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Medicine is so much more than lab coats and stethoscopes. The research community at the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine is a diverse group of humans, all working with their own unique motivations — and not all of them work in a hospital setting. Get to know what gets these researchers amped about their jobs, what they’re doing, where they’re doing it, and why. Presented by the Office of Vice-Dean of Research, College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan.
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The founders of Esports Labs bring in current events and discuss their opinions on what it means for the esports and gaming industry.
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Matt Norris speaks to professionals from all walks of life about their personal and business journey aiming to connect, inform and inspire his audience.
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Dr. Sabira Valiani was one of the frontline physicians working inside Saskatoon’s critical care units four years ago, during the initial lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic. “It was really weird,” said Valiani. Valiani said ‘a lot of light bulbs went off in my head’ amid the automated stillness of the unit, as she watched ventilators breathing for h…
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Daphne Yau can trace her interest in endocrinology back to a beta-cell physiology experiment during her master’s degree, working with laboratory mice with Type 2 Diabetes. “It was the part of the pancreas that makes insulin,” she said. “It was fascinating. It also made me realize that maybe pure laboratory research wasn't quite for me." From there,…
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Haissam Haddad inadvertently horrified his family when he signed up for engineering courses in his first year of university. The teenager returned the next day to change his major to medicine -- a move he's glad he made. Dr. Haddad practiced family medicine in Syria for three years, then arrived in Canada in 1986 to visit his wife's family, who urg…
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In this episode, we meet Dr. Stacey Love, Director of Virtual Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation at Saskatchewan's Virtual Health Hub, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Saskatchewan's School of Rehabilitation. She's also involved with the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient Oriented Research. You can see more of her recent publications here…
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Dr. Angelica Lang knows most of the people she sees have to keep working, even if they have shoulder pain. As an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan and director of the Musculoskeletal and Ergonomics Lab at the Canadian Centre for Rural and Agricultural Health, Lang’s goal is to reduce that pain — keeping patients on the job. “A l…
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Dr. Munier Nour said osteoporosis is often seen as a disease that affects older adults. But compared to their peers, kids with Type 1 diabetes grow into adults eight times as likely to suffer bone fractures. “Osteoporosis may actually have its origins during pediatric years,” he said. “Because Type 1 diabetes occurs so early in life ….. it influenc…
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In the heart of the Health Sciences Building, Dr. Amanda Hall studies a tray of organoids under a microscope. “They do need a lot of attention and a lot of feeding,” she said, pointing to dot-like points in a gel solution. The pediatric surgeon and assistant professor of pediatric general surgery will use those dots to identify factors that help in…
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Valerie Verge was in her early twenties when she landed her first job, doing neuroscience research and she loved it. But 43 years ago, her research journey began to take a twist. "I developed an allergy to rats and mice,” she said. “I was using a box of Kleenex a day.” She reluctantly had to admit that this may not be her career path, and spent her…
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Dr. Evyn Peters has created pivotal changes for patients arriving at Royal University Hospital's mental health short stay unit, and its emergency department. With 33 publications and interests spanning psychiatry, psychopharmacology and mood disorders, Peters is often one of the first physicians patients see when they’re experiencing a mental healt…
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By the end of her Grade Eight year in Saskatoon, Wendie Marks was sure about one thing: she knew she wanted to study health and the way early-life development affected the human body. “I spent a lot of time in the library reading books,” Marks said. “I was always kind of the nerdy type.” Marks enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan and thrived,…
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When Justin Botterill first arrived at the University of Saskatchewan, he took what he described as a 'shotgun approach' to choosing classes. Midway through his second year, his psychology professors introduced him to neuropsychology, and to psychiatric and neurological disorders. He was hooked. Botterill soon began working with rodent models, late…
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When Bruce Gordon's relatives descend on Saskatoon this month, his wife will put them to work. Bruce Gordon was a police officer and a lawyer, who competed as a triathlete and in the Crossfit Games. He was a fierce competitor until he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer at age 54. Hear his story in Episode 43. After Bruce died in 2017, …
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Midway through his undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, a laboratory 'help wanted' poster caught Jeff Dong's eye. He applied, gaining invaluable practical experience that summer in Stephanie Borgland's lab. "She really supported me in understanding what research is about," said Dong, who went on to complete his PhD through UB…
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Before we’re even born, our bodies begin to grow and train an army of spies and assassins, creating a crew of immune system fighters in the upper chest's thymus gland. While this production is dominated by T cells, other immune cells such as B cells and plasma cells can be generated within the thymus, albeit at a very low level. After adolescence, …
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Like a lot of kids, Anurag Sakharkar used to dream about being a doctor, or an astronaut. His parents, both academics, encouraged him to follow his dream. In high school, he began spending evenings and weekends working at the University of Saskatchewan’s biomedical labs, perfecting advanced research methods, western blots and PCR analysis . He bega…
