How one UBC laboratory is advancing Alzheimer's diagnostics around the world
April 10, 2026
When Dr. Yara Alkhodair arrived at UBC from Saudi Arabia for a behavioural neurology fellowship, she expected to spend a year in the clinic. She ended up spending two years and helped launch an international collaboration now reshaping Alzheimer’s diagnostics in the Middle East.
Alkhodair’s extended stay brought her into the laboratory of Dr. Mari DeMarco, Clinical Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC, Investigator at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation at St. Paul’s Hospital, and the driving force behind one of the few medical facilities in Canada offering comprehensive Alzheimer’s disease biofluid biomarker testing. Under DeMarco’s supervision, Alkhodair joined a research group that has become one of Canada’s most important training grounds for the next generation of dementia diagnosticians.
Originally invited to UBC for a one-year behavioural neurology fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Hsiung and his colleagues at the UBC Hospital Clinic for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders, Alkhodair was invited to return for a second year to continue her clinical fellowship and complete a laboratory medicine and research rotation in the DeMarco lab. What began as a clinical placement evolved into something more expansive: hands-on training in biofluid diagnostics, a research collaboration, and a co-authored scientific publication.
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