CIHR Announces Spring 2020 Awardees

The WHRI would like to congratulate members: Lori Brotto, Liisa Galea, Jessica Liauw, and K.S. Joseph on their successful CIHR Spring 2020 project awards.

In addition, we’d like to congratulate WHRI members: Arianne Albert, Paula Duarte Guterman, Yvonne Lamers, Giulia Muraca, Tim Oberlander, Sarka Lisonkova, Sandesh Shivananda, Jennifer Hutcheon, Donna Lang, Gina Ogilvie, Hélène Côté, Angela Kaida, and Melanie Murray for their role as co-applicants on funded projects!

The combined award for WHRI-led projects was over $1.78 million and WHRI member affiliated projects had a 29% funding rate—well above the 16.9% national funding rate!

MSFHR announces recipients of the 2020 Scholars And Research Trainee Awards

Among the 63 recipients were five WHRI-affiliated Scholars and Research Trainees: Elizabeth McClymont, Elizabeth King, Mei-Ling Wiedmeyer, and Amanda Fuchsia Howard.

Congratulations, everyone!

Dr. Gina Ogilvie receives the ASTDA 2020 Achievement Award

The Women’s Health Research Institute would like to extend a very warm congratulations to Dr. Gina Ogilvie, our Assistant Director and the Senior Advisor, Research at BC Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Ogilvie is the recipient of the 2020 American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association Achievement award for her work in HPV and STIs. Each year, the award is presented to a person at mid-career to acknowledge an outstanding body of work in sexually transmitted diseases or to an individual for a single major achievement in the field.

View the award presentation.

UBC Faculty of Medicine Awards

• Mary Kestler (Clinical Faculty Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching)
• Janice Kwon (Excellence in Clinical or Applied Research)
• Kristin Campbell (Distinguished Achievement)
• Jessica McAlpine (Distinguished Achievement)
• Manish Sadarangani (Distinguished Achievement)
• Roxanna Geoffrion (Distinguished Achievement)

Dr. Lori Brotto selected as a Fellow by CAHS

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On September 18th, 2020, Dr. Lori Brotto was named a Fellow by the Canadian of Health Sciences (CAHS)!

“I nominated Dr. Lori Brotto for fellowship of the CAHS because she is internationally recognized as a leader in sexual health research,” says Dr. Jehannine Austin, executive director at BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services Research Institute. She referenced the position Dr. Brotto holds as a Canada Research Chair in women’s sexual health and a past recipient of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Researcher of the Year award as notable accolades. “Dr. Brotto’s admission to the fellowship of CAHS is an important and well deserved recognition of the importance of her work, and of women’s sexual health more broadly.”

Read the full announcement from CAHS

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Updates from the TMIST study

Approximately 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual campaign to increase awareness of the disease. The pink ribbon represents fear of breast cancer, hope for the future, and the charitable goodness of people and businesses who publicly support the breast cancer movement. It is intended to evoke solidarity with women who currently have breast cancer.

Detecting breast cancer early is important for improving outcomes. The usual approach to breast cancer screening is to have a mammogram every one or two years.

In British Columbia the current standard of care that is available in the Breast Screening Program is a digital mammogram only. For some women, along with the mammogram, other screening tests may be done, such as ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The main purpose of this study is to find out if screening for breast cancer with tomosynthesis mammography is better than with digital mammography. One site participating from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Stats for the Tomosynthesis Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial:

Join us on October 16th!

Join us for BC Women's Hospital Research Rounds from 8-9am, hosted by Dr. Angela Kaida.

She will be presenting findings from the recent WHRI-led study on the impacts of COVID-19 on trainees engaged in women's health research in BC.

Please join us in welcoming Victoria!

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Victoria is the new research assistant with the TMIST study, where she will help with recruiting participants, collecting data, and performing other data-related duties.

Victoria has recently graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours with Distinction) in psychology and a Minor in Kinesiology. She has worked in many psychology research labs while at university. She had the honor of doing her thesis under the supervision of Dr. John McDonald, and she had previously worked with Dr. Ralph Mistlberger in the Circadian Rhythms lab and with Dr. Allen Thornton in the Neuropsychology lab. She is very passionate about research related to health in general, and women’s health in particular. She aspires to become a clinical psychologist.

When she is not doing research, she likes hiking, biking, paddle boarding, and anything related to the outdoors and physical activity. She is thrilled to be helping with the advancement of knowledge on the diagnosis of women’s health issues.