My search for a research laboratory focused on studying diseases immediately led me to the BC Cancer Agency Research Centre (BCCRC) and its Terry Fox Laboratory. I soon learned that the latter was a multidisciplinary group primarily focused on understanding leukemia and advancing treatments. When I was offered a co-op work placement in this lab, I accepted without hesitation.
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After high school, I was accepted to the University of British Columbia (UBC). I knew I wanted to focus on cell biology and genetics, study the effects of genetics on how cells work, and how this influences health and disease. But I was at a loss for how this could become my career path.
Eventually I learned about the Cooperative Education program at UBC. This program allowed me to gain...
Continuing from my previous post, what ultimately helped to navigate my academic career towards science was a fantastic science teacher I had in Grade 10. He did two things that caught my attention most.
First, our year-long assignment was to bring articles about science in the news, and each week, my teacher would pick the most interesting news and breakthroughs to share with our class...
My name is Courteney Lai, and I am a PhD student in the Terry Fox Laboratory at the BC Cancer Agency Research Centre in Vancouver. I am supervised by Dr. Keith Humphries, who is the Director of the Terry Fox Laboratory, and Dr. Sam Aparicio (a previous guest blogger, too), the Head of Molecular Oncology.
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Thank you to Dr. Julian Lum for sharing your experience at the BC Cancer Agency Vancouver Island Centre with us. Your immunology research is interesting, and your passion and dedication to your work is inspiring. Your post about cancer’s “sweet tooth” was an eye opener as well.
For February, we...
Wow, January went by quickly—it is hard to believe this is my final blog post for the BC Cancer Foundation.
I’d like to conclude by talking about my role as a Co-Leader of the Radiation and Cancer Immunotherapy Team (RCIT) at the BC Cancer Agency Vancouver Island Centre (VIC) and the research we are conducting here.
Years ago, a team of oncologists and researchers at the BC...
Admit it. It’s true isn’t it? You love the dessert buffet line just as much as I do, or more maybe!? Well, you’re not the only one… It turns out cancer cells love sugar too. In fact, in order to grow and divide, cancer cells become addicted to glucose, a type of sugar derived from the foods we eat. As cancer cells divide and form large tumours, they eventually use up all of the available...
When I returned to Canada to find a suitable place to setup my laboratory, I was immediately drawn to the BC Cancer Agency Deeley Research Centre (DRC) because of the DRC’s vision and it’s Director, Dr. Brad Nelson. The sole mandate of the DRC was to focus research efforts on understanding how the immune system...
My research focus at the University of Pennsylvania eventually developed into cancer immunology research, and you may wonder how this happened. Well that is a great question, one I often begin to answer by explaining how there are very few human diseases that we have truly eradicated or cured. History tells us that our best successes have come from eradication of infectious diseases like...
Welcome and Happy New Year everyone! My name is Julian Lum, and I am a scientist and Co-Leader of the Radiation and Cancer Immunotherapy Team at the BC Cancer Agency Deeley Research Centre in the Agency’s Vancouver Island Centre. I have the great honour of being the first guest blogger of 2012. I am dually honoured by this because 2012 is the year of the dragon in the Chinese Horoscope, and I...