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When Dr. Rachel Asiniwasis returned to the prairies after her dermatology residency in Toronto, she noticed a pattern among many of her pediatric patients. Hundreds of them were coming to her with itchy, raw patches of skin, the result of atopic dermatitis — eczema. “One of the biggest frustrations for me is when people say ‘oh, it’s just a skin pr…
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Patients in intensive care units often move to a regular ward before they're discharged, and sent home. But increasingly, hospitals are skipping that step, sending a handful of ICU patients directly home. "We were really looking at analyzing the data of safety in terms of discharging patients home safely in terms of outcomes such as mortality, or a…
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For decades, families have watched Alzheimer's disease steal their loved ones' cognitive function. It's the most common form of dementia; one that affects a third of people over the age of 85. It's a disease Dr. Ron Geyer and Dr. Andrew Kirk want to tackle. Right now, most pharmaceuticals target the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, without addressi…
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Debra Morgan grew up on a farm and continued farming with her husband, initially working in nursing in the winter. Nursing shifts took her from neurosurgery to pediatrics, to orthopedics, then to Saskatoon's geriatric units at City Hospital and Royal University Hospital. "I just found that I really enjoyed working with older people," Morgan said. S…
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If you've ever sat through a bad date at a restaurant, unsure of what to order, you're still doing better than a typical zebrafish date. Dr. Michelle Collins said without safety precautions, a zebrafish male and female left together overnight often eat their embryos. The assistant professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology at the University …
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Diagnosing pulmonary diseases ilike asthma in young children is still largely a matter of trial and error, according to Saskatchewan’s top pediatric respirologist. As viruses and colds tear through schools and daycares across North America, Dr. Darryl Adamko wants to change that. “If you have asthma this year and you're not taking your inhaled ster…
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May this holiday season find all our Researchers Under the Scope listeners feeling cozy, festive and warm. In the spirit of giving, the Office of the Vice-Dean of Research at the College of Medicine has once again teamed up, to make a donation to students and staff at King George Elementary School in Saskatoon. This is where you can scroll down and…
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When Scott Widenmaier left high school, he wasn't sure what career path he wanted to pursue. He grew up in Alameda, Saskatchewan, and soon found work on oil rigs. But by the time he was in his early twenties, he knew it was time for a change. "I realized that winters are just too cold to continue doing that," said Widenmaier. "I wasn't sure what I …
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As a high school student growing up in Melfort, Sask.. Linda Chelico knew she wanted to work in health sciences. She enjoyed biology class, and took an interest in watching nature heal itself. She wanted to find environmentally friendly solutions to health problems. Then, she read a National Geographic magazine about landfills filling up. Chelico b…
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Colour-changing reactions and small explosions punctuated life at Dr. Oleg Dmitriev's home, when he was a boy. He loved trying out chemical reactions, and experimenting. As a teenager, he was fascinated by the science fiction novels his father brought home. "It's all about strange worlds and unusual, strange forms of life," said Dmitriev, a protein…
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Asmahan AbuArish grew up in Hebron, surrounded by military checkpoints. She knew she wanted to help people, but she had to give up her dream of being a medical doctor early. Fortunately, AbuArish is no quitter. She discovered physics — and later its very real applications in curing inflammatory pulmonary diseases such as cystic fibrosis (CF) and ch…
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As a pediatric neurologist, Dr. Richard Huntsman sees the children with the most medically complex epilepsy "It completely disrupts the life of a family," said Huntsman. "Limitations on what the child can do, limitations on what the family can do." "When the kids have really severe and difficult-to-control epilepsy, It's a huge burden on their pare…
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Researchers in Robert Laprairie's laboratory are hard to miss, wearing tie-dyed lab coats as they oversee mice and lab rats in iPad-sized chambers filled with cannabis smoke. An associate professor in the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, Dr. Laprairie and his team are trying to unravel the mysteries of human neurotransmitters and cannabinoid rece…
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Dr. Ivar Mendez is one of the world's leading experts in neuroscience and robotics, neuromodulation, and remote medicine. But nine years ago, the award-winning neuroscientist who founded Dalhousie's Brain Repair Centre faced a career dilemma. Would he accept a senior clinician's position at Harvard University, or would he move to Saskatchewan, to o…
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From insects and birds, to the underwater world, Juan Ianowski's fascination with the natural world began early. As a biologist, he was drawn to physiological processes, later scrutinizing the kidneys of insects, whose epithelial cells behave in similar ways to those in human lungs. By 2015, Ianowski's research was focused on the pathophysiology of…
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Dr. Deborah Anderson has spent her career as a biochemist and cancer cell biologist pinning down elusive targets. Now she’s made a breakthrough in one of the world’s most swift-moving and aggressive cancers: triple negative breast cancer. This form of the disease affects 15 to 20 per cent of women diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s , and is often m…
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Chandra Dattani's smile lit up the room, and her laughter was contagious. But when the beloved Saskatoon businesswoman and volunteer was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, even her husband, a physician, found very little information about therapies or drugs that could heal her. "There was very scant literature on triple negative, and I w…
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When Veronica McKinney was a little girl, she vivdly remembers going to the Saskatoon Public Library, borrowing a Time-Life book about the human body. "I loved that book and I would read it. I would copy the cover. I can picture it even to this day, all the different little cells," said McKinney, now an assistant professor at the College of Medicin…
