and under in undergraduate degree programs, with representation lower in physical and chemical sciences at 32 per cent, engineering and engineering technology at 19 per cent, and mathematics and computer and information sciences at 28 per cent.

Making people feel better about how they’re aging could lead to concrete improvements in health and wellbeing down the line, new UBC research suggests.

The researchers tracked changes in how participants felt about their own aging over a four-year period, then looked for measurable changes in health and wellbeing after another four years had passed. Participants whose attitudes had improved over the first four years were more likely to see measurable health improvements four years later.

Turns out, some words are more tactile than you might expect.

That’s according to a new global study noting a clear linguistic connection between sound and touch.

The study found that words meaning “rough” were four times more likely to contain a rolled or trilled ‘r’ sound than words that mean “smooth.” The researchers detected this relationship in a sample of 332 spoken languages around the world, including words like zakarra (Basque), barzgar (Mongolian), ruw (Dutch) and durva (Hungarian). In the Indo-European language family, where the pattern is especially strong, it could date back more than 6,000 years.

A new University of British Columbia study offers new evidence that protected areas are effective at conserving wildlife.

Researchers at UBC’s faculty of forestry analyzed data from a global data set drawing from 8,671 camera trap stations spanning four continents. They found more mammal diversity in survey areas where habitat had a protected designation—compared to forests and other wilderness areas that lacked that designation.

This was true even when these protected areas experienced human disturbances such as recreational use and logging.

A former UBC post-doctoral research fellow led an international research team in re-analyzing all public RNA sequencing data to uncover almost ten times more RNA viruses than were previously known, including several new species of coronaviruses in some unexpected places.

This planetary-scale database of RNA viruses can help pave the way to rapidly identify virus spillover into humans, as well as those viruses that affect livestock, crops, and endangered species.

Climate change will force 45 per cent of the fish stocks that cross through two or more exclusive economic zones to shift significantly from their historical habitats and migration paths by 2100, a challenge that may lead to international conflict, according to a new UBC study.

THC is being detected in twice as many injured drivers since cannabis was legalized in Canada, according to new UBC research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.  

The findings may be a signal that more Canadians are choosing to drive after using cannabis.

“It’s concerning that we’re seeing such a dramatic increase,” said Dr. Jeffrey Brubacher (he/him), associate professor in UBC’s department of emergency medicine and the principal investigator of the study. “There are serious risks associated with driving after cannabis use. Our findings suggest more is needed to deter this dangerous behaviour in light of legalization.”

A groundbreaking advance in quickly detecting sepsis using machine learning has been pioneered by researchers in the Hancock Lab and the department of microbiology and immunology at UBC.

Sepsis is one of the biggest killers in the world, responsible for one in five deaths worldwide including those from severe COVID-19 disease, but it is difficult to detect early. It’s defined as the body’s dysfunctional response to an infection and has a variety of symptoms— including fever, fatigue, hyperventilation and a fast heart rate—that may appear at first to be from other diseases.

UBC researchers are the first in the world to conduct a molecular-level structural analysis of the Omicron variant spike protein.

The analysis—done at near atomic resolution using a cryo-electron microscope—reveals how the heavily mutated variant infects human cells and is highly evasive of immunity. The findings shed new light on why Omicron is highly transmissible and will help accelerate the development of more effective treatments.

The supply of farmed seafood such as salmon and mussels are projected to drop 16 per cent globally by 2090 if no action is taken to mitigate climate change, according to a new UBC study.