Survivors of forced sterilization and coerced contraception meet with researchers to share stories
Survivors of forced sterilization and coerced contraception from Canada, Peru and Indonesia will gather with academic researchers at a summit in Edmonton this summer to share stories, heal through art and ceremony, and set an agenda for change. The full extent of reproductive control practices around the world is not known, but they have been…
Yusef Yousuf’s dream is to serve Toronto’s immigrant communities as a family doctor
When Yusef Yousuf was 10, he had a health scare that set him on a path to improve medicine. He was playing soccer at lunch with his friends and took a tumble, fracturing his arm below the shoulder. His mother rushed him to the local hospital, where the doctor noticed something unusual on the X-ray:…
How one student found her voice as an advocate for patients and other nurses
Cool air blew from above, nearly as bracing as the antiseptic smell of chlorhexidine that wafted through the operating room. The surgeon bent over a completely still older man, carefully inserting a small wire into an artery in the patient’s groin, searching for the path to repair an aneurysm. It was the first time Hanna…
Federal funding supports intensive advanced training for future leaders in AI and diabetes research
In a global competition for talent, Canada is seeking to train the best graduate students to become “highly qualified personnel” – university-educated experts with the savvy and ingenuity to lead innovation in high-tech industries, government and academia. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada has announced two new programs at the University of…
Safe, portable imaging system one of five new health technologies funded by Alberta Innovates
Dentists may soon add portable ultrasound to the standard equipment in their offices, allowing them to accurately and affordably diagnose aspects of their patients’ periodontal disease without any risk of radiation. That’s the goal of a University of Alberta research team that will continue to develop and commercialize its patented dental ultrasound system thanks to…
Edmonton Protocol team reports treatment is safe and reliable for people with hard-to-control diabetes
After 20 years of perfecting their technique, the team behind the largest islet transplant program in the world reports the procedure is a safe, reliable and life-changing treatment for people with hard-to-control diabetes. In results published recently in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, the researchers report on patient survival, graft survival, insulin independence and protection from life-threatening low…
Can be a trigger for both grief and healing in people coping with the loss of a loved one
When Donna Wilson pulled up to visit her aunt and uncle on their farm near Eatonia, Sask., a few years ago, she came across a comical scene: Her uncle Doug was running around the yard chasing turkeys. The birds kept jumping up on his dog and he was trying to shoo them away with a broom. It’s…
The nurse-patient relationship is being re-shaped by the proliferation of technology
When Gillian Lemermeyer decided at age 17 to become a nurse, she was following in her mother’s footsteps, so she expected her mom to be thrilled when she told her the news. “I was surprised when she grew very serious,” Lemermeyer remembers. “She said, ‘Okay, but do you understand what it means to be looking after…
Researchers working in a U of A laboratory have uncovered two previously unknown ways that metabolism triggers cancer cell growth, uncovering potential new pathways for diagnosis and treatment. Both papers come out of the laboratory shared by Evangelos Michelakis, professor and associate chair of research in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and Canada Research Chair in Applied Molecular and…
Researchers working to identify drug combinations to treat people with obesity, Type 2 diabetes
Canadian and German researchers are teaming up to identify new drug combinations to treat people with obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The goal is to develop personalized prescriptions that are more effective than single drugs and that can potentially replace more invasive treatments such as bariatric surgery, especially for children. “As a pediatric endocrinologist, I…