Faculty of Medicine

Liza provides administrative support to the Friedman Lab and BC Clinical Genomics Network. She was trained as an executive secretary in Hong Kong and earned her BBA from Simon Fraser University. Before joining the Lab in 2008, Liza worked in a bank for several years.

Patricia, is lab manager and researcher. Her career includes obstetrical and outpost nursing; genetic counselling; and projects in HIV, SARS, and avian influenza. For the last 20 years, however, most of her efforts relate to neurofibromatosis. Current interests also includes use of new technologies in diagnosis of chromosomal abnormalities.

Alan is a work study student majoring in Microbiology and Immunology, and Computer Science. In his spare time, he pretends to be a professional photographer and captures all the precious moments of life with his camera.

Cristina is a clinical geneticist in the Provincial Medical Genetics Program and a PhDcandidate at UBC. She is interested in neurogenetics, including intellectual disability, childhood neurodegeneration and neuromuscular disorders. She completed her MD at the University of Porto, and her Medical Genetics residency at the CGMJM, Portugal. Her current research focuses on understanding the cause of rare genetic disorders, to improvediagnosis and patient care.

Eric is an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia, studying Physiology and Physics. He has an interest in clinical genomics and bioinformatics, and his work at the Friedman Lab is in the development of an accessible genomic analysis platform focused on data presentation and variant prioritization.

Erica is a 3rd year Microbiology and Immunology undergraduate student at UBC and a new work-study student at Friedman lab. She is very interested in learning more about genetic disorder and she would be involved in the FORGE database project.

Erica is a Medical student and is a work study student at the Friedman lab. She has been involved with neurofibromatosis projects, as well as studies about intellectual disability. She is always interested in learning more about genetic research.

Farah researches the pathogenicity of Intellectual Disability in children. She has focused her studies on elucidating genotype-phenotype correlations for small genetic changes found in these children identified via array genomic hybridization. In addition she is also interested in how epigenetic regulatory imbalance affects neurodevelopment. She interrogated the contribution of imbalance for genes controlling epigenetic processes in high resolution for her doctoral research project, and found that indeed this deregulation is a significant cause of ID. Currently she is working on using next generation sequencing technologies to identify sequence mutations causative for ID and spends her time at the Friedman lab and the BC Genome Sciences Center where she works with Dr. Marco Marra. She completed her PhD from the University of British Columbia in 2011. She holds a B.Sc. in Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology from Bangalore University, India. She previously worked in community development and disaster relief with the UN World Food Program, teaching, and agro-business in her native Sri Lanka. She is an avid cricket and chess player as well as outdoor enthusiast. Her abiding interests are community development and child mental health issues here and internationally. Please see here for an extended bio and publication record.

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Kimberly is a PhD candidate researching vascular disease in Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1). She has focused her studies on examining therapeutic options and the pathogenesis of vascular disease in NF1. She began this work in 2007 as a M.Sc student. She holds a B.Sc. in Biology with a specialization in microbiology from the University of Akron, USA. Her scientific interests include abnormal signaling and how it affects the mechanisms of disease in bone and vascular abnormalities.

Lesley Phillips is the Business Manager for the BC Clinical Genomics Network. Dr. Phillips has held senior roles in business development at Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Cubist Pharmaceuticals and TerraGen Discovery. Earlier in her career, she headed a market awareness program for the UK BioIndustry Association and was a scientific research manager at Astra Zeneca, Novo Nordisk and Xenova Discovery. She has a Ph.D. from Warwick and a BSc from John Moore's University.

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Marion is a research manager at BCCGN. She liaises with clinicians and research scientists regarding study design and ethics.

Nancy is a research nurse who is currently working on a Health Technology Assessment project looking at the health care and heath policy challenges in genetic laboratory services. Her past experiences includes working on research projects involving HIV, SARS, and Avian Influenza in various cities with locations in hospitals, prisons, clinics and trailers in fields. She spent many years doing clinical trials and before that she enjoyed hospital and community nursing.

Ruth is a genetic counsellor with a MSc. in Human Genetics from Sarah Lawrence College and a BSc. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Simon Fraser University. Ruth primarily has experience in adult onset disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. While providing psychological and clinical genetic counselling, and recurrence risk information to individuals at risk for genetic conditions, Ruth has facilitated both predictive and diagnostic genetic testing. She currently works for the BC Clinical Genomics Network.

Shelin is a research genetic counsellor with a BSc. in Genetics and a MSc. in Genetic Counselling, both from McGill University. Shelin has clinical experience in genetic and psychological counselling, but has worked in clinical research for most of her career. She was Coordinator of the Canadian Predictive Testing Program for Huntington Disease, and more recently she has been involved in studies using new genomic technologies like microArray Comparative Genomic Hybridization and high throughput Whole Exome Sequencing. She is currently the Coordinator of the BC Clinical Genomics Network, whose aim is to introduce clinicians to genomic research using the new technologies.

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Zoe is genetic counselling student and a work study student with the Friedman Lab. She holds a BSc in Biology from Queen's University and a MSc in Medical Genetics from the University of British Columbia. Zoe is interested in the medical, ethical and social issues associated with the clinical application of new genetic technologies such as whole genome sequencing.