Dr. Christopher Laver, BSc (Hons) PhD

 

Fellow & Founder

Dept. of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences

Faculty of Medicine, UBC

Vancouver General Hospital

claver [at] alumni.ubc.ca

 

Research

Chris’ research focuses on developing regenerative-medicine-based therapeutics for retinal degenerative diseases.

Research positions available (contact Chris directly):

  • Senior Technician or Research Associate (PhD-level) (job posting TBA soon)
  • Co-op (please apply to our job postings via UBC SCOPE or EngCORE)
  • UBC Work Learn program
  • Directed Studies
  • Honours

 

Venture

Chris is the Director & Co-Founder of the UBC startup, VisuCyte Therapeutics (VCT) Inc., co-founded with Corey J. Kelly (UBC PhD candidate, Salcudean Lab) to pursue research and development of biotechnology that enables regeneration of multiple co-dependant retinal layers for the treatment of retinal degeneration.

The Stem Cell Network (SCN), CIHR (CGSs, Fellowships, & BioMedEng grants), Innovate BC (formerly, BCIC), UBC Work LearnMitacs, and BCRegMed have awarded over $1.3M in non-dilutive funding for the development and commercialization of VCT Inc.’s biotechnology. We are grateful for this local and national support.

A special thanks to the Stem Cell Network for providing Commercialization & Disease Team grants and to Mitacs for Accelerate Entrepreneur funding — both pivotal in the early progression of these technologies.

https://stemcellnetwork.ca/stem-cells/research-trainee-profiles/chris-laver-corey-kelly/

 

Outreach

Chris served as the Director of StemCellTalks (SCTs) Vancouver Symposiums since 2014. SCTs is a national, medical science outreach organization for high school seniors that focuses on stem cell biology, therapeutic application, and practical ethics.

Chris stepped down in 2019, as incoming Co-Directors, Nelly Sabre (Kieffer Lab) and Fangwu Wang (Eaves Lab) have taken the reigns.

Chris still serves on the SCTs National Advisory Committee (NAC), since 2014.

Wanting to join the StemCellTalks Vancouver team? Please contact Fangwu and Nelly via the link above.

  • Note various positions on the SCTs Organizing Committee are available. Open to: grad students/postdocs and highly keen, upper-level undergraduates.