During his Master’s research Christopher Lannon studied sensitivity to chemotherapy in adult and pediatric leukemias. Now Lannon is focusing on childhood cancers, which are biologically distinct from adult cancers and therefore present unique and interesting research challenges. He’s investigating a childhood tumour known as congenital fibrosarcoma (CFS). Several pediatric tumours, including CFS, are characterized by the fusion of two normal genes to form an abnormal fusion gene. Lannon aims to understand why this rearrangement of genetic material leads to malignant childhood tumours, with the goal of developing a mechanism to block the fusion.
Research Location: Children's & Women's Health Centre of British Columbia
Improving Therapeutic Decision-Making During Active Clinical Practice
The ultimate goal of Laura Esmail’s research is to improve the management of medication use and patient outcomes. Studies estimate that 4.3% of hospital admissions in industrialized countries are due to preventable adverse outcomes of drug therapy. To begin to address this problem, Laura developed and tested a decision-making network aimed to improve physicians’ drug therapy decision-making. The conceptual framework of this network was based on the theory of cognitive apprenticeships: the process of understanding concepts through engaging in authentic activities and actual practice. Through linking family physicians with clinical pharmacists using cellular-telephone instant group conferencing, Laura attempted to create a continuous, contextual, social learning environment in which therapeutic expertise and experience could be shared and acquired at the time of patient care decision-making. This network ultimately aimed to facilitate the collaborative decision-making process that often takes place between health care professionals during hospital medical rounds. Results of her study concluded that cellular-telephone instant group conferencing between family physicians and clinical pharmacists is a useful method for influencing and assisting with drug therapy decisions at the time of patient care decision-making. Further modifications to the network are necessary before feasibility can be fully assessed. This work is an important contribution towards the understanding of decision-making systems that can improve drug related morbidity and mortality and help advance patient care.
Pain communication during infancy and early childhood: When cry becomes a speech act
Elizabeth Stanford (Job) has focused her research on understanding and improving assessment of children’s pain, by learning more about how children express pain, and how pain expression changes from infancy to early childhood. In her Master’s research she pursued three major projects that provided insights into the nature of children’s pain experience and how to improve measurement strategies. Two of her studies examined the language children use when experiencing painful events. The first involved the analysis of recordings of children’s spontaneous use of speech during immunization injections. Results from the study improve understanding of the meaning of these experiences for children and the type of language parents and practitioners can expect from children when they are in pain. The second study examined a large database providing transcriptions of children’s use of pain language during a range of structured and unstructured activities. The results provide important information about children’s spontaneous use of pain language, and could help clinicians and researchers better understand and assess pain in young children. Elizabeth’s final study examined young children’s use of self-report pain scales and described the role of developmental factors in predicting use of these scales. Child age was found to be the best predictor of children’s abilities to use the self-report pain scale. The results also highlight the tendency for over-estimation of young children’s abilities to use self-report scales and the need for tools and training tasks to be developed for use with the scales.
The involvement of phosphatidylcholine in the development of hepatic steatosis in children with cystic fibrosis
Alice Chen hopes to achieve a better understanding of what causes liver disease in people with cystic fibrosis (CF). Liver disease – the second most common cause of death for people with CF – may result from depletion of choline (a water soluble B vitamin) in CF patients. An inability to properly absorb phosphatidylcholine (PC), which is found in food such as organ meats and egg yolks, may cause choline depletion and may ultimately lead to accumulation of fat in the liver. To test this hypothesis, Chen is studying a group of 50 children with CF, along with 10 healthy children. She will collect and analyse data from these children to determine if there is a link between difficulty in absorbing PC and liver disease. Chen, whose goal is pursing a career in nutrition research, believes that a better understanding of the causes of liver disease in people with CF is critical for the development of nutrition interventions that could prevent this serious complication.
Calcium Homeostasis and Basal Entry in Vascular Smooth Muscle
Much research has been devoted to understanding how calcium enters stimulated vascular smooth muscle and causes muscle contraction. Defects in this process have been linked to diseases such as hypertension and peripheral vascular disease. But little research has been done on calcium entry in unstimulated muscle. Damon’s research suggests that a significant amount of calcium enters muscle even in the absence of a contraction-inducing stimulus. By investigating the pathways through which calcium enters vascular smooth muscle and skeletal muscle, Mr. Poburko aims to identify the specific role of calcium entry in causing diseases such as muscular dystrophy and chronic hypertension. Ultimately the research may point to new drug therapy targets for the diseases.
Identification of caspase modifiers via genetic selection in yeast
Elaine Law’s Masters research literally related to matters of life and death. Elaine investigated apoptosis – the process of programmed cell death. Apoptosis plays a critical role in normal body function by eliminating unwanted and potentially dangerous cells as part of tissue renewal. However, too much cell death can lead to strokes and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Huntington’s disease, while too little cell death has been associated with many forms of cancer and autoimmune diseases. Using yeast as a host and advanced genetic techniques, Elaine studied caspases, a group of proteins that play a key role in cell death. She developed a genetic selection system in yeast for identifying caspase modifiers: proteins that either activate or inhibit caspases. Her research improves understanding of cell death and provides insights about genes that contribute to abnormal patterns of cell death leading to cancer.