A Research Associate (RA) position is available at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Division of Respiratory Medicine, Department of Medicine under the direction of Dr. Scott J. Tebbutt, Professor of Medicine of UBC Faculty of Medicine and Principal Investigator and Director of Education of Centre for Heart Lung Innovation at St Paul’s Hospital.
The RA will work with an interdisciplinary and international team to support the Immunophenotyping of a COVID-19 pneumonia Cohort (IMPACC) Study. The RA and Dr. Tebbutt’s team members will identify molecular endotypes of long-COVID-19 (also called Post COVID-19 Syndrome) during and after COVID-19 infection, in peripheral blood, plasma, nasal swabs, and airway tissue samples, by carrying out unsupervised analysis of multi-omics profiles at a single time-point or considering the time-course profile during infection. Dr. Tebbutt’s team aims to characterize the molecular heterogeneity during COVID-19 infection and to develop biomarkers of prognostic significance as they relate to the development of long-COVID-19. The distinct molecular patterns associated with each endotype may, in turn, help elucidate novel mechanisms of action and inform drug discovery and repurposing efforts.
The RA will play a critical role in the project team, providing scientific and pulmonology-based expertise to support hypothesis generation, planning, coordination, and identification of host molecular endotypes associated with diverse COVID-19 outcomes and new variants in a longitudinal multi-omics cohort study of 1000 patients. The RA will be responsible for several domains, including, but not limited to: project coordination, critical evaluation of clinical data, applications for funding, communication with collaborators and stakeholders, The RA will provide additional support to the Principal Investigator and collaborators as needed. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a climate of rapidly evolving information, goals and questions, and the RA will be expected to respond quickly and adapt to changing demands and short timelines.
Responsibilities will include, but will not be limited to:
Performing critical evaluation of clinical data
Analysis of experimental data, statistical analyses (including omics), preparation of manuscripts and scientific reports, and dissemination of research findings.
Being current on emerging COVID-19 interventions and models of care, including in the respiratory space
Performing literature and systematic reviews relevant to above-noted goals
Facilitating the development of scope and strategies for research registries
Developing reports and manuscripts for publication
Preparing and delivering presentations for research meetings
Coordinating and developing grant applications
Preparing background documents for stakeholder meetings
Participating in stakeholder engagement meetings
Coordinating research activities and chairing and co-chairing research team meetings
Providing other support as required to Dr. Tebbutt, researchers and team
Requirements:
MD and MSc degree with 3+ years of relevant postdoctoral experience in respiratory medicine or thoracic research
A minimum of 5 years of clinical work experience in respiratory/thoracic medicine
Extensive experience and knowledge of metabolomics, acute lung injury, and preclinical drug development
Extensive research experience of COVID-19 studies
Demonstrated high-quality publication record in COVID-19 research: i.e., multiple first-author publications about COVID-19 in high-impact journals such as NEJM, Lancet, Lancet Respir Med, JAMA, JAMA Intern Med, BMJ, AJRCCM, PNAS, etc.
Experience in studying biomarkers for diagnosing complex diseases of the lungs
Demonstrated a successful track record of grant (e.g., CIHR) applications (as a co-applicant or applicant)
Demonstrated experience in managing multiple projects with conflicting timelines and priorities, and excellent time-management skills
Duration and salary:
The position will begin March 1, 2027 for a period of 1 year with the possibility of extension.
Salary is $79,872.00 per annum plus benefits.
Application:
The deadline for interested individuals is December 10, 2026. Applicants should send a cover letter and curriculum vitae to Dr. Tebbutt: scott.tebbutt@hli.ubc.ca
Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Metis, Inuit, or Indigenous person.
All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.
Raam Sivakumar, a PhD candidate at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI), presented his work at the September 21, 2026 session of HLI’s Monday Research in Progress Seminar Series. Working with Drs. Amrit Singh and Zachary Laksman, Raam discussed how combining information from different heart tests could help predict which patients may develop an irregular heartbeat.
