Photo: Simon Fraser University
For decades, HIV has been one of the world’s most complex and persistent health challenges. The virus can evolve rapidly, hide in the body, and resist efforts to eliminate it — making the search for better treatments and a cure one of modern medicine’s most difficult challenges.
Dr. Zabrina Brumme, a researcher at Simon Fraser University (SFU), has spent her career working to better understand HIV and improve care for people living with the virus. Early in her research journey, she focused on how HIV evolves, how it responds to treatment, and how genetic information could be used to guide treatment decisions and ensure patients receive the therapies that will work best for them — an approach known as personalized or precision medicine.
Michael Smith Health Research BC supported Zabrina at key moments in her career. As a postdoctoral researcher, she studied how genetic differences in both the virus and the human immune system influence HIV disease progression and treatment response. This work helped deepen understanding of how HIV mutates and adapts over time and laid the foundation for her future independent research program.
“The Health Research BC awards were transformative for my career,” says Zabrina. “As a trainee, the funding gave me the independence to pursue research that was distinct from my supervisor’s and helped me build the foundation for my research program.”
As she established her own research program, Health Research BC provided the support she needed to grow her work and build a team.
“The funding came as I was establishing my independent research group at SFU. It allowed me to recruit my first graduate students, purchase key equipment, and gave me protected time for research,” says Zabrina. “It also gave me credibility as an emerging investigator and opened the door to new collaborations and opportunities. I wouldn’t be where I am today without Health Research BC’s support.”
And today, Zabrina is Laboratory Director at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, where she leads one of only two laboratories in Canada that perform precision medicine testing to help clinicians choose the most effective HIV treatments for each patient.
Her research has focused on one of the biggest barriers to curing HIV: viral reservoirs, or cells where the virus can remain hidden for years or even decades and reactivate if treatment stops. By studying how these reservoirs form, evolve, and persist in the body, Zabrina’s team is helping scientists better understand what it will take to safely eliminate HIV.
Zabrina’s journey shows how investing in health research talent builds leaders who are strengthening HIV research, improving treatment, and advancing the search for a cure.
Dr. Zabrina Brumme
Dr. Zabrina Brumme is Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and Laboratory Director at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. Her research integrates molecular biology, epidemiology, and computational approaches to study HIV genetic diversity and evolution, with the goal of informing HIV vaccine and eradication strategies.
She has trained and mentored the following Health Research BC-funded researchers:
- Francis Mwimanzi, Simon Fraser University
- Aniqa Shahid, Simon Fraser University
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