{"id":1426,"date":"2021-06-23T18:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T18:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/navyblue.bcmultistaging.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2026-05-13T16:28:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:28:38","slug":"congratulations-bc-childrens-hospital-new-renewed-canada-research-chairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/2021\/06\/23\/congratulations-bc-childrens-hospital-new-renewed-canada-research-chairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations to BC Children’s Hospital new and renewed Canada Research Chairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Megan Levings<\/a> and Dr. Jill Zwicker<\/a> are two of the new Canada Research Chairs announced June 15, 2021 by the Government of Canada.<\/p>\n\n

Dr. Levings is Canada Research Chair in Engineered Immune Tolerance.<\/p>\n\n

Dr. Zwicker is Canada Research Chair in Pediatric Brain Development and Rehabilitation.<\/p>\n\n

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\u201cBC Children\u2019s Hospital Research Institute is home to world-class scientists. It\u2019s wonderful to see these great minds recognized. I\u2019m excited to see the research advances each of them makes.”<\/p>\t<\/blockquote>\n\t

\n\t\t– Dr. Stuart Turvey\t<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

Dr. Levings examines how T regulatory cells (Tregs), which can instruct the rest of the immune system to tone down its response, could be used to\u00a0prevent transplant rejection\u00a0or slow the progression of autoimmunity and thus improve diagnosis and treatment for children with immune-related diseases. By engineering specialized versions of these Tregs, Dr. Levings hopes to develop a new treatment that could be tailored to recognize specific targets, such as donated tissue, and then orchestrate the rest of the immune system to leave it alone. Such a treatment could help kids and adults needing organ transplants or with\u00a0autoimmune diseases\u00a0as it would reduce the need for immunosuppressive drugs and increase treatment effectiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dr. Levings examines how T regulatory cells (Tregs), which can instruct the rest of the immune system to tone down its response, could be used to\u00a0prevent transplant rejection\u00a0or slow the progression of autoimmunity and thus improve diagnosis and treatment for children with immune-related diseases. By engineering specialized versions of these Tregs, Dr. Levings hopes to develop a new treatment that could be tailored to recognize specific targets, such as donated tissue, and then orchestrate the rest of the immune system to leave it alone. Such a treatment could help kids and adults needing organ transplants or with\u00a0autoimmune diseases\u00a0as it would reduce the need for immunosuppressive drugs and increase treatment effectiveness.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Dr. Zwicker\u2019s research program focuses on children with\u00a0developmental coordination disorder (DCD), a common but\u00a0under-recognized neurodevelopmental disorder\u00a0that affects more than 450,000 Canadian children, or one to two children in every classroom. She aims to increase awareness of this disorder, which significantly affects a child\u2019s ability to learn motor skills and perform daily activities.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Congratulations also go to renewed Canada Research Chairs.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Government of Canada renewed\u00a0Dr. Philipp Lange\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Canada Research Chair in Translational Proteogenomics in Pediatric Malignancies. Dr. Lange strives to develop\u00a0new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches\u00a0to detect and treat children suffering from cancer earlier, better and with reduced impact on their lives.\u00a0He combines genomics with proteomics, a technology that enables the monitoring of all of the proteins in the body and the detection of how they change in childhood cancer. His team then uses computational approaches to further analyze and integrate their findings and to make them accessible to clinicians and scientists around the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Dr. Alexander Rauscher\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Canada Research Chair in Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was also renewed. Dr. Rauscher\u00a0uses MRI scanners, which don\u2019t use radiation like CTscanners or X-ray machines, to scan repeatedly people \u2013 even babies \u2013 in an effort the get detailed maps of the brain. His lab also develops MRI methods to measure damage to and repair of myelin \u2013 the insulator around the nerve fibres. These methods allow earlier and better diagnoses of diseases and help physicians to initiate the most suitable treatment as early as possible.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Our appreciation goes to the\u00a0Research & Technology Development Office\u00a0at the Research Institute, which provides expertise and support to many of the investigators who applied for these appointments.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Megan Levings and Dr. Jill Zwicker are two of the new Canada Research Chairs announced June 15, 2021 by the Government of Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","fndry_alternate_title":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-awards"],"modified_by":"Andrea Sakamoto","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2410,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/2410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/levingslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}