Raam presenting his preliminary findings at the HiRO Symposium Research Meeting
His research focuses on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a heart condition, often inherited, that causes the heart muscle to become unusually thick. People with HCM are at risk of developing atrial fibrillation (AF), an irregular heart rhythm. Predicting who will develop AF remains difficult, and existing tools for estimating risk rely on only a few basic heart measurements.
Raam’s approach brings together four sources of information: heart MRI scans, ultrasound images of the heart, recordings from a portable heart monitor known as a Holter monitor, and genetic test results. A Holter monitor records the heart’s rhythm over time. Each test offers different clues that could help researchers understand a person’s future risk.
Overview of study design for outcome prediction where imaging and clinical data across four primary modalities is fed across separate analytical streams. Image embeddings are then combined with the clinical variables for supervised outcome prediction.
A key part of the project uses deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence that learns patterns in data. Raam uses this approach to find subtle patterns in MRI scans that standard measurements may miss. These imaging clues are then combined with information from the other tests to predict which patients are more likely to develop AF.
Patient trajectories over time with some having had exams before/after AF diagnosis. We are selecting for patients with exams before the event to perform both binary classification and time-to-event analysis to assess whether the model can discriminate between the presence and absence of AF alongside when AF will occur. Time to event analysis captures timing information where patients can be distinguished by risk severity over time.
In the research Raam presented, combining all four types of information predicted AF better than using any single type of test alone. This finding suggests that information from different tests can complement one another when estimating future risk.
CMRI segmentation pipeline Left: Raw short-axis MRI. Center: Segmentation mask generated by the pretrained U-Net model, delineating the LV blood pool (red), LV myocardium (pink), and RV blood pool (light blue). Right: Segmentation overlay on the original image (LV pool in red, LV myocardium in green, RV pool in blue). The resulting mask is used to crop the cardiac region of interest prior to feature extraction
The patterns the model identified corresponded to measurements already known to be associated with AF and HCM. These connections suggest that the model is picking up genuine structural features of the condition rather than noise.
Workflow for CMR image classification using a convolutional neural network. This classification model uses processed CMR images and a pre-trained U-net model with the goal of producing extracted image embeddings on a per-patient basis that may contain representative features of AF
Raam’s work points to the potential of combining different types of health information to improve risk assessment for people with HCM. By helping identify patients at higher risk earlier, this approach could support care teams as they make decisions about monitoring and care.
On September 14, 2026, the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI) welcomed Parsa Moheban for its weekly Monday Research in Progress Seminar Series. A PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC, Parsa works with Drs. Amrit Singh and Zachary Laksman. His talk explored whether routine heart tests could help identify patients who are more likely to develop an irregular heartbeat.
His research focuses on people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a condition in which the heart muscle becomes unusually thick. People with HCM face a higher risk of atrial fibrillation (AF), an irregular heart rhythm that can increase the risk of stroke and worsen heart failure.
Parsa is investigating whether clues in information already collected during a patient’s care can help estimate their risk before AF develops. The goal is to give care teams a clearer picture of who may need closer monitoring.
The pipeline workflow which illustrates how data will move through the system.
To do this, the project aims to bring together heart MRI scans, ultrasound images of the heart, electrocardiograms (ECGs) that record its electrical activity, and clinical health records. Each source offers a different view of heart health. Combining them may help researchers build a more complete picture of an individual’s future risk.
Understanding why a prediction is made is central to the project. Parsa wants the estimates to be linked to recognizable measurements of the heart’s structure, function and electrical activity, alongside clinical information. This would help care teams understand which findings contribute to a person’s estimated risk.
Segmentation accuracy by scanner vendor of each of the public datasets I’m using. Mean accuracy over the right ventricle, myocardium and left ventricle for each model and vendor.
So far, Parsa has developed an automated process for extracting useful measurements from heart MRI scans and has tested it using publicly available datasets. This work lays the groundwork for combining information from several types of tests. Testing the full approach in people with HCM is still ahead.
