April 2023
Dr. Joanne Matsubara and Dr. Myeong Jin Ju receive Multidisciplinary Research Program in Medicine Awards for Summer 2023 Titled: “Neuronal Degeneration in the Retina: Validation by In Vivo Imaging and Ex Vivo Cellular and Molecular Analysis in Mouse Models of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD).“
Dr. Joanne Matsubara and Dr. Sonia Yeung receive VCHRI Innovation and Translation Research Award: “Preclinical studies for translation of novel drug for eye diseases.”
Congrats to Manjosh Uppal for winning the Best Presentation by Graduate Student at the annual Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences Research Day(Photo Gallery).
March 2023
Eleanor To, our long-standing Research Assistant retires. Many thanks to Eleanor for her service for the past 28 years! See pic of her farewell dinner with the lab (Photo Gallery).
February 2023
Congrats to Manjosh Uppal for successfully defending his MSc dissertation titled: “The Role of Extracellular Granzyme B and Mast Cell Degranulation in Age-related Macular Degeneration.”
October ,2022
Welcome to Lyden Irani, Directed Studies Research Student.
August, 2022
Welcome to Dr. Daniel Yoo, Post-doctoral Fellow. Dr. Yoo received his PhD (Neurosciences) from Carleton University under the supervision of Dr. Patrice Smith.
June, 2022
Welcome to Dr. Ruanne Lai, appointed as the Research and Knowledge Translation Facilitator for the Vision Research Excellence Cluster.
Welcome to the MRPM 2022 award recipients: Matthew Campbell, Miranda Tsuyuki, and Charles Li. (Students are supervised by Dr. Matsubara and Dr. MJ Ju).
Welcome to the Medd 419 Flex students: Harjot Bhandol, Phoenix Yin, Julie Zhu, Susan Yao, Aki Ediriweera Bandara.
New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) awarded to Dr, Joanne Matsubara and Co-PIs Dr. Myeong Jin Ju and Dr. Blair Leavitt on studies titled: “In vivo imaging for investigating neurodegenerative diseases of the brain and eye.”
April, 2022
The Vision Research Excellence Cluster: From Molecules to Behavior to Society is awarded by UBC VPRI https://research.ubc.ca/vpri-
March, 2022
Multidisciplinary Research Program in Medicine Award for Summer 2022 was awarded to Dr. Matsubara and Dr. Ju on: Characterization of the Neurodegenerative Features in the Retina Associated with Eye and Brain Diseases
January, 2022
Wania Khan joins the lab as a W22 Research Assistant Co-op Student.
September, 2021
Sena Youn begins her MSc degree in the Cell and Development Program.
August, 2021
Darian Cheng joins the lab as a F21 Research Assistant Co-op Student.
May, 2021
Congratulations to Manjosh Uppal for receiving a CIHR Canadian Graduate Scholarship-Master’s Award.
Congratulations to Grace Hu for receiving a Multidisciplinary Research Program in Medicine Award for summer research in 2021 with Dr. Matsubara and Dr. Ju.
Congratulations to Jacob Ng for receiving a Multidisciplinary Research Program in Medicine Award for summer research in 2021 with Dr. Matsubara and Dr. Ju.
Congratulations to Miranda Tsuyuki for receiving a NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award for summer research in 2021.
Congratulations to Katrina Schwab (UBC Med Class of 2024) for receiving an SSRP for summer research in 2021.
Congratulations to Eden Dubchak (UBC Med Class of 2024) for receiving an SSRP for summer research in 2021 with Drs Matsubara and Yeung.
March, 2021
Dr. Printha Wijesinghe begins Post-doctoral fellowship with the Matsubara Lab. Printha received her PhD in 2020 from University of Maastricht, Netherlands in the field of Translational Neurosciences.
February, 2021
Dr. Jeanne Xi joins the lab as Research Assistant.
September, 2020
Dr. Erika Tian begins Post-doctoral fellowship with the Matsubara Lab. Erika received her MD in 2012 from Zhongshan School of Medicine and her MSc degree in 2020 in Neurosciences UBC.
May, 2020
Congratulations to Miranda Tsuyuki for receiving a 2020 FoM Summer Student Research Project Award.
March, 2020
Congratulations to Yuan (Erika) Tian for her successful oral defence of the Master’s Degree (Neurosciences).
February, 2020
Dr. Gideon Obasanmi begins Post-doctoral fellowship with the Matsubara Lab. Gideon received his PhD in 2017 from Queens University, Belfast Northern Ireland in the field of vascular medicine and ocular immunology.
September, 2019
Dr. Matsubara gives invited presentation on “Visualizing Amyloid Beta in the Alzheimer’s Eye” at the Gained in Translation, Casey Eye Institute, Portland Oregon.
