People

Yvonne Lamers, PhD; Principal Investigator

(View Dr. Lamers’ bio here)

Shujun Lin, MSc; Senior Research Technician

I joined Dr. Lamers’ research team in November 2017. As the lead technician in our nutritional biomarker laboratory, I operate the liquid chromatograph-tandem mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS) and develop LC-MS/MS methods for quantitation of small molecules including vitamins, amino acids, and related metabolites. I have over 20 years of bioanalytical experience using mass spectrometry at the UBC Centre for High-Throughput Phenogenomics, as well as from my work at the UBC Biomedical Research Centre, Biovail Contract Research (Toronto) and Louisiana State University.

Sarah Montgomery, PhD Candidate

I completed my undergraduate training in Applied Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University (Halifax, Nova Scotia). I am a registered dietitian, and I am currently completing my PhD in Experimental Medicine. Under Dr Lamers’ supervision, I am working on understanding how different milks impact toddler growth and development.

Awards received: UBC Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF), Canucks for Kids Fund Childhood Diabetes Laboratories Graduate Studentship

Email: smontgomery@bcchr.ca

Amy Tan, PhD Candidate

My research interests lie in the field of nutrient requirements, optimal nutrition and identifying populations at increased risk of nutrient deficiency. I graduated from UBC with a Master of Science in Human Nutrition, and Bachelor of Science Degree in Food, Nutrition and Health. As part of the EpiBrain project, my PhD research will explore epigenetics, specifically DNA methylation, as a mechanism linking B vitamins and cognitive development in infancy and childhood.

Awards received: UBC Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF) 2019-2023; Canada Graduate Scholarships-Master’s Award / CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship 2017; Indrajit and Manjula DESAI Prize in Human Nutrition

Email: ata36@mail.ubc.ca

Niklas Tappauf, PhD Student

My research interests include the development of biomarkers and diagnostic assays for human diseases. Currently, I focus on the human GI microbiome and how it affects human development and disease etiology. By doing so, I hope to fill some of the knowledge gaps surrounding the microbiome and potentially find diagnostic solutions for early biomarkers of human diseases.

I discovered my interest in human nutrition and biomedical applications during my undergraduate studies in biology at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich. For this reason, I focused my academic path from general biology to human biology with a special emphasis on nutrition. I have a Master of Science degree in ‘Nutrition and Biomedicine’ from the Technical University Munich (TUM), Germany, and spent a semester abroad at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. Since the beginning of my studies, I have strived to obtain a well-rounded interdisciplinary education in nutrition, biology, and biomedical applications.

Awards received in Germany: Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (2020-2022), Deutschlandstipendium (2018-2020)

Email: nt050197@mail.ubc.ca

 Adrianna Greco, RD; PhD Student

My research interests focus on pediatric and maternal nutrition. I am a Registered Dietitian, having completed my dietetic training at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and completed my Master’s degree at the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Dr. Deborah O’Connor. For my MSc degree, I validated a new methodology to assess vitamin B12 concentrations in donor milk from the Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank in Toronto.

As part of my PhD research, I am assessing the nutrient intake, dietary patterns, and blood biomarkers of toddlers to determine how these factors are associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes. I also have a specific interest in characterizing the maternal nutrient intake and dietary patterns in the first two years postpartum. Ultimately, I hope to contribute to the research gaps surrounding the nutritional status of toddlers and their mothers.

Awards received: President’s Academic Excellence Initiative Award (University of British Columbia), Nutritional Research Fellowship (University of British Columbia), Faculty of Land and Food Systems Graduate Award (University of British Columbia)

 Gloria Ho, RD; MSc Student

Gloria is a full-time Clinical Dietitian at BC Children’s Hospital in the Metabolic Disease unit and has dedicated her professional and personal time to child health and nutrition. Her research in our team has focused on the assessment of toddler diets between the ages of 18 and 24 months.

Awards received: Canada Graduate Scholarships-Master’s Award / CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship (2019 – 2020); Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement Award 2020

Deborah Zibrik, MA, RD; Study Coordinator

A while ago (1975) at UBC, I completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Home Economics and a Dietetic Internship in Halifax, NS, and subsequently course work for Master’s Degree in Human Nutrition before completing the UBC Master’s Degree in Adult Education (1983). I have had the privilege to gain work experience in both the private and public sectors including positions as a dietitian or nutritionist in clinical care, community nutrition, quality assurance, food service administration, education and research. Currently, I am assisting Dr. Yvonne Lamers and the amazing research team working at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute on the Milk Nutrients Research Study, often familiarly referred to as the “Toddler Growing up Milk” or “GUM Study”.

