2011 - 2013
2010 - 2012
Alumni
Tabassum Firoz
Tabassum Firoz did her General Internal Medicine training at UBC and the University of Toronto. She has completed a fellowship in Obstetric Medicine (medical complications of pregnancy). Her research interest is in pre-eclampsia particularly in a global health setting. Her current project will look at community level management of pre-eclampsia in low and middle income countries. The project is a part of the PRE-EMPT [Pre-eclampsia/Eclampsia Monitoring, Prevention and Treatment] Initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Zaheer Kanji
Zaheer hails from the beautiful City of Champions, Edmonton, however has studied across the country. After completing secondary school training at the prestigious Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific in Victoria, he went on to pursue an undergraduate degree at McGill University in Physiology and International Development Studies. He would later return to the University of Alberta to complete medical training when finally the shores of Vancouver lured him to UBC for his General Surgery Residency.
Zaheer will be spending the next two years pursuing a Master’s of Science at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Toronto. He will be under the guidance of world re-known researcher and surgeon, Dr. Steven Gallinger, whereby he will be investigating the genetics behind Familial Pancreatic Cancer with the hopes of directed molecular screening strategies. Zaheer hopes to pursue a career in Hepato-Pancreatico- Biliary and Transplant Surgery following completion of his training.
Sheona Mitchell
Sheona was born in Lima, Peru and grew up in Scotland and Ecuador prior to moving to Calgary where she completed a BSc in Zoology and received her MD from the University of Calgary. Her Latin American roots and the year she spent in rural Tanzania taking part in a CIDA internship have heavily influenced Sheona’s career path. Women’s health and gender inequity in health outcomes and access to services is a cause close to her heart, and she plans to work with marginalized populations as part of her clinical practice. She is currently completing a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at UBC, and is involved in an ongoing cervical cancer screening project in Kampala, Uganda under the supervision of Dr. Gina Ogilvie (www.aspireafrica.ca). During her time with CIP she will be completing an MPH at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and spending a significant portion of her time in Uganda piloting an innovative approach to HPV and cervical cancer screening for low-resource settings.
Jacob Rozmus
Jacob was born in Poland and grew up in Edmonton. He completed both his undergraduate degree in biochemistry and medical degree at the University of Alberta. He moved to Vancouver for a pediatrics residency and will be completing subspecialty training in oncology/hematology/BMT in June 2011. Involvement in the CIP will allow him to pursue his PhD in the department of pathology & laboratory medicine at the University of British Columbia studying the role of B cells in the pathophysiology of chronic graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) under the mentorship of Dr. Kirk Schultz. He also has a strong clinical interest in the use of HSCT for treating non-malignant diseases, especially primary immunodeficiencies.
William Panenka
William was born and raised in Calgary. After completing medical school and a Master's degree in Neuroscience he ventured west. Falling in love with Vancouver was easy, and he successfully passed his FRCPC board exams in Psychiatry in 2007. Yearning for more punishment he subsequently enrolled in the Neurology residency program and will challenge his Neurology boards this year. Research has always been a passion - William hopes to extend some previous work on brain imaging in addictions, psychosis, and brain injury. He is mentored by Dr. W. Honer (Psychiatry), Dr. A. Barr (Pharmacology) and Dr. P. Von Dadelszen (Pathology) in what will hopefully be an enjoyable and productive start to his research career.
Katherine Plewes
Katherine Plewes is a seasoned international health researcher and Infectious Diseases fellow at the University of British Colombia. She completed her Internal Medicine training at UBC following a BSc in cellular, molecular and microbial biology, an MSc in molecular biology as well as MD at the University of Calgary. Most recently, Katherine has completed a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and intends to pursue a PhD, during her CIP, in the field of malaria that will address an adjunctive therapy in the treatment of severe falciparum malaria.
Dedicated to research and clinical medicine in the developing world, Katherine contributes to organizations such as the Wellcome Trust Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme. Through her work she gained considerable experience both medically and internationally and over the course of her studies has worked on numerous projects, primarily focused on malaria, in South East Asia and Bangladesh. A founding member of the committee for the UBC International Partnership Program with the Donald Fraser Hospital in South Africa, Katherine contributes to building capacity and opportunities for Vancouver based trainees to get involved with international clinical medicine and research.
Fidel Vila
Becoming a Clinical Scientist is a long lasting aspiration that has driven my career choices since I started medical school back in 1994. Early during those years of medical training, I realized that a balanced blend between clinical and research work was the ideal scenario in which both worlds could inform each other in order to ultimately provide the best of possible care. Also, at a personal level, the combination of both worlds in a single career is the most appealing of scenarios.
After graduating as a Psychiatrist in Spain, I became a Clinical Research Fellow in Schizophrenia research while being an attending psychiatrist at a Mental Health Team in the Barcelona metropolitan area. In 2006, I gain admission to the UBC Graduate Program in Neuroscience focusing on translational research in Schizophrenia and severe psychotic disorders. Since then, I have completed a 2-year clinical research fellowship, focused on complex and co-occurring disorders in Vancouver, and Psychiatry residency at the UBC program.
After all these years going back and forth between clinical work and research (often times feeling ‘off-side’ and not fully understood within each of those worlds), it is with great enthusiasm that I undertake the UBC-CIP where both worlds come together to create synergies that have the potential to make a difference in the health of people.
