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Six members of the FHS learning community secured awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) that will be used to further their research at 大象传媒

FHS students secure national research awards

July 17, 2025

by Sharon Mah

Several members of the Faculty of Health Sciences learning community received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) this year in support of their research projects. 

Please join us in celebrating their accomplishments! 

Evan Barad Canada Graduate Scholarship - Master  
Sarah (Yu seon) Chae Canada Graduate Scholarship - Master  
Noah Katsuno Canada Graduate Scholarship - Master  
Aniqa Shahid CIHR Fellowship (Postdoctoral)  
Puneet Sidhu Canada Graduate Scholarship - Master  
Milad Vahedi Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral  

Learn more about these amazing investigators below: 

Evan Barad

Master鈥檚 student Evan Barad began university pursuing an entirely different area of study: he was a history major before an undergraduate class in Health Sciences transformed his academic pathway.

During his fourth year of studies at FHS, Barad wanted to gain practical laboratory experience, so he applied for and secured two Undergraduate Studies Research Awards (USRAs) which saw him examining COVID-19 and people living with HIV under the supervision of FHS professor Zabrina Brumme. Barad went on to complete his Honours degree with Brumme and after graduating, became a research assistant in her lab.

Working again with Brumme as his supervisor, Barad鈥檚 research will involve studying low-level persistent viremia in a subset of people living with HIV who are taking antiretroviral therapies (ART). This condition 鈥 where the virus suddenly becomes detectable for no obvious reason 鈥 is frequently not resolvable through medication changes and can persist for years, causing great anxiety and stress. Prior studies have found that this viremia originates from clonal copies of the HIV virus that reside inside an individual鈥檚 reservoir cells, and might not even be infectious in some cases due to mutations in the virus鈥 genome. However, prior studies of this phenomenon have utilized small sample sizes and many questions about this occurrence remain unknown.

Barad鈥檚 investigation will involve using cutting-edge laboratory approaches to characterize, in-depth, a cohort of individuals experiencing low-level HIV virema during ART. Using a combination of archived and collected blood samples, Barad will characterize the diversity and infectiousness of the virus during these episodes and aims to identify the reservoir cells responsible for producing the viremia. His results will help advance understanding of HIV reservoir biology and also contribute to improving HIV clinical care for the subset of people experiencing this form of viremia.

When he鈥檚 not engaged in research or study, Barad enjoys being physically active and socializing. You can usually find him bouldering or challenging one of the many escape rooms in Vancouver alongside friends. (They鈥檝e completed 30 rooms so far!)

Sarah (Yu seon) Chae

During her undergraduate degree, Sarah (Yu seon) Chae participated in a series of formative professional and academic experiences. She completed multiple health system work placements through the Co-operative Education program and contributed to an innovative health research agenda. She capped off her undergraduate experience with an Honour鈥檚 thesis in partnership with the BC Cancer Research Centre, exploring the application and efficacy of telehealth services to support cancer care. Her thesis research marked the first time BC Cancer reviewed a telehealth dataset that included more than 68,000 unique patients. 鈥淢y experience working within complex health systems, coupled with my focus on applied research, significantly shaped my academic pathway and prepared me for my Master of Science degree,鈥 she says.

Chae鈥檚 Master鈥檚 project builds on her undergraduate work by further examining telehealth use for cancer care and aims to enhance evidence on telehealth models for medical and radiation oncology treatments in British Columbia. The introduction of telehealth services has yielded many patient-reported benefits, including improved convenience and reduced travel costs for patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians and patients across the province relied heavily on telehealth services to support the continuity of high quality and safe care. Five years after the emergence of the pandemic, telehealth has become a fixture in cancer care with significant growth expected over the next decade.

