Research Days celebrate excellence in graduate health research

This week, from June 2-4, 2015, the College of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences is hosting the 28th annual Canadian Student Health Research Forum (CSHRF), Canada’s premiere event for graduate student researchers in the health sciences. This year’s theme, Immune Balance and Health, brings together 280 health research graduate students and postdocs from across Canada – including the top five per cent of PhD students – to share their work, connect with other researchers and receive valuable feedback and recognition at the University of Manitoba’s Bannatyne Campus.

This year’s forum also attracted participants from Europe and China. The University of Manitoba is pleased to welcome the president of the Organisation for PhD Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in the European System (ORPHEUS), Dr. Bob Harris, who is serving as a judge and open to exploring further areas of engagement between Canadian graduate student researchers and their European counterparts.

Participants in the forum have the opportunity to attend tours and social events, awards presentations and enter poster competitions. This year, 160 Manitoba graduate

students entered the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Manitoba Health Research Poster Competition. The top students in the Manitoba competition will represent Manitoba in the national competition, joining 120 graduate students from across Canada who are participating in the CIHR National Student Research Poster Competition June 3.

This year the Canadian Society for Immunology (CSI) will also be holding its 2015 CSI Conference in conjunction with the CSHRF.

“The involvement of students across in research creates the pipeline to the future of research in this country,” says Brian Postl, dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Vice-Provost (Health Sciences). ”Research Days offers students conducting health research the opportunity to network, be inspired by cutting-edge research from internationally renowned experts and gain recognition for their own outstanding scientific achievements.”

The establishment of the new Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba provides opportunity to further break down barriers between the respective fields in the health sciences and expand research collaborations among students from across the health disciplines.

“We’re excited by the increasing participation and the potential for facilitating integration within the Faculty of Health Sciences,” says Ed Kroeger, assistant dean of graduate studies in the College of Medicine.  “We’re also excited by the increasing national participation and the networking opportunities for our students with the best from across the country.”

The Immune Balance and Health symposium takes place on Thursday, June 4 in the Frederic Gaspard Theatre from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and features the following speakers:

• Dr. Wanjun Chen, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
  “Understanding and Manipulating Regulatory T Cells for Immunotherapy”
• Dr. Peter Lipsky, AMPEL Biosolutions, Charlottesville, Virginia
  “The B Cell Basis of Autoimmunity”
• Dr. Yong-Jun Liu, MedImmune, Gaithersburg, Maryland
  “Translating Dendritic Cell Biology to Medicine”
• Dr. Luanne Metz, University of Calgary
  “Translations in MS – The Calgary Experience”
• Dr. Bali Pulendran, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
  “Systems Vaccinology – Enabling Rational Vaccine Design with Systems Biological Approaches”

Graduate student Brent Guppy presents his work