Dice score in the basal, mid-ventricular and apical thirds for each model, structure and dataset.
The next steps include extending the work to heart ultrasound images and ECGs, then testing the combined approach using data from people with HCM. If successful, the research could help clinicians identify patients at higher risk earlier and make more informed decisions about monitoring.
Learn more about Parsa’s research or connect with him on LinkedIn.
The Post-Transplant Challenge: Painful Biopsies in the Critical Early Months
For patients suffering from end-stage heart failure, receiving a heart transplant is a profound, life-saving gift. However, the journey toward recovery is fraught with complex biological challenges. Even when patients are prescribed potent immunosuppressive regimens to suppress host immunity, up to 20% experience acute cellular rejection (ACR) (in other words, transplant rejection) during the critical first year post-surgery.
Until now, checking a newly transplanted heart for rejection has required frequent endomyocardial biopsies (EMBs). An EMB is an invasive surgical procedure where a catheter is routed through a vein – typically in the neck or groin – to retrieve a small tissue sample from the heart. Under traditional monitoring protocols, recipients undergo between 12 and 15 invasive biopsies in their first year alone to screen for rejection. These procedures cause physical discomfort, severe emotional anxiety, and potential complications. Transplant patients urgently need a safer, easier, and less invasive way to safeguard their new hearts.
The HEARTBiT Innovation Story
To address this critical clinical challenge, the HLI’s Dr. Scott Tebbutt, Casey Shannon, and Sara Assadian developed HEARTBiT, an innovative, blood-based diagnostic tool designed to transform post-transplant care. This tool now represents over a decade of translational research, progressing from biomarker discovery to a robust, clinically validated platform.
PROOF Centre of Excellence researchers, collaborators, and friends.
HEARTBiT originated as part of the Biomarkers in Transplantation (BiT) initiative of the Prevention of Organ Failure (PROOF) Centre of Excellence. Through whole-blood gene profiling, the research team identified a distinct biomarker signature consisting of the expression of nine genes associated with ACR. Initial multi-centre clinical validation across eight Canadian transplant centres (published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology) indicated that HEARTBiT’s diagnostic performance compared favourably to the only other approved minimally invasive diagnostic test to rule out ACR, AlloMap.
This preliminary work paved the way for further refinement. The team integrated regulatory T-cell (Treg) gene expression markers to enhance the prediction of rejection risk, and undertook mechanistic research to deepen the physiological precision of the tool. A 2023 study published in Transplantation revealed that recipients progressing to ACR exhibited a distinct drop in Treg gene expression prior to clinical onset. Combining this T-cell balance signature with the core HEARTBiT score elevated diagnostic accuracy, providing firm biological proof that safe blood-based monitoring could reduce annual protocol biopsies to just four or five per patient.
The Landmark Validation Study
With foundational studies establishing its biological validity, the research team initiated a prospective, multi-centre clinical trial to definitively evaluate HEARTBiT in a large, real-world transplant cohort. Their landmark validation study, recently published in the European Heart Journal, evaluated 117 participants at four tertiary clinical centres, and confirmed that HEARTBiT accurately detects moderate-to-severe ACR. Further, they showed it has stable performance early post-transplant and beyond 60 days. Additional analysis of 31 of the participants demonstrated the prognostic potential of tracking the changes in gene expression of these individuals over time.
The findings support the clinical utility of HEARTBiT in safely sparing more than 50% of biopsies required for protocol surveillance. These definitive validation findings establish a new paradigm in post-transplant management, shifting patient care from reactive tissue sampling to proactive molecular surveillance.
A New Era for Transplant Patients: Looking Ahead
The clinical implementation of HEARTBiT will signal a transition toward patient-centred transplant care. For heart recipients, eliminating more than half of scheduled surveillance biopsies will directly alleviate physical trauma, avoid catheter-related surgical complications, and remove the emotional distress associated with frequent hospitalizations.
