UBC Research News Releases

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.

UBC’s summary of animals involved in research at the university in 2020 is now available.

This is the eleventh consecutive year the university has published the data. UBC is one of the few Canadian universities to publish animal research statistics annually. The university publishes the data as part of its overall commitment to openness and transparency.

The data was collected for UBC’s annual report to the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), a national organization that oversees the ethical use of animals in science.

Four years after the Elephant Hill megafire burned more than 190,000 hectares and destroyed over 100 homes in B.C.’s south-central Interior region, a new Indigenous-led report is recommending fundamental changes to the way wildfire management and post-fire recovery is conducted in B.C.

The report notes that the wildfire could have been better managed if provincial agencies had engaged the affected Indigenous communities more actively, and earlier in the process.

In the first study of its kind, a team of researchers at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) has helped to demonstrate that a stem cell-based treatment delivered through an implantable device can produce insulin in the human body.

The treatment was provided to B.C. patients living with a severe form of Type 1 diabetes as part of a multi-year clinical trial. The study results were published today in Cell Stem Cell.

A heavily mutated variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus—designated “Omicron”—has emerged, with early cases concentrated primarily in South Africa. UBC experts are available to comment.

Dr. Horacio Bach Clinical Assistant Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine Cell: 604-727-9719 Email: hbach@mail.ubc.ca Language(s): English

• Recipient of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funding to design antibodies that neutralize and block the entrance of the virus into cells

Dr. Jeffrey Joy Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Tel: 604-368-5569 Email: jjoy@bccfe.ca Language(s): English

Extreme heat poses an increasing threat to the public, as heat waves are expected to become more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting due to climate change.

Although the adverse health impacts of heat are well documented among older adults, less is known about the potential impacts of heat on young and middle-aged adults.

Having a laneway house next door can significantly decrease the value of your Vancouver home, depending on where you live, according to a new UBC Sauder School of Business study.

Researchers found the presence of a laneway house within 100 metres of a property on the West Side of the city was associated with a 2.8 per cent lower sale price on neighbouring properties. Neighbours immediately beside a new home with a laneway house experienced an even deeper dip, selling for 3.8 per cent less, on average, than those beside new houses with a garage but no laneway home.

And in more affluent areas, having a nearby laneway house translated into a whopping 4.7 per cent drop in value.

New UBC research suggests free-roaming cats are likely to blame in the spread of the potentially deadly Toxoplasma gondii parasite to wildlife in densely populated urban areas.

The study—the first to analyze so many wildlife species over a global scale—also highlights how healthy ecosystems can protect against these types of pathogens.

Researchers have found the two-year heatwave known as ‘the Blob’ may have temporarily dampened the Pacific’s ‘biological pump,’ which shuttles carbon from the surface ocean to the deep sea where it can be stored for millennia.

Canadian and European researchers, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, conducted a large-scale study of the impact of one of the largest marine heatwaves on record – colloquially known as the Blob – on Pacific Ocean microorganisms. Their observations suggest that it’s not just larger marine life that is affected by abrupt changes in sea temperature.

Want to ensure your child hits their expected developmental milestones? New UBC research suggests living in areas with high exposure to greenspace can help set them up for success.

For the study, researchers at the UBC faculty of forestry and faculty of medicine analyzed the developmental scores of 27,372 children in Metro Vancouver who attended kindergarten between 2005 and 2011. They estimated the amount of greenspace around each child’s residence from birth to age five. They also assessed levels of traffic-related air pollution and community noise.

New hydrogen technology developed at UBC could soon be providing clean energy in Alberta, thanks to a $7 million project between UBC, the government of Alberta and Alberta utility company ATCO.

The technology developed by the UBC researchers—methane thermal cracking—can produce up to 200 kilograms of hydrogen a day using natural gas, without using water, while reducing or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. The team will test their system at a facility in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, run by ATCO, Alberta’s largest natural gas distributor.

A statement from Dr. Andrew Trites from the Marine Mammal Research Unit

A popular belief that there are fewer Chinook salmon during the summer in Canadian waters for southern resident killer whales, compared to an abundance of fish for northern resident killer whales, has been debunked by a study led by scientists at the University of British Columbia.

A drug commonly used to treat cancer can restore memory and cognitive function in mice that display symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, new UBC research has found.

The drug, Axitinib, inhibits the growth of new blood vessels in the brain—a feature shared by both cancer tumours and Alzheimer’s disease, but this hallmark represents a new target for Alzheimer’s therapies.

Mice with Alzheimer’s disease that underwent the therapy not only exhibited a reduction in blood vessels and other Alzheimer’s markers in their brains, they also performed remarkably well in tests designed to measure learning and memory.

Extremely hot years will wipe out hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fish available for catch in a country’s waters in this century, on top of projected decreases to fish stocks from long-term climate change, a new UBC study projects.

Researchers from the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) used a complex model incorporating extreme annual ocean temperatures in Exclusive Economic Zones, where the majority of global fish catches occur, into climate-related projections for fish, fisheries and their dependent human communities.

