Crossing continents: From Vancouver to Riyadh

Fellowship spurs international collaboration now reshaping Alzheimer’s diagnostics in the Middle East

Left: Dr. Mari DeMarco. Right: Dr. Yara Alkhodair and graduate study Cyril Helbling at the 4th Annual Conference of the Saudi Chapter of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology in AlUla, Saudi Arabia.

When Dr. Yara Alkhodair arrived at the University of British Columbia (UBC) from Saudi Arabia for a behavioural neurology fellowship, she expected to spend a year in the clinic. She ended up spending two – 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.

Read more at:

https://www.hli.ubc.ca/2026/04/advancing-alzheimers-diagnostics-around-the-world/