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Most patients at a hospital or a clinic walk in sick. Doctors do their best to treat their ailments. Dr. Neils Koehncke's patients aren't necessarily sick. In fact, most are reasonably healthy and still on the job. But their duties at work often lead to a plethora of risky situations and occupational hazards. "It's the flip side of healthy, or at l…
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To spread hope and cheer in our city, the Office of the Vice-Dean of Research typically runs a charitable donation campaign at the end of each year, during the Christmas break. Again, distancing, masks and video conferencing dominated the College of Medicine's second pandemic holiday season. That prompted graduate students Stefany Cornea and Nayoun…
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From his time as captain of the Saskatoon Blades, to a career with the Saskatoon Police Service and the law -- Bruce Gordon was the kind of father, athlete and coach who inspired everyone around him. After he was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer in 2017, his wife Chris joined family and friends to start a wave of 'Be Like Bruce' fundraisers…
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As Saskatchewan drops its proof-of-vaccine requirements and masking orders, doctors and nurses are angry and frustrated, as they care for record numbers of Covid patients. "There's this tension of how to manage all of this going forward so that we don't have surge after surge and wave after wave continue to basically crush our healthcare system," s…
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Audrey Zucker-Levin estimates it's been more than 30 years since she first poked her head into a researcher's office at New York City's Hospital for Special Surgery. Back then, the clinical therapist spent her days treating hospital patients, stopping by the laboratory after her shifts. "I was very intrigued by the prosthesis, by the mechanical and…
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Dr. Ayisha Kurji first noticed the uptick in children and teens admitted to hospital in the spring of 2020. Some had cardiovascular damage. Some had gastrointestinal issues. But it wasn't because of Covid-19. Instead, she kept seeing children and adolescents hospitalized with eating disorders. "They were so sick, so medically unwell," said Kurji. "…
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Dr. Erique Lukong grins, pointing to two bracelets on his wrist. One inscribed with the word 'focus'; the other 'believe'. "I'm passionate about what I do,' he said, describing his journey through medicine as a series of lucky breaks. In his home country of Cameroon, Lukong was identified early as a promising scholar. Upon graduating from high scho…
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Without a car, without childcare, without a grocery store, a pharmacy, or a place to get blood work done, how does a person with diabetes in rural Saskatchewan keep their disease in check? Those are the questions Dr. Stu Skinner and his Wellness Wheel team members face each day, as they treat Cree and Saulteaux patients on the Day Star, George Gord…
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For senior citizens, fracturing a hip is more often than not a life-changing injury. One in three of those patients will die within a year. The second will recover and return home. The third often needs to move to a long-term care facility, to cope with reduced mobility. Dr. Cathy Arnold makes it her mission to stop those falls and fractures in the…
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Dr. Marek Radomski says research pays off, in attracting dollars to post-secondary institutions, in creating healthier citizens, and in lowering health costs. He's the vice-dean of research at the University of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine, a member of Canada's U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, But in a province that will spend $6.…
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Julia Boughner knows primates carry a deep-seated instinct to gather together. An associate professor of anatomy with the College of Medicine, Boughner is a biologist who specializes in evolutionary development. On the last Tuesday of the month, she also hosts Café Scientifique Saskatoon. The gathering is essentially a pub night where a scientists …
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Dr Michael Levin is a neuroscientist unravelling the mysteries of nerve degeneration in Multiple Sclerosis patients. He's also Saskatchewan's inaugural MS Clinical Research Chair, whose team recently won a New Frontiers in Research Fund award. "In my lifetime, there's been a dramatic change in how we treat MS," said Levin. "There's a lot of hope wh…
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One of the trickiest parts of treating patients with neuromuscular diseases such as Parkinson's and Multiple Sclerosis is figuring out how to keep them active and moving. Fourth-year medical student Kyra Ives dove in, spending one summer studying the effect of deep brain stimulators on patients with Parkinson's disease. She and her team watched par…
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Taking a daily puffer with inhaled corticosteroids is a mainstay for millions of people who have eosinophilic asthma. But doctors don't always know what dosage will be most effective for their patients, in preventing inflammation. Up to now, studies of different corticosteroids have been hit and miss, with a patchwork of different approaches to bro…
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Our podcast host, Jen Quesnel, has undergone two Caesarian sections -- lifesaving interventions that deliver babies safely. She's not alone. In Saskatchewan, roughly one quarter of mothers giving birth are doing it via abdominal surgery. More than one in three births in British Columbia are C-sections. After avoiding driving, stairs, and lifting an…
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One patient Shivani Tauh interviewed had to remove his ventilator tube to speak with her. Another told her it felt 'disingenuous' when able-bodied health care providers looked at his spinal cord injury and assured him 'this will pass'. Shivani Tauh kicks off our undergraduate summer research series in this episode, discussing her work on spinal cor…
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For doctors in Saskatchewan, depression and anxiety have skyrocketed during the pandemic. We check in with Dr. Camelia Adams, an associate professor of psychiatry, who's been tracking physicians' mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic. Just one of the 118 physicians she surveyed reported asking for help with mental health issues. That's no surp…
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