Dr. Francis Lynn, a researcher at the Canucks for Kids Fund Childhood Diabetes Laboratories at BC Children’s, is on a quest to conquer diabetes. Find out how.

Nineteen thousand. That’s about how many needles 14-year-old Jayden Gill has had to use throughout his life to manage his type 1 diabetes. It means he’s had to prick his body five times a day—every day—since he was two and a half years old to check his blood sugar levels and receive insulin injections.

More than 440 of BC’s South Asian philanthropic, business and community leaders came together tonight to raise $742,495 for BC Children’s Hospital at the 11th Annual A Night of Miracles (ANOM) Gala. Guests in attendance represented the largest turnout in this event’s history. Since the gala’s inception, the South Asian community has cumulatively raised $6.1 million, demonstrating its long-standing commitment to providing the best health care imaginable to kids across the province.

Dr. Shazhan Amed, head of the Division of Endocrinology at BC Children’s Hospital, is working as part of a team to transform diabetes care throughout the province. We sat down with her to learn more about her team’s work to help improve the lives of kids in BC who are living with diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes—when the body fails to make insulin—often appears in childhood. For those kids receiving this diagnosis, it comes with a lifetime of painful insulin injections and finger pricks, but new research might change that.