Welcome to Pathology's Bi-Weekly Bulletin | May 2, 2025
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🎓 New Director of the Graduate Program – Dr. Will Lockwood
I am very pleased that Dr. Will Lockwood has accepted the appointment as the Director of the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine’s Graduate Program.
The combination of Will’s skills as an engaged and inspiring mentor, as well as his knowledge about the curriculum of both the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine’s graduate program and the Interdisciplinary Oncology program, will serve our graduate program and our trainees well. We are very fortunate to have Will take on this leadership role.
Will can be reached at wlockwood@bcccr.ca or 604-675-8264.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Helene Cote for her tremendous leadership and service to our graduate program over the last five years.
Sincerely,
Dr. Zuhua Gao
Department Head, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
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Rounds Research Lead Update
Dr. Aly Karsan is now the new lead for the research component of the weekly Pathology Rounds. We extend our thanks to Dr. Will Lockwood for his valuable contributions in this role.
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Weekly Province-wide Pathology Rounds
🩺 Upcoming Weekly Rounds – May 2, 2025
Presenter: Dr. Julia Naso
Title: “A Tale of Two Squams: Determining Clonality and Site of Origin for Multiple Squamous Cell Carcinomas”
Date: Friday, May 2, 2025
Time: 12:00 noon
Learning Objectives:
- Learn about new technologies for analyzing cancer genome methylation and copy number changes.
- Explore how to distinguish between metastatic and separate primary tumors.
- Understand genomic variations in squamous cell carcinomas from different sites.
Dr. Naso is a UBC MD/PhD graduate and anatomical pathologist at VGH. She completed fellowship training in pulmonary pathology at the Mayo Clinic and is an early-career clinician scientist with a focus on molecular testing for cancer diagnosis.
💻 Attend via Zoom only:
PLEASE NOTE: The Zoom information for this recurring meeting has been updated.
If you saved the old Zoom link somewhere, please update your records.
NEW Zoom Link:
https://ubc.zoom.us/j/66114231597?pwd=CRlUz4RaIaMwegbg7ClYWYK3aikAI5.1
Meeting ID: 661 1423 1597
Passcode: 564976
🔁 Missed a session? View recordings of previous rounds here:
Past Rounds Archive
💡 Have ideas for future rounds or speakers?
We’d love to hear from you! Email us at
pathassist@pathology.ubc.ca
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🏠 Department Members Secure Genomics Research Funding
Congratulations to our department members who received funding for new genomics projects! Supported by the Government of British Columbia—in partnership with Genome British Columbia and Genome Alberta—these projects will support precision medicine for cancer, heart disease, organ transplants and more.
Department Members' Projects:
- Kidney Transplant Monitoring: Dr. James Lan "Overcoming barriers for rapid adoption of donor-derived cell-free DNA for surveillance of kidney allograft injury in Canada"
- Cancer Gene Detection: Dr. Tony Ng "Comprehensive cancer gene fusion detection for B.C. and Alberta"
- At-Home Lung Cancer Screening: Dr. William Lockwood "Development and testing of an at-home lung cancer-screening test"
- Healthcare-Associated Infections: Dr. Linda Hoang "Closing GAPS: Genome approach to preventing spread of healthcare-associated infections through innovation and economics"
- Bloodstream Infection Diagnostics: Dr. Marthe Charles is part of a team evaluating "Translation of BSIDx – a rapid diagnostic platform for bloodstream infections"
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🔬 Celebrating Pathologists' Assistant Day at St. Paul's Hospital
Thank you to Crystal Leung, a proud graduate of our BMLSc program, and the team at Providence Health Care for celebrating Pathologists’ Assistant Day on April 14 with a feature article and lab highlights.
Crystal also shared that their lab will take part in the Seed2STEM Summer Program, providing Indigenous youth with hands-on lab experience and insights into careers in pathology.
🔗 Behind the scenes: Pathologists’ Assistant Day at Providence
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🧪 Featured Research – Hannah Nelson (MSc Student)
Congratulations to Hannah Nelson, Master’s student in Experimental Medicine with Dr. David Goldfarb, whose research was recently featured on the PHSA POD!
Her project focuses on self-collected diagnostic tools and their impact on improving patient experience.
🔗 Read the full article
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📰 Recently Published Research
Dr. Ali Bashashati, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Director of AI Research at OVCARE (BC Cancer/UBC), presented "Boltzmann Semantic Score: A Semantic Metric for Evaluating Large Vision Models Using Large Language Models" at ICLR 2025. The research addressed challenges in computational pathology and multimodal AI, introducing a new metric to evaluate Large Vision Models using Large Language Models. The poster presentation was held on Thursday, April 24.
🔗 Read the paper | 🔗 GitHub
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🧠 2025 Dolman Lecture – Dr. Julie Schneider
We are pleased to announce this year’s Dolman Lecture, presented by Dr. Julie Schneider from Rush University’s Department of Neurological Sciences.
