Medical Biophysics
 Our label for a commemorative wine produced to honor the 25th anniversary of the Medical Biophysics Department. If you look closely you will see many aspects of our research including a DNA helix, comet, spheroid, multilayer and pion |
The Medical Biophysics Department (or the Biophysics Department as it was originally named), established in 1973 under the leadership of Lloyd Skarsgard, was the founding research program of the BC Cancer Research Centre. Some of the Department's original junior investigators have now gone on to form departments of their own within this Centre.
The initial impetus for the development of Medical Biophysics was the cancer treatment potential of pi mesons at TRIUMF (tri-university pi-meson facility) at UBC. The Department was responsible for the design and construction of the Biomedical beam line, as well as for the pre-clinical testing that was required to fully characterize this new beam before patients could be treated.
Over the past 30 years that original research on pions has been supplanted by experiments with radiation sensitizers and hypoxic cell cytotoxins, development of probes for hypoxic cells and multilayer cultures for drug studies, characterization of low dose radiation effects and multimodality therapies. New models for tumour perfusion and chromatin conformation have been developed, as have assays for DNA damage and repair.
Improving radiation and drug treatment of solid tumours remains an important focus in the Department but now also includes studies into the biology and vasculature of solid tumours as well as methods of treating tumours and predicting their response to treatment. Recently, with the arrival of Aly Karsan's group, the spectrum of research being done has expanded even more to encompass the study of endothelial cell survival/apoptosis and tumour angiogenesis.
Until recently the Department occupied the same space that it did some 30 years ago. However, in January 2005 we were fortunate to move into the 9th floor of a brand new state-of-the-art research facility located next door to our old building. The Medical Biophysics portion of the 9th floor accommodates 4 independent research programs and a staff of over 35 individuals. Senior staff use their proximity to the Vancouver Cancer Clinic as a unique opportunity to do translational research, moving discoveries quickly from bench to bedside.
Senior Scientists in the Medical Biophysics Department hold academic appointments in one or more departments at the University of British Columbia including 
Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Experimental Medicine, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Medical Biophysics senior scientific staff are listed below. Please click on their names for details of their research programs.
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