News
2026
March 05
Congratulations to Dr. Pauline Johnson on receiving the CSI 2026 Gillian E. Wu Mentorship Award! Pauline is an Emerita Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at UBC and an active director of the ImmunoE NSERC CREATE training program.
The award recognizes a Canadian Society for Immunology (CSI) member who has made outstanding contributions to the mentoring of scientists at all levels, including but not limited to undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral trainees and early career investigators. This year’s awards will be at presented at the upcoming CSI 2026 meeting in Winnipeg.
February 05
Congratulations to Dr. Anna Blakney’s team on partnering with STRM.BIO and Ginkgo Bioworks on a grant that will allow them to further explore and develop a delivery platform for immune cell engineering. Awarded through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health
(ARPA-H) Engineering of Immune Cells Inside the Body (EMBODY) program, the team received a total of $8.4 million USD to support their work revolutionizing cell therapy manufacturing and delivery methods.
January 22
Abishek Wadhwa, PhD student in Dr. Kenneth Harder’s lab, was awarded the 2025-26 Zymeworks Fellowships in Advanced Protein Therapeutics in December 2025. This one-year fellowship is jointly supported by Zymeworks Inc., the Michael Smith Laboratories and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UBC. Awarded annually to one student from each department, the fellowship supports research in immune-based treatments for disease.
January 08
Catherine Ko, a biomedical engineering student in the Zandstra Lab and an ImmunoE trainee, is one of 14 aspiring women engineers across Canada to receive the 2025 Order of the White Rose scholarship, which was created in 2014 to pay tribute to the 14 women victims in the December 6, 1989 mass shooting.
2025
November 14
The ImmunoEngineering CREATE Program (ImmunoE) hosted its 2025 Networking & ImmunoHackathon Pitch Event on Nov 12, bringing together trainees, researchers, industry professionals and other experts in the areas of immunoengineering and immunotherapeutics for an evening of engaging conversations and diverse perspectives!
The event kicked off with the ImmunoHackathon Pitches, where the inaugural ImmunoE Class presented innovative solutions to real-world challenges in immunoengineering. Kudos to both the Dream Team and Team Immortal for presenting thoughtful and inspiring pitches at our inaugural ImmunoHackathon event!
Congratulations to the Dream Team for winning the 2025 ImmunoHackathon competition with their pitch "Enhancing anti-PD-1 checkpoint blockade efficacy through precision microbiome engineering in melanoma patients."
The Networking portion featured 10 booths hosted by our collaborators and partners and a speed-networking session where over 70 mentees had the opportunity to explore diverse career paths, ask career-focused questions, and build new professional connections with over 25 mentors from biotech companies, entrepreneurial groups, academic research, and more!
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for this year’s event! We are grateful to our incredible mentors, industry partners, faculty, trainees, and volunteers who made this year’s event such a success! We’re proud to create a space where trainees can build connections, explore career pathways, and engage with the cutting edge of immunoengineering and immunotherapeutics.
June 03
The Networking portion featured 10 booths hosted by our collaborators and partners and a speed-networking session where over 70 mentees had the opportunity to explore diverse career paths, ask career-focused questions, and build new professional connections with over 25 mentors from biotech companies, entrepreneurial groups, academic research, and more!
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for this year’s event! We are grateful to our incredible mentors, industry partners, faculty, trainees, and volunteers who made this year’s event such a success! We’re proud to create a space where trainees can build connections, explore career pathways, and engage with the cutting edge of immunoengineering and immunotherapeutics.
Contact Information
General Inquiries:
immuno.therapeutics@ubc.ca
ImmunoE NSERC CREATE Program: immunoengineering.create@ubc.ca
6088 University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3
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