June 15, 2026
WITH HELP FROM THE BC Building Trades, a research team at the University of British Columbia (UBC) is now well on its way to developing “potentially life-changing” treatments for those living with type 1 diabetes.
Dr. Bruce Verchere, professor in the Departments of Surgery and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, is a leader of the team that has been hard at work on diabetes research for over 15 years.
He says the funding from the BC Building Trades has been instrumental in advancing this research to this promising stage. “We are super appreciative and really love coming to the [golf] tournament every summer… to share how their donation is having a real impact.”
This summer, the BC Building Trades celebrates more than 25 years of supporting two life-changing causes in the province through its annual Golf Tournament Fundraiser. Over the years, it has raised nearly $700,000 for two key organizations, the UBC Diabetes Research Centre and Variety — the Children’s Charity of BC.
“[This work is] very near and dear to our heart,” says Brynn Bourke, executive director of the BC Building Trades. “Many building trades people know someone in their life who is affected by diabetes, and finding a cure is something that we feel profoundly proud to be part of.”
Type 1 diabetes, unlike type 2, is a life-long autoimmune condition typically diagnosed in childhood or adolescence.
“There’s no off-stage with diabetes,” says Verchere. “You’re always wondering if your blood glucose is too high or too low… for some who struggle with control of their blood glucose, it can be life threatening… so you can imagine the stress.”
As with other autoimmune conditions, the immune system in type 1 diabetes mistakenly attacks its own cells. In this case, the cells attacked are the insulin-producing beta cells that live inside cell clusters within the pancreas, called islets.
When beta cells are destroyed, the remaining ones do not function as well. As a result, the insulin the body produces does not do as good a job of managing blood sugar levels. “When kids are diagnosed, they have to go on insulin to stay alive because otherwise the sugar doesn’t get used. They take in nutrients that will essentially just go right through them.”
However, Verchere and his team do not view insulin as a cure but rather as “as a really good treatment,” and are hoping to find something even more impactful.
“We’re trying to find ways to either block the immune attack or replace the cells that are lost,” he says. One research project, which is now well on its way to clinical trials, involves using stem cell-derived insulin-producing cells that can be transplanted into patients with type 1 diabetes.
Over the course of a month, the team can create beta cells in a lab, “like making a soup,” by “adding and removing different growth factors and what we call differentiation factors to the stem cells,” says Verchere. At the end, you get what is essentially a beta cell that can be transplanted to a patient, much in the same way that doctors can transplant a heart or a kidney.
While the lab’s ability to create a “theoretically unlimited” supply of beta cells addresses the supply issue, the concern that the body will reject the cells remains; this is where immunosuppressive therapies come in.
“The beauty of some of the [nanomedical] technology that has come around in the last 10 years or so, is the ability to make better beta cells from stem cells, and even to make super beta cells through genetic engineering,” to help them from being killed off by the immune system.
“Those are studies that are supported by the trades’ donation each year,” says Verchere, adding that donations like the ones from BC Building Trades have been instrumental in seeding these studies early on and allowing the team to secure additional funding from the government and other sources.
The second major area of research that Verchere and his team are working on involves developing a “silver bullet” for diabetes.
Doctors can sometimes treat diabetes with immunosuppressants, but he says this often involves a “sledgehammer” approach that suppresses the entire immune system, which performs vital functions such as fighting infections and cancer.
The team is working to develop an immunosuppressive therapy that targets only the immune cells attacking beta cells. “We hope it will allow the immune system to carry on,” says Verchere. “Our pre-clinical data are promising, but the hope is that we’ll be able to move it to clinical trials in two or three years.”
By pursuing both approaches, the research team has a better chance of hopefully developing a “functional cure” for the disease. “The two approaches are sort of different and complementary, so we pursue them in parallel, and it’s not impossible that they would be used together.”
While Verchere says he tries to avoid promising a full “cure” to a community of patients that has suffered greatly over the years, he is “cautiously optimistic.”
The BC Building Trades’ charitable fundraising benefits not only diabetes research but also another charity that is doing its part to address children’s health-care needs across the province.
This year, Variety — the Children’s Charity of BC — is celebrating 60 years of helping families with children who have complex health needs.
“The BC Building Trades has been one of our incredible yearly donors for many years,” said Sara Khanifar, director of Partnerships and Events at Variety, “We would definitely attribute all of our success to our incredible donors because that’s how we serve the families that we do.”
For many families with children with complex health needs, care is either not covered through standard provincial health programs or they face extensive waits for services.
This is where Variety comes in. Lower-income families can apply through the charity for help with everything from speech pathology grants to therapies for ADHD, autism, and learning disabilities, mobility equipment, diabetes care, specialized beds, and more.
One of Variety’s most commonly accessed supports is for autism assessments, which Khanifar says currently have a nearly four-year-long wait list through the province. “A lot of kids that are on the spectrum are not speaking, so four years in a classroom, at home or even on the playground, not being able to have any type of verbal ability really hurts them in the long run.”
Through Variety, families with kids with autism can get assessed sooner and get access to speech therapy more quickly, setting them up for the best chance of success.
Variety’s blog recounts the story of one Penticton mother, Amber, who realized that her then-four-year-old son, Hayden, wasn’t talking much or forming full sentences. He would get overwhelmed when other kids on the playground spoke to him and couldn’t respond verbally.
When Amber explored options for him in their hometown, she was able to register him for a few months of speech therapy, but she was worried about her ability to cover the costs long term.
Her speech therapist recommended Variety, which provided a 12-month grant toward speech therapy sessions for Hayden. Amber shared that Hayden now has so much more confidence, “He’s just the funniest little guy ever, with a really big heart… I take a lot of pride in the little man I’m raising.”
Particularly now, during times of economic uncertainty, Khalifar says it’s more important than ever to ensure that kids in need do not get left behind. “Our goal every year is to provide care for more families,” she says. “The waitlist has never been greater; we truly cannot keep up with the demand, so we’re really getting out there trying to help raise funds for those kids in every way that we can.”
She adds that the impact that the BC Building Trades has had on Variety over the years has been tremendous. “It’s incredible that this group of unionized workers, who are also working through very hard economic times, still think about giving back in such a magnificent way,” says Khalifar.
This year, the BC Building Trades has set a goal of raising $75,000 for its charitable causes through the golf tournament fundraiser.
“[We think it’s really] a special balance,” says Bourke. “On the one hand, diabetes research supports a future where we can find a cure and save lives. With Variety, we’re supporting the now. We’re making sure that children have access to the equipment they need to have a meaningful quality of life.”
The trades unions independently do a lot to give back throughout the year as well. The operating engineers host The Heavy Equipment Rodeo on Father’s Day weekend, which draws hundreds of people to Maple Ridge every year, says Bourke. “They collect admissions for the rodeo by donation and give it to our charities,” she adds that many of their unions are also supporting food banks right now.
“Supporting communities is built right into the fabric of trades unions… A lot of trades unions started from a place of trying to protect workers by doing voluntary collections if someone was injured on the job… we will work as a community to protect each other.”
Through the generosity of its members, the BC Building Trades has provided much-needed stability to these charities for 25-plus years, Bourke says. “As long as we can afford to do this, we’re going to continue to do this… They know they can count on that.”
This year’s Golf Tournament will take place on July 6 at the Northview Golf & Country Club in Surrey.
By Maddi Dellplain