Researchers Under the Scope

Sabira Valiani was one of the frontline physicians working inside Saskatoon’s critical care units four years ago, during the initial lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It was really weird,” said Dr. Sabira Valiani.

Valiani said ‘a lot of light bulbs went off in my head’ amid the automated stillness of the unit, as she watched patients unconscious and mute, ventilators breathing for them.

Covered in head-to-toe personal protective equipment, staff in the intensive care unit struggled to simultaneously treat patients, communicate with family members, and enforce ho...

Daphne Yau can trace her interest in endocrinology back to a beta-cell physiology experiment during her master’s degree,  working with laboratory mice with Type 2 Diabetes.

“It was the part of the pancreas that makes insulin,” she said. “It was fascinating. It also made me realize that maybe pure laboratory research wasn't quite for me."

From there, her interest in hormones and fluctuating blood sugar levels grew.

Yau is no stranger to medicine. Her mother was a pharmacist, while her father and aunt both worked as physicians. Following in their footsteps, Lou completed her pediat...

Haissam Haddad inadvertently horrified his family when he signed up for engineering courses in his first year of university.

The teenager returned the next day to change his major to medicine -- a move he's glad he made.

Dr. Haddad practiced family medicine in Syria for three years, then arrived in Canada in 1986 to visit his wife's family, who urged him to stay.

Haddad faced an uphill battle when he investigated the possibility of becoming a Canadian doctor. One colleague even told him he’d be better off opening a Syrian grocery store.

In this episode, we meet Dr. Stacey Love, Director of Virtual Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation at Saskatchewan's Virtual Health Hub, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Saskatchewan's School of Rehabilitation. She's also involved with the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient Oriented Research.

You can see more of her recent publications here, along with links to her labs:

Musculoskeletal Health and Access to Care: https://cchsa-ccssma.usask.ca/mhac/ Virtual Care and Remote Presence: https://research-groups.usask.ca/remote-presence/index.php#Healthcare

Stacey Lovo remembers the bitterly cold day in December 2012, when two Indigenous wo...

Dr. Angelica Lang knows most of the people she sees have to keep working, even if they have shoulder pain.

As an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan and director of the Musculoskeletal and Ergonomics Lab at the Canadian Centre for Rural and Agricultural Health, Lang’s goal is to reduce that pain — keeping patients on the job.

“A lot of daily life has to be done with your hands,” she said. “The base of that is your shoulder. It allows you to position your hand in all these different ways.”

Dr. Munier Nour said osteoporosis is often seen as a disease that affects older adults. But compared to their peers, kids with Type 1 diabetes grow into adults eight times as likely to suffer bone fractures.

“Osteoporosis may actually have its origins during pediatric years,” he said. “Because Type 1 diabetes occurs so early in life ….. it influences that bone development that occurs during your peak growth.”

Now, Nour is a co-lead on a national team trying to figure out why.

The pediatric endocrinologist has always taken a logical approach to p...

In the heart of the Health Sciences Building, Dr. Amanda Hall studies a tray of organoids under a microscope.

“They do need a lot of attention and a lot of feeding,” she said, pointing to dot-like points in a gel solution. 

The pediatric surgeon and assistant professor of pediatric general surgery will use those dots to identify factors that help infants overcome short gut syndrome.

The rare condition affects roughly 24 in every 100,000 babies born in Canada, presenting a profound challenge for infants born with insufficient intestinal length or compromised absorptive capacity.

“It’s a ve...

Valerie Verge was in her early twenties when she landed her first job, doing neuroscience research and she loved it. But 43 years ago, her research journey began to take a twist.

"I developed an allergy to rats and mice,” she said. “I was using a box of Kleenex a day.”

She reluctantly had to admit that this may not be her career path, and spent her evenings earning a ‘back-up plan’ degree in computer programming at McGill. She refused to give up laboratory work, and went on with her colleagues to code and create an i...

Dr. Evyn Peters has created pivotal changes for patients arriving at Royal University Hospital's mental health short stay unit, and its emergency department.

With 33 publications and interests spanning psychiatry, psychopharmacology and mood disorders, Peters is often one of the first physicians patients see when they’re experiencing a mental health crisis.

Peters was finishing his residency at RUH and the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine in 2017, when he and his colleagues first proposed ketamine for short-stay patients who had tried multiple antidepressants without success.

After studying best practi...

By the end of her Grade Eight year in Saskatoon, Wendie Marks was sure about one thing: she knew she wanted to study health and the way early-life development affected the human body.

“I spent a lot of time in the library reading books,” Marks said. “I was always kind of the nerdy type.”

Marks enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan and thrived, earning her PhD in psychology. Her interests evolved towards behavioural neuroscience, focusing on the mechanisms behind behaviour, stress, and their effects on mental and physical health.

“I w...