Set against this backdrop, Chae鈥檚 current research is examining in-person and telehealth medical and radiation oncology appointments at all BC Cancer Centres between 2020 and 2023. Appointments will be described by patient (age), clinical (cancer type) and appointment (type of delivery) characteristics. She hopes that her findings will contribute to future research and policy efforts to enhance equity, access, and quality in cancer care delivery for British Columbians and support the successful implementation of the province鈥檚 10-year cancer action plan.

Apart from her research work, Chae is also an accomplished Royal Conservatory of Music trained flautist who has performed in a variety of concertos, operas, and repertoires. Classical music remains an important part of her identity, serving as a source of inspiration for personal and professional life.

Noah Katsuno

During her time as an undergraduate at Faculty of Health Sciences, Noah Katsuno developed a profound interest in children鈥檚 health that led her to pursue an Honour鈥檚 degree, where she investigated the short- and long-term outcomes of children with prenatal substance exposure. She joined the Health Economic Research Unit at the Centre for Advancing Health Outcomes, led by her thesis supervisor FHS Professor Bohdan Nosyk, where she gained technical expertise in using a provincial administrative database to better understand how substance exposures influence both maternal and child health in British Columbia. These experiences prompted Katsuno to apply for the Master of Science program, further enabling her to delve more deeply into children鈥檚 health.

For her research project, Katsuno will be working alongside the Families in Recovery (FIR) Square program at BC Women鈥檚 Hospital, the first specialized inpatient perinatal service in Canada to provide support to birthing parents with substance use disorder. Katsuno will conduct a population-based retrospective cohort study to compare health outcomes of BC residents who gave birth at FIR and their children versus those who received care in other non-specialized inpatient maternity wards in the province. She is also aiming to provide a descriptive analysis of substance use and socioeconomic status as part of her project. Katsuno hopes that her analyses will help illuminate whether people accessing FIR have better health outcomes, and contribute improved inpatient perinatal substance use policies and services in BC.

When she is not working on improving health for people in British Columbia, Katsuno can be found exploring new foods and trying new hobbies. Her latest pursuit is making matching beaded ring, bracelet and necklace sets.  

Aniqa Shahid

For her postdoctoral work, CIHR Fellowship recipient, Dr. Aniqa Shahid, is continuing to investigate HIV, specifically looking at people living with HIV (PLWH) who experience persistent low-level viremia (PLLV) despite taking anti-HIV medication.

In standard treatment approaches, anti-HIV medications are used to reduce HIV levels in blood to below detection limits; however, a minority of PLWH experience PLLV where HIV levels in blood suddenly increase into the low-detectable range during treatment. This phenomenon can last for years and causes great anxiety in PLWH and their care providers, because interventions such as medication counseling or drug regimen changes often fail to resolve the issue. Recently, scientists discovered that PLLV often happens not because the medications are failing to stop virus replication, but because HIV, can persist for years within infected cell: the virus will suddenly divide to make many clonal daughter cells that simultaneously reactivate to release new HIV particles. Sometimes, this released virus is not even infectious due to mutations in the HIV's genome 鈥 even when it is infectious, medications  continue to block these viruses from infecting other cells. Unfortunately, medication counseling or treatment change will not resolve the issue; Instead, the only course of action is to wait for the cell population to naturally contract, and stop releasing HIV.

The fact that PLLV can originate from clonally expanded HIV reservoir cells is one of the biggest recent discoveries in the field 鈥 one that requires timely translation into clinical guidelines to spare people with HIV, and their care providers, unnecessary anxiety and treatment changes. However, existing studies featured very few participants, and many questions remain unanswered. 鈥淢y research will combine retrospective and prospective analyses of large numbers of PLWH experiencing PLLV, with the ultimate goal of improving HIV care鈥, says Shahid. This work will address current knowledge gaps in understanding of the origins and consequences of PLLV with the ultimate goal of improving HIV clinical management.

