2019 PRESIDENT'S NOTE 

Dear friends and colleagues,

Thank you for your interest in our thriving society!

BC Cancer and the affiliated medical buildings are home to a talented group of graduate students and post-docs from a wide range of disciplines. GrasPods believes that trainee support is a fundamental part of growing an enriching research environment and furthering an institution’s success.

GrasPods is an entirely student-run society whose mission is to further enrich the wonderful training environment at BC Cancer by providing academic, social, and personal well-being support for our members. Some highlights from 2018 include a successful BC Cancer Research Day featuring Dr. Nada Jabado in which ~60 trainees presented high quality research, a Distinguished Bennett Family Lecture Series featuring Dr. Mary Claire King, a multitude of enthusiastic sports teams including a futsal team that ranked #1 in their intramural league, new mental wellness initiatives, and some of our most successful social networking events to date.

We are very excited to announce that the 2019 BC Cancer Research Day will feature Dr. Peter Dirks, a pioneer in the field of cancer stem cell biology. For the first time, Research Day will also feature talks from scientists in industry to introduce cutting edge techniques such as single-cell sequencing (10X Genomics) and organoid culture techniques (Stem Cell Technologies). First and foremost, we hope Research Day will give an opportunity for trainees to be celebrated for all their hard work.

Our 2019 GrasPods council is continuously thinking of new ideas to better support the needs of our members. Our highly successful R Workshop series sponsored by RStudio continues to provide valuable knowledge to all skill levels of coders. This year, we are also introducing a sequencing workshop series to teach the foundation of sequencing processing, alignment, and QC analysis. Additionally, make sure to check out our reoccurring events such as Board Games Night, Art Night, and Stress-Free Space and stay tuned for more exciting new events!

GrasPods is also forming collaborations with our partner societies such as iCORD and the Genome Sciences Centre to further the scope of our society. If you are interested in partnering with GrasPods, please send us an email and we can try to set up a collaboration!

We hope to see you soon! 

Yours Truly,

Vanessa Porter

2019 GrasPods President

President | Vanessa Porter

VP Internal | Ann Sun

VP External | Jasleen Grewal

VP Finance | Colin Hammond

Sponsorship Coordinator |  Rachel Wong

Academic Coordinators  | Angela Mo & Derek Wong 

Jobs In Science Interview Series Coordinators | Sonya Langman & Jennifer Luu

Sports Coordinator | James Wells

Wellness Coordinator | Geetha Venkateswaran & Courtney van Ballegooie

Social Coordinators | Jennifer Nagel & Amy Nagelberg

Trainee Lunch Coordinater | Joyce Zhang

Webmaster & Social Media Coordinator | Kendall Greening

3rd & 4th Floor Rep | Forough Kalantari

5th & 6th Floor Rep | Courtney van Ballegooie

7th, 8th, & 9th Floor Rep | Yuka Takemon

10th & 11th Floor Rep | Louis-Alexandre Fournier

12th & 13th Floor Rep | Ryan Yen & Ebrahim Eskandari-Nasab

Genome Sciences Centre Rep | Jasleen Grewal

Prostate Centre Rep | Satyam Bhasin

BC Children's Hospital Research Institute Rep | Hilary Brewis