Topic: “Mixed pathology and the Importance of LATE-NC Alzheimer’s and Related Dementia”
Date & Time: Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 8:00 am
Location: Room 9299, Gordon and Leslie Diamond Centre
Or join remotely via Zoom:
🔗 Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 96730 815143
Passcode: 815143
📄 View the full lecture invitation (PDF)
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Notable Cases by Dr. Habib Moshref Razavi:
Today' s notable case: A 62-year-old man with a history of Stage 4A small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) presented with fatigue, increased thirst and urination, and a 7 kg weight loss over three months. He was recently diagnosed with Richter's transformation, characterized by MYC rearrangement (IGHV mutated with t(8;14)). Laboratory tests revealed severe hypercalcemia (serum calcium 3.99 mmol/L), a recognized complication in Richter's transformation, potentially mediated by parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP).
As a Jehovah's Witness, he declined blood products, necessitating a tailored management approach. Treatment included intravenous hydration, phosphate and magnesium supplementation, and administration of zoledronic acid. CT imaging was initiated revealing disease progression. Bone marrow biopsy showed an interstitial B-cell infiltrate with a mixture of small and large cells with vesicular nuclear chromatin and occasional nucleoli. Bone marrow aspirate (×100 magnification, Giemsa stain) revealed large lymphoid cells occasionally with large central nucleoli.
Bone marrow trephine biopsy (H&E ×50–100 magnification) demonstrated a mixture of small and larger lymphocytes infiltrating the marrow space. Abundant Mott cells with overstuffed cytoplasms were observed and found to be kappa restricted. This is the second time I have seen these strange looking plasma cells previously being seen in a case of multiple myeloma :
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🧪 Save the Date: LabQCon 2025 – June 16–17
Join us for the 11th Laboratory Quality Conference (LabQCon 2025) hosted by UBC’s Program Office for Laboratory Quality Management (POLQM).
- Theme: Tools and Best Practices to Promote Diagnostic Quality
- When: June 16–17, 2025
- Where: In-person at VGH’s Paetzold Health Education Centre and online
- Focus: Equitable access to lab services and global discussions on diagnostic quality
This hybrid event brings together professionals and experts from around the world to explore quality innovations in laboratory medicine.
🔗 Visit the LabQCon 2025 Website
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📅 PathDay 2025 – Updates & Reminders
Visit the official event page for updates, registration, and event details:
PathDay2025 →
✅ Abstract submission is now closed.
Thank you to everyone who submitted! The planning committee is currently reviewing abstracts and preparing the event schedule, which will be posted soon.
📌 Please register now so we can plan for space, catering, and logistics:
Register for PathDay 2025 →
Childcare available: Complimentary childcare during the Awards & Networking Reception (5:15 PM+). Indicate needs during registration.
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Pathology Picks:
Here are some additional reads you might be interested in:
- 🙋 Peer Reviewers Wanted – CIHR Spring 2025
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is seeking peer reviewers for the Spring 2025 Project Grant competition. Read more → .
- UBC Call for Internal Selection - Mitacs Globalink Research Award (GRA) competition (deadline May 19, 2025)
Please submit internal applications to Leslie Grad, Manager, Strategic Initiatives, leslie.grad@ubc.ca by May 19th, 2025.
Learn more →
- CAMLPR Job Posting / ACORPLM Avis de poste à pourvoir
Position Type: Full-Time Permanent (37.5 Hours per week) |
Location: Remote with limited travel
Learn more →
- CANTRAIN Awards 2025 The third edition of the CANTRAIN competition is now open! Master's, PhD, and postdoctoral trainees in Canada can apply for a 1-year award to support research related to clinical trials.
Deadline: May 28, 2025 (11:59 pm EDT)
Note: This award cannot be held alongside a CIHR studentship.
🔗 More details & how to apply
- 🌱 Spring Events for UBC Faculty & Staff (CTLT)
Here are two great opportunities this spring to connect, learn, and grow. For more info and a full event list, visit the CTLT Events site.
📘 Program for Open Scholarship and Education
May–July 2025 | Online
A flexible, 3-month blended program exploring open access, data, education, and research in higher education.
Register by May 1
🎉 Celebrate Learning Week
May 5–9 | Online, In-person & Multi-access
A week of events exploring change in teaching and learning at all levels. Highlights include:
- Keynote: Designing for Justice
- Student Panel: Students as Catalysts for Change
- Faculty Panel: Cross Faculty Collaborations
- Leadership Panel: Connecting Across Campuses
- TLEF & ALT-2040 Virtual Showcase
🔗 Browse all events
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📣 Have News to Share?
Do you have a story, publication, award, event, or other exciting update to share with the UBC Pathology community?
We’d love to hear from you! Please reach out to Debbie Bertanjoli at
dbertanjoli@pathology.ubc.ca.
Let’s celebrate our collective achievements and keep our community connected!
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