In addition to continuing her research and collaboration with global peers, Shahid is also looking forward to becoming more involved in learning how to lead and manage a research laboratory in this new phase of her career. 鈥淚'm interested in building my skills in areas such as grant writing, developing research protocols (including ethics and biosafety approvals), and understanding research finances and grant administration. I'm fortunate to be in an environment that offers strong support and opportunities to grow in all of these areas.鈥

Outside of work and the lab, Shahid enjoys spending time with her family. She takes nature walks with her son and spends time with her mother predicting plot outcomes for the drama series they watch together (with startling accuracy, much to her mother鈥檚 chagrin).

Puneet Sidhu

FHS student Puneet Sidhu has joined the Precision Exercise Research lab 鈥 led by Assistant Professor Graeme Koelwyn 鈥 to complete a Master鈥檚 degree.

FHS graduate student Puneet Sidhu studied biomedical engineering at the University of British Columbia, specializing in cellular bioengineering. His co-op experiences within private industry and as part of a provincial research group sparked an interest in immunology and applying a mutli-omics framework to addressing complex biological questions. He elected to pursue a Master鈥檚 degree to expand his skills and gain more experience answering questions about the pathophysiology of human diseases within a translational research setting.

Sidhu is completing his Master鈥檚 degree at the Precision Exercise Research Lab in the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation in Providence Health. He is being supervised by FHS Assistant Professor Graeme Koelwyn as he investigates how to better predict and/or assess the risk of severe cases of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) occurring in patients. Evidence suggests that the levels of certain factors in the blood 鈥 including those related to inflammation or the infection itself 鈥 can be used to predict the presentation of severe cases. In practice, however, patient variability and insufficient understanding of patient reactivity to these factors has limited their clinical implementation. Sidhu will examine how blood-based factors in the plasma of patients who develop either severe or mild CAP influence the activation and function of immune cells, expanding understanding of why some patients respond more severely to CAP.

When he is not working on complex pathophysiological questions, Sidhu relaxes by watching nature documentaries, baking or playing with Mowgli, his golden retriever.

Milad Vahedi

Curiosity has shaped Milad Vahedi鈥檚 research career, leading him through an academic pathway that has seen him investigating issues in the realms of immunology and genomics. He began his research journey at the University of Tehran where he pursued a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. During this time, he became deeply drawn to research, wanting to understand the genetic risk factors that resulted in some dogs being more susceptible to developing mammary tumours. He also developed a fascination with the pathophysiology of diseases, which led him to purse a Doctor of Veterinary Science in Small Animal Internal Medicine. While he undertook a clinical practice that saw him helping animals with their pain, Vahedi kept asking deeper questions about why certain diseases had no effective treatments or why the root causes of some conditions were not well understood. In 2020, he committed to research full-time, traveling to Dalhousie University to pursue a Master鈥檚 degree in Genetics.

鈥淚 yearned for a more interdisciplinary and inclusive research environment,鈥 says Vahedi, 鈥渙ne that embraced translational science and connected animal models to human health. [I hoped] that my research could improve outcomes for a major health problem and contribute to a more equitable healthcare system.鈥

His PhD project with the Precision Exercise Research Lab 鈥 led by FHS Assistant Professor Dr. Graeme Koelwyn 鈥 will allow Vahedi to bring all of his interests and skills to bear on one of the most complex conditions in modern medicine: sepsis. While survival rates in patients with sepsis have improved, many survivors experience ongoing immune dysfunction which increases their risk of reinfection and rehospitalization, leading to a low quality of life. Vahedi鈥檚 doctoral research will look specifically at whether exercise can benefit sepsis patients by restoring the normal function of myeloid cells, a critical part of the immune system that helps fight infections. During his PhD, Vahedi will examine data from both mouse models and human sepsis survivors to determine if exercise can effectively and measurably improve immune function, reduce the risk of re-infection, and improve quality of life.

When he鈥檚 not focusing on complex research questions, Vahedi spends most of his free time walking or watching shows with his family and their dogs. He also relaxes by cooking, baking, or reading books on psychology, evolution and history.