From a healthcare delivery perspective, HEARTBiT will enable the decentralization of a portion of post-transplant care. Rather than travelling long distances to specialized tertiary medical centres for invasive inpatient catheterizations, patients will be able to undergo a standard peripheral blood draw at a local community laboratory two to three days before a scheduled review. Samples can be processed rapidly on digital barcoding platforms, allowing clinical teams to evaluate gene expression changes remotely and to confirm stability of the transplanted heart without subjecting the patient to invasive biopsy.
“By capturing silent immune activation two to three months before biopsy-proven ACR, HEARTBiT shifts post-transplant care from reactive intervention to proactive, personalized monitoring, sparing patients unnecessary invasive procedures.”
– Casey Shannon, Lead Author, PROOF
This summer the HLI was proud to again host students enrolled in the STEMPREP Project, a multi-year competitive-entry program. Seven high school students and one college student joined HLI in June. The STEMPREP Project is run by the Distance Learning Center, a non-profit corporation whose mission is to increase the number of economically and racially-disadvantaged child prodigies in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine (STEM). The students, who came to Vancouver from across the United States, undertook 8-week-long lab-based internships in eight different HLI labs.
The Distance Learning Center’s director Dr. Moses Williams initiated the STEMPREP Project back in 1990 in Philadelphia. Dr. Williams’s vision, back then and now, has been to power the production of 21st century STEM doctoral degree holders from four historically underrepresented minority (URM) populations: African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans and Native Hawaiians. When the program started, there were just short-term programs being developed in the US to expose and attract students to STEM. These programs had poor retention, and failed to advance young students towards a doctoral or medical degree.
HLI has been hosting STEMPREP students since the early 2000’s under Dr Peter Paré’s leadership. Initially, the program sent only a handful of students to a select number of labs at HLI. Building upon the initial success, the number expanded to 18 summer students in 2014 and 13 students in 2015. Here, the students actively engaged in translational science projects and produced high-quality data. Most of these students are now physicians or physician-scientists in the US. With funding restrictions in the US, the program stopped sending students from 2018. HLI-STEMPREP relationship re-engaged in 2026 under new leadership and a new model of funding.
Fast forward to 2022: the second external study of the college graduating classes, commissioned by the United Health Foundation, found the STEMPREP Project to be one of the most successful training initiatives in U.S. history. Of the more than 90% of students who completed the program, 82% of college seniors matriculated into post-baccalaureate educational programs in STEM. The 10-year continuum of multi-institutional internships for URM students is unique and introduces the students to new professional networks and valuable career-building experiences.
HLI Director Dr. Sin (left) and STEMPREP Director Dr. Williams (right) with the eight visiting STEMPREP students.
Summer 2026 at the HLI
The STEMPREP students wrapped up their summer at HLI by giving oral presentations at a half-day symposium in the James Hogg Conference Centre. HLI Director Dr. Sin kicked off the morning by discussing the importance and the complexity of clinical research. He highlighted the many dimensions that enable basic science research to be translated into better patient care, not the least of which are bright young scientists and doctors. STEMPREP Director Dr. Williams thanked the room of investigators, trainees and staff for mentoring and welcoming the students into their labs for the summer. He remarked that international experience has been important for the program, and that STEMPREP graduates have gone on to work in cities like London and Tokyo.
Each of the students joined labs working on research that was new to them. In their presentations, they explained what they learned about their research topic, how they conducted their experiments, and what their experimental results taught them. The students presented with confidence and energy, and it was clear from the audience how meaningful their experiences at HLI had been for them. The students were grateful for the mentorship, training, and very warm welcome they received. One of the students mentioned that they look forward to coming back to Vancouver next summer. Outside of HLI, the students said their favourite activities were exploring the UBC main campus, biking around Stanley Park, and enjoying the rides at Playland.
The Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI) is proud to celebrate Dr. Andrew Krahn, who has received a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant through the Spring 2026 competition.
The CIHR Spring 2026 Project Grant competition approved 439 research grants, representing a total investment of approximately $412 million in health research across Canada.
