Dr. Jolanda Cibere

2012 Young Investigator Award

Jolanda Cibere completed her undergraduate training at the University of Saskatchewan, followed by rheumatology training and doctoral studies in Health Care and Epidemiology at the University of British Columbia. She is Associate Professor at UBC and a Research Scientist at the Arthritis Research Centre of Canada.

Dr. Cibere was awarded a highly prestigious six-year Clinician Scientist Phase II Scholar Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and has received major operating grant awards from The Arthritis Society and from the CIHR.  In addition, she was awarded the UBC Departmental Faculty and the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation Scholar Awards.

Dr. Cibere is recognized as a leading scientist in the field of translational research in early osteoarthritis and her research is noteworthy for its impact on clinical practice.

Dr. Cibere led a Canadian multicentre randomized placebo controlled study on the efficacy of glucosamine sulfate in osteoarthritis. This was the first definitive study to demonstrate the lack of benefit from continued use of glucosamine.

Dr. Cibere developed a standardized knee examination that has been adopted by national studies in the USA and the UK and was the basis for her demonstration that selected clinical findings allowed one to diagnose knee osteoarthritis with confidence. With the late Leslie Nielsen, she created a YouTube video for family physicians to teach them how to diagnose knee osteoarthritis.

Dr. Cibere’s prospective, population-based cohort study of early osteoarthritis of the knee is a landmark study. It demonstrated that the vast majority of community-based individuals with relatively mild knee pain have changes of definite osteoarthritis on MRI. She and her international collaborators have demonstrated that cartilage biomarkers can be used to diagnose osteoarthritis of the knee when radiographs are normal and she is currently investigating predictors of osteoarthritis progression.

In addition to the Canadian Rheumatology Association Young Investigator Award, Dr. Cibere’s research excellence was recognized by the Federal Networks of Centres of Excellence that gave her a Young Innovator Award.