Photo Credit: Richard Siemens; © University of Alberta
Anissa Gamble is a Canadian scientist, professional hockey player, and activist for type 1 diabetes care and education. She is one of a handful of people to have played professional ice hockey while living with type 1 diabetes.
Gamble was born on May 21, 1993, in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 8 was scary and emotional news - her grandmother had died from the condition before she was born. However, Anissa remained determined to be as healthy and positive as possible in managing her condition.
Passionate about hockey, she started playing with the boys since the Maritimes did not have many female hockey leagues. At 15, she left her home in Fredericton to attend high school at Appleby College in Ontario, where she was finally able to play girls hockey. She played in the Junior Provincial Women's Hockey League for the Oakville Hornets and Burlington Barracudas. “To do really well in hockey, I have to have really good glucose management," she says. She credits her desire to become a professional athlete for keeping her focused and motivated to manage her condition on her own.
Gamble pursued a Bachelor of Science degree at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania, US, graduating with a major in Biology and a minor in Chemistry. She continued to play hockey, this time in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1, the highest level of intercollegiate athletics in the US, for the Robert Morris Colonials. She scored 12 points in 118 games.
Graduating in 2016, she took a year off from hockey to start her Master’s in Experimental Surgery at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, one of the world’s premier research facilities for diabetes. Her supervisor, Dr. James Shapiro, led a clinical team that developed the Edmonton Protocol, the first successful transplantation of insulin-producing pancreatic islets in humans. This experimental treatment for type 1 diabetes involves removing insulin-producing regions from a healthy pancreas and implanting them into a sick person, stimulating the sick pancreas to produce insulin. This allows the patient to live without the need for insulin injections for a significant period. After observing one of the transplants completed by Dr. Shapiro, the procedure became Gamble’s research focus.
During her Master’s, Gamble also got involved with type 1 diabetes advocacy and education. She participated in initiatives such as Beyond Type 1, Connected in Motion (CIM), DSkate, I Challenge Diabetes and Hope Foundation. In 2017, she embarked on a backpacking trip on the North Coast Trail with a CIM team composed of others living with diabetes, hiking 58km. She also attended a camp in California, where she led some canoeing trips and hikes with others living with diabetes.
Her passion for hockey never left and in 2017 Gamble entered the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) draft, selected to play for the Calgary Inferno. She lived in Edmonton for her studies and occasionally visited Calgary to play hockey.
After completing her Master’s degree, Gamble moved back east to Toronto. She played a year for the Toronto Furies before the CWHL shut down in May 2019. She continued her advocacy work, funding a new diabetes initiative called Thumbs Up Diabetes, which focuses on changing diabetes education and improving diabetes management.
In addition to hockey and diabetes education, Gamble worked at the University Health Network in Toronto as a research analyst in digital health, focusing on diabetes management. One of her most recent achievements includes a paper about the challenges faced by people living with diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, Gamble embarked on a new chapter as a Doctor of Dental Surgery candidate at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University in London, Ontario. She remains affiliated with the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) as an independent athlete.
— Written by Ana de Faria