Dear Staff, Fellows, Residents and Colleagues,

Further to the recent announcement that Dr. Jordan Cohen has stepped down from his role as Associate Head, PGE & CPD, as of December 31, 2023, I am pleased to share that our current PGE Program Director Dr. Irfan Khanbhai has been appointed to fill this vacancy on an interim basis, starting on February 15, 2024.

As Interim Associate Head, PGE & CPD, Dr. Khanbhai will ensure the continuity of strategic leadership of the Department’s Postgraduate Education and Continuing Professional Development portfolios. In this role, he will carry on the excellent work done by Dr. Cohen in providing broad oversight of our Postgraduate Programs and CBD curricula, leading efforts to ensure our curricula meet cultural competencies, and advancing our plans to develop new CPD opportunities for our faculty members.

I wish to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Khanbhai for agreeing to undertake the additional responsibilities and accountabilities of this key leadership role, which will be in conjunction with his ongoing appointment as PGE Program Director.  I look forward to continuing to work closely with and supporting Dr. Khanbhai as our Interim Associate Head for the next 12 months, as we embark on a number of exciting initiatives in the areas of Postgraduate Education and CPD. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, MBBS, FRCPC, MRCPsych (UK), MBA (Exec)
Professor and Head, UBC Department of Psychiatry
Director, Institute of Mental Health, UBC
Regional Head and Program Medical Director, VCH/PHC

The UBC Department of Psychiatry Administration Office respectfully acknowledges the land on which we live, work and play is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh).

Dear Faculty, Staff, Fellows and Residents,

As the Department recently completed the recruitment process for a full-time academic faculty position in Early Intervention in Psychosis/Bipolar Disorder, I am delighted to share that Dr. Kamyar Keramatian has been appointed at the rank of Assistant Professor (Tenure Track), effective January 1, 2024. As well, he has been appointed as a new Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Early Intervention in Psychosis/Bipolar Disorder.

Dr. Keramatian has held a clinical faculty appointment within the Department since 2015 and was promoted to Clinical Assistant Professor in 2019.  Serving as the co-medical manager of the UBC Mood Disorders Center and the physician lead for the Coastal Early Psychosis Intervention (EPI) Program, he is also a well-established researcher who has received numerous awards over the last few years, including the VCHRI Mentored Clinician Scientist Investigator Award, the Michael Smith Health Research BC Health Professional-Investigator (HP-I) Award, and the Michael Smith Health Research BC Convening & Collaborating (C²) Award. More recently, as a co-PI, he and his team obtained a large CIHR project grant for a randomized clinical trial to test psilocybin as a treatment for the depressive phases of bipolar II disorder.

Within his new academic faculty position, Dr. Keramatian will further develop his multidisciplinary research program, which aims to investigate neuroimaging and neurocognitive measures that hold promise in predicting clinical outcomes and response to various interventions in patients in the early stages of bipolar disorder and at-risk individuals. His appointment strongly aligns with the Department’s strategic priority to enhance research capacity in this crucial area, and improve early diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for vulnerable youth and adults.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Keramatian as he embarks on this exciting phase of his academic career, and warmly welcoming him to his new appointment in the Department. I am confident that, as an emerging leader in the area of early intervention in psychosis and bipolar disorder, he will continue to demonstrate a high level of productivity and make ongoing and impactful contributions to the field.

Sincerely,

Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, MBBS, FRCPC, MRCPsych (UK), MBA (Exec)
Professor and Head, UBC Department of Psychiatry
Director, Institute of Mental Health, UBC
Regional Head and Program Medical Director, VCH/PHC

The UBC Department of Psychiatry Administration Office respectfully acknowledges the land on which we live, work and play is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh).

As you are all aware, our Director of Administration Ms. Vicky Yau will be leaving her position in the UBC Department of Psychiatry at the end of February. As such, we would like to host an afternoon Tea Reception in her honour and in recognition of her many wonderful contributions over the last 20-plus years.  

Please join us on Wednesday February 21, 2024 from 3pm to 4pm at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH, 2215 Wesbrook Mall) Ground Floor Lobby at the UBC Campus. Light refreshments will be served.

If you wish to attend, please RSVP at this link.

If you know someone who is not a UBC Psychiatry staff or faculty member but would like to attend, please contact Margaret Koshi at margaret.koshi@ubc.ca.

As the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced the results of its Fall 2023 project grant competition this week, we wish to congratulate our faculty and principal investigators Dr. Lakshmi Yatham, Dr. Kyooseob Ha, Dr. Kamyar Keramatian, and Dr. Lynn Raymond, along with their teams, who were awarded grant funding to support their respective projects below:

Psilocybin Assisted Therapy (PAT) for Treatment Resistant Depression in Bipolar II Disorder (TRD.BD-II): A Randomized Controlled Trial

• Principal Investigators: Lakshmi N. Yatham, Kyooseob Ha, Muhammad I. Husain, Kamyar Keramatian, Joshua D. Rosenblat, Gayatri Saraf.

• Co-investigators: Scott T. Aaronson, Trisha Chakrabarty, Jess G. Fiedorowicz, Sophia Frangou, Simon Hatcher, Raymond W. Lam, Mahesh Menon, Erin Michalak, Marco Solmi, Ivan Torres, Monnica Williams, Hubert H. Wong, Joshua Woolley

As few medications are available for treatment of the depressive phases of Bipolar II Disorder (BD II), developing new treatments that are effective and have a good safety profile is an urgent unmet need for people with BD II. Psychedelics, particularly psilocybin have acquired significant research interest due to their effects on mood and new learning, and have been associated with improvements in depression in conjunction with therapy. READ MORE

Investigating altered sensorimotor processing in Huntington disease

• Principal Investigator: Lynn A. Raymond

• Co-investigator: Timothy H. Murphy

Huntington disease (HD) is an inherited brain disorder with average onset in middle age and progressive impairment of movement, thinking and mood. Neurodegeneration is most severe in the cortex and striatum, and the first changes occur at synapses within the cortex and between the cortex and striatum. Although genetic approaches to reduce the mutated protein in HD patients are in clinical trials, evidence suggests changes in synapses may not be reversed once the disease has started. There is a critical need to develop complementary therapies to normalize function of brain connections before clinical disease onset, by investigating the circuit and cellular mechanisms underlying those changes. READ MORE

If you are a PI who was awarded funding in the Fall 2023 CIHR Competition, but was not mentioned in this post, please reach out to Margaret Koshi (margaret.koshi@ubc.ca).