When Dr. Yara Alkhodair arrived at the University of British Columbia (UBC) from Saudi Arabia for a behavioural neurology fellowship, she expected to spend a year in the clinic. She ended up spending two – and helped launch an international collaboration now reshaping Alzheimer’s diagnostics in the Middle East.
Alkhodair’s extended stay brought her into the laboratory of Dr. Mari DeMarco, Clinical Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC, Investigator at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation at St. Paul’s Hospital, and the driving force behind one of the few medical facilities in Canada offering comprehensive Alzheimer’s disease biofluid biomarker testing. Under DeMarco’s supervision, Alkhodair joined a research group that has become one of Canada’s most important training grounds for the next generation of dementia diagnosticians.
Originally invited to UBC for a one-year behavioural neurology fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Hsiung and his colleagues at the UBC Hospital Clinic for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders, Alkhodair was invited to return for a second year to continue her clinical fellowship and complete a laboratory medicine and research rotation in the DeMarco lab. What began as a clinical placement evolved into something more expansive: hands-on training in biofluid diagnostics, a research collaboration, and a co-authored scientific publication.
The training model in DeMarco’s lab is distinctive. Trainees don’t simply observe – they contribute to active clinical work, collaborate with graduate students, and engage in front-line research. Alkhodair participated in weekly diagnostic case rounds, gaining experience interpreting complex biomarker panels and advising referring physicians. As an example of her impact, with her clinical skills combined with new knowledge on Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers, she was able to identify a patient’s biomarker profile was more consistent with Lewy body dementia than Alzheimer’s, prompting a revised diagnosis and a change in management.
Alongside her clinical training, Alkhodair contributed to research with direct implications for patient access to new Alzheimer’s therapies. Lecanemab, the first approved drug targeting the amyloid plaques characteristic of Alzheimer’s, carries a rare but serious risk of brain inflammation or bleeding –a complication known as amyloid-related imaging abnormalities, or ARIA. Carriers of two copies of the APOE4 gene face the highest risk, and Health Canada has determined this group should not receive the therapy. Alkhodair contributed to the DeMarco lab’s investigation of a blood test to measure APOE4 protein concentration – a faster, more practical alternative to traditional genetic testing.
That work earned broad recognition. Alkhodair co-authored a manuscript with DeMarco lab graduate student Cyril Helbling on APOE proteotyping for Alzheimer’s drug eligibility and risk assessment, and presented the findings at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference – one of dementia research’s most prestigious forums. She was also recognized by Saudi Arabia’s First National Platform and the Saudi Arabian Cultural Bureau in Canada for her contributions to behavioural neurology and dementia research during her time at UBC.
The impact extended well beyond the conference floor. Back in Saudi Arabia, Alkhodair organized and moderated a biofluid biomarker workshop at the 4th Annual Conference of the Saudi Chapter of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology in AlUla – and invited her UBC collaborators to participate. Helbling joined as an international panelist, extending the DeMarco lab’s reach across continents and sustaining a partnership that began in Vancouver.
Now, Alkhodair is leading the development of a neurodegenerative biomarker laboratory at the Neuroscience Centre of Excellence at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh – the largest tertiary care centre in the Middle East. The laboratory frameworks and clinical practices she developed during her UBC training are directly informing the new program’s design, and her collaboration with the DeMarco lab continues through ongoing scientific exchanges and joint initiatives.
That partnership is one example of a broader pattern. Trainees who come through this environment leave not only with technical expertise, but with the research skills, professional networks, and institutional knowledge to build programs of their own. Alkhodair arrived as a clinical fellow and left as a researcher, a co-author, an international conference presenter, and now the architect of a biomarker diagnostic program at one of the Middle East’s foremost medical institutions – one shaped by a training model she has since made her own. That she continues to bring her UBC collaborators into that work is a testament to what she, and those who train alongside her, carry forward.
As biomarker-guided Alzheimer’s care expands globally, the reach of that training model is increasingly felt in hospitals and clinics far from Vancouver.