Improving Diagnosis and Care for Inherited Heart Conditions
Inherited heart conditions include disorders affecting the heart’s electrical system and muscle. Although individually rare, these conditions can have serious consequences, including dangerous heart rhythms, fainting, cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death.
Diagnosing these conditions can be challenging. Symptoms and risks may vary considerably—even among members of the same family—and some people may show few warning signs before experiencing a life-threatening event. More precise ways of combining clinical findings, genetic information and long-term patient data are therefore essential.
Dr. Krahn is an internationally recognized expert in cardiac arrhythmias whose research spans the genetic causes of heart rhythm disorders, sudden cardiac arrest, syncope and the evaluation of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. His work has helped establish national collaborations focused on rare, inherited heart conditions.
At the centre of this work is the Hearts in Rhythm Organization (HiRO), a Canadian network connecting researchers, health care providers, patients and families. HiRO is dedicated to improving awareness and understanding of inherited heart conditions, supporting collaborative research, standardizing care and preventing sudden cardiac death.
Through this new project, Dr. Krahn and the HiRO team will strengthen a precision approach to cardiogenetics—using each patient’s clinical and genetic information to support more accurate diagnoses, individualized risk assessment and better-informed care.
Building on HiRO’s established national research platform, the work will:
Strengthen collaboration among cardiogenetics researchers and clinical teams across Canada.
Improve understanding of how inherited heart conditions develop and affect patients and families.
Integrate genetic findings with clinical information to support more precise diagnosis and risk assessment.
Advance consistent, evidence-informed approaches to monitoring and managing inherited heart conditions.
Engage patients and families and translate research findings into practical information for health care providers and the wider community.
The long-term goal is to help patients and families receive clearer answers, more personalized care and appropriate follow-up—while reducing the risk of preventable cardiac events and sudden death.
Making Research Matter for Patients and Families
Inherited heart conditions do not affect patients in isolation. A diagnosis can have important implications for parents, siblings, children and other relatives who may also benefit from assessment or ongoing care.
For this reason, patient and family engagement is a central part of HiRO’s work. The network brings together people with lived experience, clinicians and researchers to ensure that new knowledge is shared effectively and responds to the needs of those most directly affected.
By combining national collaboration with clinical and genetic research, this CIHR-supported project will help move cardiogenetics toward care that is more precise, consistent and responsive to patients and families.
Congratulations to Dr. Andrew Krahn and the entire HiRO team on this important achievement and their continued leadership in improving heart health across Canada.
By
Estefanía Espín
Estefanía is a graduate student in Experimental Medicine and a member of the Tebbutt lab at HLI.
This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR Grant No. 177747) and Mitacs Inc. (IT44473 / UBC No. F22-01762). It was published in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, and can be accessed here.
Long COVID continues to affect millions of people worldwide, yet the biological changes underlying the persistent symptoms that people experience are still not well understood. One major challenge is the lack of reliable biomarkers—biological signs or molecules, measured in the body—that could help improve diagnosis and guide care. Most biomarker studies have focused on hospitalized patients with severe disease, leaving non-hospitalized populations, particularly healthcare workers, who are at high occupational risk, underrepresented. These workers are an important group to study as they have high exposure risk and frequent reports of long-lasting symptoms.
Recent work suggests that long COVID occurs because of persistent viral reservoirs (sites where viruses persist, evading the immune system) and immune dysregulation, leading to chronic inflammation and blood vessel injury.
“My name is Estefanía Espín, and I am a PhD student in the Tebbutt Lab at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation. Our lab, in collaboration with the PROOF Centre of Excellence, focuses on the analysis of genes, proteins, and metabolites to develop biomarkers for a range of health conditions.“
“My PhD research focuses on identifying biomarkers for long COVID. As part of this work, I conducted and published a scoping review of long COVID biomarkers, followed by a qualitative study exploring the experiences of patients and clinicians and their expectations regarding biomarker research (currently under review). I also led the pilot multi-omics study that we have recently published, and I am now validating these findings in a larger independent cohort.”
