I am currently the lab administrator for the Shaw lab. I completed my MSc in Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia in 2006. I first joined the Shaw lab in July of 2002 where I started work on animal behaviour testing and brain volume analysis using magnetic resonance microscopy (MRM). Presently, I am conducting two scientific studies in addition to my lab coordinator duties.

In my first project, I am studying the second cluster of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS aka Lou Gehrig’s disease), found in soldiers suffering with Gulf War Illness (GWI). GWI, popularly termed, “Gulf War Syndrome,” is a spectrum of disorders among veterans of the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) characterized by a group of variable and nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, muscle and joint pains, emotional disorders, posttraumatic stress reactions, headaches, and memory loss. GWI affects a significant percentage of veterans who served during the Persian Gulf War, but is origin remains unknown. Whereas many environmental factors have been linked to GWI, the role of the anthrax vaccine has come under increasing scrutiny. I am currently investigating various adjuvants (i.e. aluminum hydroxide and squalene) that were found in the anthrax vaccine along with other compounds (i.e. pyridostigmine bromide and DEET) that were administered to troops in order to understand their neurological impact over a chronic time period.

In my second project, I am examining the behavioural and neurotoxic effects of beta-sitosterol glucoside (BSSG) in rats. The purpose of this study is to examine the neurological effects of this compound in different animal models for comparison to better understanding underlying neurological disease pathogenesis across similar species. Early preliminary findings suggest that BSSG neurotoxicity in rats results in Parkinsonism-like features, whereas; toxicity of this compound in mice appears to produce outcomes that resemble ALS-PDC.

      I began working at the Shaw lab as an undergraduate academic assistant in September 2004. I plan to begin the program of Masters in Neuroscience in fall of 2006 and continue with the projects that my mentors have started me off with. As part of a research-based postgraduate program, I am interested in investigating the effect of feeding various doses of BSSG to mice expressing the various human ApoE isoforms in order to provide more information on the effect of allele variations of ApoE on disease progression. I would also like to continue to contribute to the washed-cycad neurodegeneration model by investigating the effect of feeding BSSG to mSOD mice. Not only would this serve as another experiment that investigates gene-environment interaction, but would provide more information on the underlying pathological processes of mSOD mice. Lastly, I would like to continue to investigate the utility of MRM analysis as applied to various neurodegeneration models, in particular, that of MRMs that employ coils of superior strengths (compared to previous studies). I also intend to examine and formulate a reliable protocol for application of MRMs to in vivo time course studies. I am excited to begin the program and am very grateful to all of my fellow lab mates for the push they have given me to pursue my educational goals.

Sorry.. Under Construction

      I started in the Shaw Lab in July 2003. My background is in Analytical Chemistry. During my lengthy career I have worked as an Analytical Chemist in various pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies such as Stanley Pharmaceuticals and QLT, to name a few. I have also worked as a Research Technician at the UBC department of Microbiology & Immunology and more recently at the UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. I enjoyed the stimulating and interactive nature of the university research environment and I am pleased to join the Shaw Research Team in their quest to understand the neurotoxins in cycad seeds. Some of the work I will be doing in this lab is to isolate and characterize the chemical components in the cycad seed using analytical tools such as HPLC, LCMS, TLC, SPE and column chromatography. I will also be doing some compound synthesis and some molecular biology. I look forward to the exciting research for answers to question on cycad neurotoxicity and its effect on ALS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.!

Jason Wilson, PhD. Post-Doctoral Fellow Since completing my PhD in the summer of 2005, I have continued to work in the Shaw lab to further detail the in vivo toxicity of an isolated molecule from washed cycad flour, sterol glucoside. These studies have shown that mice fed sterol glucosides display motor neuron loss and other pathological makers seen in ALS-PDC and other neurodegenerative diseases. In the past I have completed behavioural and histological experiments with mice fed washed cycad (cycas micronesica) flour to show the validity of our mice as a model of the progressive neurological disease, ALS-PDC. Other projects have included MR Microscopy analysis of cycad fed mice CNS, glutamate transporter abnormalities, and receptor regulation in cycad fed mice. I have also completed studies which examined the role of a known genetic susceptibility factor, APOE, as a possible factor in neurological diseases. This was completed by feeding cycad flour to APOE knockout mice and mice expressing the human APOE isoforms. These genetic modifications altered the toxicity of cycad providing evidence for genetic and environmental factors in progressive neurological diseases.