In March 2015, I earned the Diploma designation as a fiber artist from City & Guilds UK and Harker Creative Studies in the USA, which I will reference to explore the next chapter of my life. When I am not at work or making beautiful art pieces, I enjoy to read, travel, hike, canoe, and chase after our grandchildren.

I received my PhD from the University of New South Wales, Australia, investigating early predictors of childhood development in the first year of life as part of the Triple B study (Bumps, Babies, and Beyond), a longitudinal birth cohort study which examines a wide range of biopsychosocial factors that relate to the health and development of Australian children.

I continue to remain passionate about understanding and intervening around early risk and protective factors for children’s health and development. Starting in June 2019, I worked in the Lamers Lab on the Away We Grow Study to investigate the association between nutrient status, feeding patterns, and neurocognitive development in toddlers, before joining the Trinity Western University in May 2022 as an Assistant Professor in Clinical Counselling.

Since completion of my undergraduate training at McGill University with a degree in Anatomy and Cell Biology, I have been involved in research focused on infant and toddler development and I am particularly interested in how nutrition plays a part in child neurodevelopment. In parallel to my work as Senior Clinical Research Assistant on the Away We Grow Study, I completed my MSc in Experimental Medicine under the supervision of Dr. Lamers on the relationship between different vitamin B12 biomarkers and evaluating the use of a potential new diagnostic tool to measure vitamin B12 status in at-risk paediatric population.

I completed my PhD in Molecular Biomedicine in the Center of Investigation and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV-IPN) in Mexico City in 2018. While my PhD studies focused on the development and characterization of diarrheagenic, infectious disease models and my academic background is in chemistry, pharmaceutics and biology, I have had a strong interest in the interdisciplinary field of nutrition since my undergraduate studies. I gained my first research experience as part of my social service and undergraduate thesis project on an animal study investigating the effects of maternal protein restriction during gestation and breastfeeding on offspring development at the National Institute of Nutrition “Salvador Zubiran” (INNSZ) in Mexico City. For my Master thesis research that I conducted at the CINVESTAV-IPN, I worked on the effect of combined vitamin A and zinc supplementation in children on the prevalence of diarrheagenic E. coli groups, that are important etiological agents of pediatric diarrhea.

I worked in Dr. Lamers’ research team as a postdoctoral fellow from April 2018 to August 2021 on the transnational and multidisciplinary project DERiVE for the DEvelopment of Riboflavin biomarkers to relate dietary sources with status, gene-nutrient Interactions and Validated health Effects in adult cohorts.

My interest in human nutrition research started during my undergraduate studies. I completed my MSc in Human Nutrition at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology (INTA), University of Chile, in 2015. The main focus of my master thesis was the comparison of iron and zinc supplementation on anemia in Chilean childbearing-aged women. As part of a Canada-Chile Leadership Exchange Scholarship, awarded 2014, I participated in a collaborative project between Drs Yvonne Lamers and Gilberto Kac (Rio de Janeiro Federal University, Brazil). In this project, we studied the physiological changes of vitamin B6 status in Brazilian pregnant women from a prospective cohort study conducted by Dr. Kac.

Since then, my research interest has focused on maternal B-vitamin status and early development. My PhD research aimed to assess the role of the methyl nutrients folate, vitamin B-6, riboflavin, choline and betaine in relation to epigenetic programming for fetal growth and obesity related genes. I am also interested in exploring the role of maternal methyl nutrient status on anthropometric birth outcomes such as birth weight and adiposity.

Awards received: UBC Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF), Canada-Chile Leadership Exchange Scholarship, Latin American Society for Nutrition (SLAN) Leadership Award

I graduated from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN – Natal, Brazil) with a Bachelor’s degree in Dietetics. During my undergraduate studies, I worked for 4 years as an undergraduate research assistant assessing vitamins A and E status in the maternal-child population. That was the first step towards my primary goal, which is building a career in academic research.

I completed my MSc in Human Nutrition at UBC in 2019 under the supervision of Dr. Lamers. My Master’s project aimed to develop and test novel food products fortified with B-vitamins to help reduce the prevalence of vitamin inadequacies in Canadians. During my MSc at UBC, I also led a small project on the breast milk vitamin B12 concentration of Indonesian mothers in a resource-poor setting, in collaboration with Dr Lisa Houghton, University of Otago.

