The iCAPTURE Centre is located in the McDonald Research
Laboratory of the St.
Paul's Hospital in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
In 1977, the seed was planted when Dr. Jim Hogg was recruited to open
the Pulmonary Research Laboratory at St. Paul's Hospital. The laboratory
was renamed the McDonald Research Laboratories (MRL) when the Cardiovascular
Research Laboratory (1993) and the Atherosclerosis Specialty Laboratories
(1995) joined the research environment. At present the iCAPTURE Centre has nearly
200 personnel working towards solving the problems of heart, lung, and
blood vessel diseases.
In 1977 a seed was planted...
...the seed grew
MacDonald Research Laboratories, 2001
In recent years, researchers studying genes have come up with ways
to detect variations in the genetic makeup of humans and animals.
A major
focus now is in figuring out how particular genes are "expressed" (phenotype)
and how this expression changes the structure and function of proteins
and cells, ultimately leading to disease. "Phenotype" is the outward
expression of an individual's unique genetic sequence, ie. hair and
eye color are
phenotypes, as is blood pressure.
The iCAPTURE Centre is based on unique registries of tissue from patients
who have common and devastating heart, lung, and blood vessel diseases.
State-of-the-art technology will be used to investigate disease features
at different "levels"; in the genes themselves, in the proteins that
are made from the genes, in tissue, in organs from which samples of
tissue
are taken, and, finally, within patients themselves. Similar approaches
will be used to investigate how heart and lung disease is expressed
in
special features of animal and cell models that mimic human diseases.
A facility of this kind will transform our capability to pursue our major
hypotheses about these devastating diseases, and will provide a unique
reference centre and training facility for our many partners in the academic
and industrial sectors across Canada and North America.
iCAPTURE Centre, 2005
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