UBC News Digest

The UBC News Digest is a weekly summary of news stories about UBC people, research, learning, community, and internationalization initiatives. News Digest past issues are also available on-line.

May 16, 2002

• B.C.'s first diabetes transplant lab opens
• UBC endocrinologist founds centre for ovulation research

B.C.'s first diabetes transplant lab opens

The new Ike Barber Human Islet Transplant Laboratory is one step closer to conducting groundbreaking research on islet cell transplants as an alternative therapy for diabetes.

The laboratory, which opened Tuesday at Vancouver Hospital, was created with a $2.5 million gift to the university made last year by B.C. industrialist Irving K. (Ike) Barber. A $150,000 donation made by The Mr. and Mrs. P.A. Woodward Foundation through the UBC and VGH Hospital Foundation will be used to purchase laboratory equipment.

The laboratory has the potential to become a world-class centre of diabetes research highlighting the work of Dr. Garth Warnock, the first diabetes researcher in Canada to successfully transplant healthy insulin-producing cells into a diabetic patient.

Dr. Warnock, chief of surgery at Vancouver Hospital along with Bruce Harber, chief operating officer of the Coastal Health Authority; UBC dean of Medicine John Cairns; and Martha Piper, UBC president opened the new Ike Barber Human Islet Transplant Laboratory at the Vancouver Hospital site.

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UBC endocrinologist founds centre for ovulation research

Endocrinology Prof. Jerilynn Prior has founded a Centre for Menstrual and Ovulation Research in Vancouver. Understanding and treating ovulation disturbances will provide the key to prevention of osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and breast cancer for women, says Prior.

The virtual centre will include investigators from Australia, Norway, Hong Kong and North America who will collaborate on interdisciplinary studies of issues such as variations in the menstrual cycle and ovulation in the context of the lives of premenopausal women.

"What's unique about this group is that we're putting social science and biology together in a novel focus on women's cycles and ovulation," says Prior.