Awards received: Indrajit and Manjula Desai Prize in Human Nutrition; Trainee Expansion Program Award by the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation; UBC Graduate Support Initiative Award; UBC Nutritional Research Fellowship

My research focused on vitamin B-6 adequacy in healthy women. Vitamin B-6 is an essential nutrient important for blood cell formation, energy metabolism, and brain function. In my MSc projects, I determined vitamin B-6 status in young and older adult women in Metro Vancouver with the overall goal to contribute new knowledge on vitamin B-6 in Canada by characterizing women at-risk for vitamin B-6 deficiency. My research outcomes provide new information for public health measures and future research trials since there are few data about vitamin B-6 status in Canadians.

My background is in Nutrition. I finished my undergraduate education in Taiwan at Taipei Medical University. During my undergraduate studies, I worked in a research laboratory and contributed to investigations on chemoprevention of rice bran in colon carcinogenesis in rats.

Awards received: Indrajit and Manjula DESAI Prize in Human Nutrition

As a master’s student in Human Nutrition at UBC, my academic interests lied in exploring micronutrient status associated with health and wellbeing of vulnerable population groups in Canada. The focus of my research was the description of riboflavin status and its association with vitamin B6 status in older adult women.

Previously, I have studied Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and worked for BRAC (NGO) in Nutrition Intervention and Home Fortification programs. I am a travel enthusiast and I am currently enjoying the diversity of cultures and food, which Vancouver has to offer. I see myself as a development professional in the future and want to build on my graduate research’s practical implications through my work with marginalized communities around the world.

I completed my PhD in Human Nutrition at the Northern Ireland Centre for Food and Health (NICHE) at Ulster University, Northern Ireland, in 2017. My PhD focused mainly on investigating the underlying mechanisms behind the blood pressure lowering effects of riboflavin, in individuals with a genetic predisposition to elevated blood pressure. This is where my interest in B-vitamins, public health and nutritional biochemistry began. During my PhD, I gained extensive experience in nutritional epigenetics and the design and conduct of human intervention studies.

My research encompassed various projects in nutritional biochemistry with a special focus on understanding the metabolic consequences of inadequate B-vitamin intake in young adult women.

The main focus of my research was on the assessment, prevalence and effects of maternal and infant vitamin B12 deficiency. We developed a simple and precise method to determine methylmalonic acid, a functional indicator of vitamin B12 status, in dried blood spots. This has allowed for minimally invasive assessment of functional vitamin B12 status. We are interested in applying this method as a second tier-test to identify newborns at risk for vitamin B12 deficiency. We have further pursued studies to determine vitamin B12 status of mothers and their infants in resource-poor settings using dried blood spots, in collaboration with Dr Lisa Houghton at the University of Otago. As vitamin B12 is crucial for a healthy fetal and infant development, the overall goal of my research is to contribute to the public health goal of nutritional adequacy of pregnant women and their babies by early identification of potential vitamin B12 deficiencies.

My background is in analytical chemistry and nutritional biochemistry. I have transitioned to Human Nutrition from an undergraduate degree (Vordiplom) in Chemistry and a Master’s equivalent degree (Diplom) in Food Chemistry from Germany. My previous experience lies within nutrient analysis of foods and bioavailability studies. My motivation is to combine my analytical knowledge with my interest in human biochemistry to contribute to health-relevant identification of potential nutrient deficiencies in Canada and worldwide. In my free time, I like to explore the beauty of BC’s nature by going hiking, biking, or skiing and taking my van camping.

Awards received: UBC Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF), Simon Foundation Doctoral Scholarship, LFS Graduate Student Service Award, Killam Graduate Teaching Award 2015-2016

My research addressed questions around vitamin B12 status in reproductive-aged women of South Asian and European ethnicity. Vitamin B12 adequacy is critical during early pregnancy in the periconceptional period. With an estimated 40% prevalence of unplanned pregnancies, it is essential for young adult women to maintain vitamin B12 adequacy throughout reproductive years.

With my research outcomes, we determined the prevalence and predictors of vitamin B12 status in South Asian and European young adult women in Metro Vancouver, investigated  biomarker discrepancies in the classification of vitamin B12 deficiency, and applied novel biomarkers in the assessment of vitamin B12 status.

Through this research experience and related community engagement, the challenges in recruitment of ethnic minorities became apparent leading me to conduct and publish a scoping review on the barriers and facilitators to recruitment of South Asians to health research.