Social Exposome Cluster Affiliate Member Dr. Nadine Provençal, an investigator at BC Children’s Hospital Research institute in the Healthy Starts Theme and an assistant professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, is named to the 2020-2022 cohort of CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars. After a competitive recruitment process that generated 184 eligible applications, Dr. Provençal is among 13 top emerging global researchers to be a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar and selected to join the Child and Brain Development program.
The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program supports outstanding early-career researchers through mentorship, a global network, professional skills development, and $100,000 in unrestricted research support for two years.
Dr. Nadine Provençal’s research will examine how social stress “gets under the skin” to change children’s brain and behaviour development.
“As a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar, I look forward to receiving invaluable training to further develop my leadership and communication skills,” says Dr. Nadine Provençal.
My direct interaction with world-class leaders of the Child and Brain Development program at CIFAR together with the scientific expertise at the Social Exposome Cluster will empower the development of innovative interdisciplinary research avenues to better understand the impact of the social environment on children’s development.
“Stress exposure early in life is an important risk factor for behavioural and psychiatric diseases, but little is known about how an individual’s health can be affected years after the initial exposure.”
“In my latest study, I found that prenatal stress not only impacted a mother’s health, but also her developing fetus. Excessive stress experienced by a mother during pregnancy can be passed on to her child via marks on their genes, which could explain why some children are more vulnerable to stress later in their development,” says Dr. Provençal.
Dr. Nadine Provençal’s work has been featured in CTV News.
"My current research projects aim to determine the molecular sequence of events leading to these epigenetic marks on our genes after exposition to excessive stress hormones during fetal brain development. Also, I am developing epigenetic biomarkers to help track how stress impacts children’s development and response to social intervention programs to help inform on their effectiveness on the long run.”