To investigate this further, we coincidentally had the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Brian Grunau and Dr. David Goldfarb, researchers leading the COVID-19 Occupational Risks, Seroprevalence, and Immunity among Paramedics in Canada (CORSIP) study, a prospective longitudinal cohort of adult paramedics. The CORSIP team had collected blood samples and health questionnaire data from study participants, allowing us to access samples and data from the British Columbia cohort.
Among the 1,706 participants, we identified 17 healthcare workers with long COVID, defined according to World Health Organization guidelines. Of these, 12 had available blood samples, and all happened to have experienced non-hospitalized COVID-19. We then conducted a small exploratory study comparing biological changes in participants with long COVID to those in individuals who had recovered from COVID-19 without persistent symptoms.
We analyzed two complementary biological measures: gene expression in blood cells and circulating small molecules (metabolites). For the metabolomic analysis, we also examined how these changes evolved over time using samples collected both before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
We found evidence of persistent activation of immune-related pathways, particularly those linked to early inflammatory responses. Several of the affected genes we found are involved in neutrophil activity, a key component of the body’s first-line immune defense. These findings suggest that in some individuals, immune activation may persist long after their initial SARS-CoV-2 infection has resolved.
At the same time, we observed changes in molecules involved in energy production, metabolism, and brain-related biochemical pathways. One metabolite in particular, oxoglutarate, showed opposite patterns over time in people with long COVID compared to those who recovered fully, suggesting differences in how the body adapts after infection.
When we integrated these immune and metabolic findings, we saw that they were connected rather than independent. The affected pathways pointed toward ongoing inflammation, cellular stress, and changes in signaling systems that may be relevant to long COVID symptoms, such as fatigue, brain fog, and reduced cognitive function. These were the symptoms reported by the healthcare workers in this study, as seen in other non-hospitalized long COVID populations.
Overall, our exploratory work suggests that long COVID may involve coordinated changes across both the immune system and metabolism. Although larger studies should be carried out to confirm our findings, understanding these interconnected biological changes may help guide future efforts to develop better diagnostic tools and more targeted approaches to care.
Story by Basak Ashley Sahin.
Dr. Amrit Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and a Principal Investigator at the HLI.
As a new Principal Investigator, Amrit has actively engaged with both the trainees and center committees, making his nomination as the EDI Spotlight of the Quarter well-deserved. His presentation for the EDI seminar series, Resonant Realities: From Individual Story to Collective Empathy, was truly inspiring, showcasing his deeply human and humble approach. Here’s a closer look at Amrit and his connection to EDI.
The journey of becoming a better human being…
Amrit expresses that EDI represents the journey of becoming a better human being. He views EDI as an overarching concept that transcends the specific words of the acronym. To him, it embodies a blend of various interconnected ideas, including:
Fostering a respectful environment
Promoting justice
Enhancing accessibility
Cultivating a sense of belonging
And much more…
When the aim is learning…
Amrit’s exploration of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) began when his department head encouraged him to join the department’s EDI Committee. This opportunity introduced him to significant topics he had not previously examined in depth, such as professionalism, learner accommodations, trauma-informed learning, accessible environments, and more.
Humility, Curiosity, and a Willingness to Listen…
Amrit suggests that when engaging in EDI work, we should approach it with humility, curiosity, and an openness to listen. He highlights the importance of acknowledging that we won’t always possess all the answers, as many challenges may lie beyond our personal experiences.
For Amrit, impactful EDI initiatives demand reflection, a receptiveness to feedback, and a dedication to implementing practical changes that foster more respectful, accessible, and inclusive environments.
Goodness in people, Goodness in Pho…
Amrit’s willingness to be good, do good deeds, and see the good in people is truly inspiring. If you’re hoping for a random encounter, Amrit often visits Pho Goodness on Davie, and his trainees can vouch for this!