Sean Barbour
Sean was born and raised in Vancouver. He attended the University of Victoria where he completed an honours degree in mathematics. He went to medical school at the University of British Columbia, where he also completed his internal medicine residency and nephrology fellowship. The CIP funding will allow him to train at the University of Toronto in lupus nephritis and primary glomerular diseases where he will investigate predictors of mortality, renal outcomes and cardiovascular disease in glomerulonephritis. He will also complete a Master of Science degree with the Institute of Medical Sciences in epidemiology and biostatistics. His research to date has addressed ethnic differences in chronic kidney disease, and venous thromboembolic events in glomerular diseases.
Andrew Deonarine
Andrew Deonarine is a second year resident in the community medicine
program. He completed a BSc double major biochemistry and chemistry at
the University of Western Ontario, an MSc in biochemistry at Western,
his MD at the University of Toronto, and recently completed an MHSc at
the University of British Columbia, where for his major paper he had
the opportunity to work with Dr. Mark Musen at Stanford University on
biomedical ontologies. Andrew is currently a junior fellow at St.
John's College at UBC, and will be completing a PhD in computational
genomics at the University of Cambridge where he will be a member of
Girton College. His interests include the use of computers in
medicine, medical informatics, and bioinformatics.
Andrew Deonarine is the winner of the The Economist-InnoCentive Challenge on 21st Century Cyber Schools for his proposal on “EduCell”, a start-up that provides a platform for basic literacy through “phonecasting”. Using educational software for the mobile medium, “EduCell” provides a platform for education and learning to take place virtually anywhere in the world.
Read Perspectives on Innovation Blog: Solution Revealed: Economist Ideas Economy Cyberschool Challenge Winner – Andrew Deonarine
Alina Gerrie
Alina grew up in Richmond, BC and completed her undergraduate degree in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia. She then ventured east and completed medical school and Internal Medicine residency at the University of Toronto. After 7 years in Toronto, her love of the west coast finally brought her back to Vancouver, where she will be completing her 2-year Hematology residency at UBC in June 2010. Through the CIP, Alina will pursue further training with a joint fellowship with both the Leukemia/Bone Marrow Transplantation Program of BC and the Lymphoma Tumour Group at the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver. Her research will focus on analyzing the impact and outcomes of various cytogenetic abnormalities in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. She will work under the direction and guidance of Drs. Cynthia Toze, Tanya Gillan, and Joseph Connors. She will also participate in the American Society of Hematology Clinical Research Training Institute and plans to complete a Masters of Public Health during her CIP fellowship.
Bobby Heydari
Bobby was born in Calgary and grew up in Edmonton. After completing 2 years of Physiology at the University of Alberta, he was accepted to medical school. In 2004, he completed his MD degree at the University of Alberta and moved to Vancouver to pursue his residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He further sub-specialized in Cardiology, which will be completed in June 2010.
With the support of CIP, Bobby will be undertaking an advanced, non-invasive cardiac imaging fellowship at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Boston. He will also be working towards a Masters of Public Health at Harvard University’s School of Public Health.
Bobby enjoys biking, tennis, and soccer.
Adelyn Ho
Adelyn was born and raised in Chilliwack, BC. She completed her Bachelor of Science at the University of Alberta and returned to BC to complete Medical School. She is currently a Plastic Surgery Resident at the University of British Columbia, during which she developed an interest in post-oncological reconstruction during clinical training. Her research interests include breast reconstruction and health outcomes and she will be pursuing a Masters in Public Health in Quantitative Methods at the Harvard School of Public Health. After completion of her Masters, she will return to Vancouver to continue her research work and complete the remainder of her residency training program. Adelyn enjoys staying active, cooking, and painting. She feels very fortunate to have the opportunity to be a part of the Clinical Investigator Program and is excited to help advance the field of plastic surgery and improve the quality of life of breast cancer patients undergoing breast reconstruction.
Jose Monzon
I will be completing a Translational Research Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG). I feel that this fellowship is the next logical step in my training as I have completed residency training in Medical Oncology at the University of British Columbia and a PhD at the University of Toronto, where I studied the genetic factors that predispose individuals and their family members to melanoma.
My interest in molecular/cancer genetics first began in my fourth undergraduate year, when I completed a thesis investigating the genetic basis of autism. The summer prior to enrolling in graduate school, I worked in a laboratory constructing an adenovirus as a delivery vector for gene therapy. At that time, I realized the power of genetics and molecular biology at revealing the basis of disease with the potential to offer exciting novel therapies.
The majority of my research and publications have been devoted to understanding the genetic basis of cancer, with the hope that the results would have direct clinical ramifications in fields such as genetic screening, cancer prevention, and targeted therapeutics. Ultimately, I hope to use my education to become an academic oncologist focusing on melanoma. I chose the NCIC CTG as the next site of training as I have little exposure to clinical trials and would like to understand this aspect of clinical oncology. Hopefully, I will translate the molecular findings into personalized and effective therapies for this disease.
Gerald Pfeffer
Gerald Pfeffer completed medical school at McGill and neurology residency at UBC. He is pursuing a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. His research interests include basic and clinical studies in inherited neuromuscular diseases and mitochondrial disorders.
Brad Quon
Brad grew up in Vancouver and received his undergraduate degree in Microbiology & Immunology at the University of British Columbia. He then moved on to Montreal to attend both medical and business schools, earning a combined MD-MBA degree at McGill University. He returned to the University of British Columbia in 2005 and has completed his residency training in Internal Medicine and will be completing his Respiratory Medicine training by July 2010.
Brad will be pursuing two years of clinical research training in cystic fibrosis at the University of Washington. His research focus will include indentifying determinants of health outcomes in adult cystic fibrosis patients. He will be enrolled in the Master of Science program in General Epidemiology at the University of Washington. He will be supported by the Clinical Investigator Program and through a BC Lung Association Research Scholarship.