UBC Healthy Aging Postdoctoral Fellowship
This award is intended to provide financial support to exceptional postdoctoral researchers to conduct research relevant to healthy aging at UBC. The goal is to attract, develop and train promising researchers, early in their careers, to support the advancement of world-class aging research in British Columbia (BC). Fellows are expected to conduct research that is directly relevant to at least one of the four research themes of the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Aging and that will contribute to the vision of the Centre to investigate aging in a comprehensive and holistic way in order to help people in British Columbia, across Canada, and around the world maintain health and well-being as they age. Applicants must be supervised by a full Investigator of the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Aging.
Please see the application guidelines and the application cover sheet below.
This competition is now closed. Applications were due October 1st, 2024. Results will be announced at the end of November, 2024.
Winners of the 2024/2025 Competition
Shane Taylor, Faculty of Medicine (Supervisor: Dr. Stefan Taubert)
Aging is a major risk factor for diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders and cancer. A hallmark of aging is molecular damage, which activates stress responses. Delineating molecular stress response pathways is thus paramount to aging research and may lead to new therapeutic approaches for age-related diseases. The genetically simple model organism C. elegans (a small worm) is an excellent system for studying mechanisms that underlie healthy aging. C. elegans has a protein called Nuclear Hormone Receptor NHR-49 that helps worms have a normal life span, health span, and stress resistance. However, the molecular signals that control NHR-49 activity to promote healthy aging are poorly understood. Using a genetic screen my lab identified 3 new proteins, so-called kinases, that I predict will regulate NHR-49 to promote healthy aging and stress resistance. Notably, NHR-49 and these kinases all have molecular relatives in humans. The human NHR-49 relative, Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor α, regulates aging-associated molecular processes and the human orthologs of the candidates are associated with age-related diseases. Using cutting-edge biochemical, genetic and genomic approaches, I will disentangle the molecular pathway of NHR-49/PPARα regulation and reveal new insights into potential interventions for age-associated diseases.
Gilciane Ceolin, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Supervisor: Dr. Annalijn Conklin)
This project will explore how changes in social ties, such as marital status, living arrangements, and social participation, impact depression linked to type 2 diabetes (T2D) in older women and men in Canada. It also examines whether eating habits, specifically fruit and vegetable intake, could help explain the link between changing social ties and T2D-related depression. Diabetes and depression are major health challenges affecting millions of Canadians, especially older adults. Women often face greater risks due to life events like widowhood and fewer social connections in older age. By understanding how changing social ties affect mental health—and whether healthy eating plays a role—this study can identify ways to support older adults, particularly women, in reducing diabetes-related depression. The results of this study will provide new information on older women’s health, and will offer important insights to help future health programs and policies improve mental health, eating habits, and social well-being among older adults who live with T2D. Its findings will be shared widely using multiple communication approaches such as public websites and talks, visual summaries, and social media, to reach researchers, healthcare providers, policymakers, and the public.