July, 2019
Drs Haishan Zeng, Joanne Matsubara, Sonia Yeung and Harvey Lui receive CIHR project grant titled: Multiphoton photothermolysis based laser therapy for precision treatment of neovascular eye diseases
May, 2019
Dr. Matsubara co-chairs ARVO Minisymposium with Dr. Konstantin Petrukin titled “Repurposing Drugs for the Treatment of Retinal Diseases” at ARVO 2019 in Vancouver, BC.
April, 2019
Congratulations to Alis Xu for winning the “Best Presentation by Medical Student” award (Title: Ocular biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease: Distribution of amyloid-beta in human AD and non-AD retina) at the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences Research Day 2019.
September, 2018
Drs. Orson Moritz, Grace Kuo and Joanne Matsubara represented UBC at the 2018 International Society for Eye Research (ISER) in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK.
April, 2018
Matsubara Lab receive a NSERC Discovery Grant and a NSERC Discovery Accelerator Grant to support the research project, ‘Regulation of inflammasome activity by a classic anti-apoptotic protein, XIAP’.
April, 2018
Dr. Chris Laver receives CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship for his research project, ‘Treating advanced retinal degeneration-rebuilding multiple co-dependent retinal layers with stem cells’.
March, 2018
Drs. Joanne Matsubara and Chris Laver receive Stem Cell Networks/Disease Team Research Agreement for their project, ‘Treating advanced retinal degeneration-rebuilding multiple co-dependendt retinal layers with stem cells’.
March, 2018
Dr. Matsubara receives a new NSERC Engage Grant, titled Role of granzyme B in the aging retina, in collaboration with viDA Therapeutics Inc.
August 11, 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Chris Laver on his successful oral defence.
July 4, 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Wade Gao on his successful oral defence.
May 15, 2017
Dr. Joanne Matsubara, Dr. Jing Cui, Dr. Max Cynader, Dr. William Jia, and Dr. Ljubomir Kojic receive a new 5-year CIHR Project Grant Award titled An “Inducible” Gene Therapy for Glaucoma: A Novel Approach to Prevent Loss of Vision.
May 7-11, 2017
The Matsubara lab attend the ARVO annual meetings at Baltimore, MD (see photos).
April 18, 2017
Dr. Matsubara receives a new NSERC Discovery Grant titled Regulation of inflammasome activity by a classic anti-apoptotic protein, XIAP.
March 8, 2017
On this year’s International Women’s Day, the Faculty of Medicine interviews leading UBC women faculty members and what sparked their interest to pursue academic research. Read more about Dr. Matsubara’s road to study age-related macular degeneration.
February 3, 2017
Our lab’s graduate student, Wade Gao, presented his PhD work titled “Modern Warfare in Age-related Macular Degeneration: an Inflammasome Story” in the CELLS seminar, a trainee-led monthly presentation series sponsored by the UBC Graduate Program in Cell and Developmental Biology.
November 28, 2016
Dr. Matsubara and Graduate Students Chris Laver and Corey Kelly receive Stem Cell Network Grant “Treating advanced retinal degeneration”. Read more on UBC Faculty of Medicine news and Stem Cell Network announcement.
November 25, 2016
Convocation Ceremony for Dr. Sijia Cao, PhD. Congrats to Sijia as she receives her Ph.D. in the hooding ceremony with President Santa Ono (See pictures).
November 22, 2016
Dr. Matsubara joined President Ono at the Installation Breakfast as he becomes UBC’s 15th President (See picture).
October 11, 2016
Our lab’s graduate student, Wade Gao, is featured in Vancouver Coastal Health Research Insider – People in Profile. Read more.
October 6-7, 2016
Dr. Matsubara presented collaborative lab research at the 2nd Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration and Aging (CCNA) in Vancouver, with Dr. Faisal Beg and Dr. Sieun Lee (See pictures).
October 4-5, 2016
Dr. Matsubara led a discussion with public attendees on “Alzheimer’s Disease and the Retina” at the 2nd Canadian Alzheimer’s Disease Basic Research Symposium (CANAD) in Vancouver (See pictures).
September 25-29, 2016
Dr. Matsubara presented lab research and attended gala dinner at the International Society for Eye Research (ISER) 2016 meeting in Tokyo, Japan (See pictures).
August 30, 2016
UBC President Ono tours the Eye Care Centre. Read more.
Photo credit: Kerry Blackadar
July 21, 2016
Congratulations to Dr. Sijia Cao on her successful oral defence (See pictures)!
August 2013
Highlights of the lab research can be seen here: “Focusing on Eye Disease” International Innovation: Healthcare (Research Media, UK pp 36-39, ISSN 2051-8501)
May 5, 2013
XIAP gene therapy research was featured by the Foundation Fighting Blindness (Read more).