Dr. Daniel Pauly is the world’s most-cited fisheries scientist, but life for the UBC professor has been far from easy. The biracial son of a French woman and an American GI, he was born in Paris and kidnapped as a child to be a live-in servant for a Swiss family. He escaped to Germany at 17 and put himself through high school by attending evening classes after a full day’s work.

Dr. Pauly went on to blow the whistle on the devastation caused to marine ecosystems by the global fishing industry, and to become a marine scientist whose work received worldwide recognition.

The capacity of coral reefs to provide ecosystem services relied on by millions of people worldwide has declined by half since the 1950s, according to a new University of British Columbia-led study.

The study offers the first comprehensive look at what climate change, overfishing, and habitat destruction of coral reefs mean for their ecosystem services, or the ability of the reef to provide essential benefits and services to humans, including food, livelihoods, and protection from storms. Overall, the findings showed that the significant loss in coral reef coverage has led to an equally significant loss in the ability of the reef to provide these services.

Unchecked climate change may leave some Arctic predators surviving off of marine “junk food,” according to a new UBC study.

It found that transformations to the makeup and distribution of fish species—as well as the size of fish in Hudson Bay—will begin to accelerate by 2025 and become progressively more extreme unless action is taken to reduce carbon emissions.

Using computer models, the researchers examined how these changes to prey would affect ringed seals, a common Arctic marine predator.

Do you get anxious, annoyed or frustrated when you see someone fidgeting? If so, you may suffer from misokinesia–or the “hatred of movements.”

According to new UBC research, approximately one-third of the population suffer from the psychological phenomenon, which is defined by a strong negative emotional response to the sight of someone else’s small and repetitive movements.

Finding animals in the wild can be tough, even for researchers with access to airplanes, high-end cameras and other costly gear.

Many animals blend with their surroundings or hide in places that human eyes can’t reach. This is especially true of marine animals, who move under cover of water.

That’s why researchers from the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF), the University of Manitoba, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada were surprised when the infrared video camera they brought aboard their plane captured narwhals swimming off the coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut.

The delicate stalk and pretty white flowers of Triantha occidentalis may seem like the perfect place to perch if you’re an insect, but get trapped in its sticky hairs and it will suck the nutrients from your dead corpse.

That’s the surprising new finding by University of British Columbia and University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers, detailed in PNAS.

The Canadian border reopens to fully vaccinated U.S. travellers on Monday, August 9. UBC experts are available to comment.

Dr. Stephen Hoption Cann Clinical Professor, School of Population and Public Health Cell: 778-928-8339 Email: hoption.cann@ubc.ca Interview language(s): English

The Arctic tern—which has the world record for the longest annual migration—uses just a few select routes, a key finding that could help efforts to conserve the species, according to a new University of British Columbia study.

Globally, Arctic terns are declining and their wide geographical range has posed a challenge for researchers hoping to see where different tern colonies bottleneck when they migrate.

People who decline maternity care services such as prenatal testing or epidurals often face pressure or scolding from their care providers, according to new UBC-led research.

In the largest study of its kind in B.C. — including analysis of 1,540 written accounts from 1123 women from across the province —  53.5 per cent of the total study sample reported declining some kind of care or procedure.

While most people reported care providers were supportive, almost one in three respondents said their care providers reacted with disrespect, tried to coerce them or disregarded their wishes. These negative interactions resulted in childbearing people feeling invisible, disempowered and in some cases traumatized.

As wildfires blaze around the province, a UBC researcher reminds us that some types of fire can be life-giving and help protect the planet.

Indigenous peoples have practiced “cultural burning” for millennia, says faculty of forestry ecologist and former wildland firefighter Dr. Kira Hoffman, and this practice has helped manage wildfires, benefited food supplies and encouraged diversity of local plant and wildlife.

UBC experts are available to comment on heat, wildfires and associated issues.

Dr. Sally Aitken Professor, Faculty of Forestry Email: sally.aitken@ubc.ca Interview language(s): English

Scientists have published a new, detailed radio image of the Andromeda galaxy – the Milky Way’s sister galaxy – which will allow them to identify and study the regions of Andromeda where new stars are born.

As UBC prepares to welcome students back to campus this September, the university is taking extra care to keep them safe and in good health.

From embedded mental health counsellors to extended physician hours and a new nurse practitioner, UBC has expanded its health and wellbeing services to help ease the transition for students.

Building on the developments of the last year, student health services will continue to be offered both in person and virtually, giving students more choice and better meeting their needs.

At the start of the pandemic, there were ample predictions that more time at home would lead to more time between the sheets.

But a new UBC study, recently published in the International Journal of Sexual Health, uncovers a more nuanced picture of how COVID-19 has shaped the sex lives of Canadians.

Today, a remote Lhoosk’uz Dené community is holding a celebration to mark a joyful milestone.

After decades of relying on bottled water, the village of about 50 people, located 200 kilometres west of Quesnel on Kluskus Lake, now has a steady supply of clean drinking water straight out of the tap, thanks to a new water treatment plant crafted to their unique needs.

“We had to do things differently. And now, what was just a dream many years ago is reality,” says Chief Liliane Squinas.