High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Doctor Helen Magnus (born August 27, 1850) is the series protagonist and central character of the Canadian fantasy-science fiction television series Sanctuary. She is portrayed by Amanda Tapping. In the series, Magnus is a scientist from Victorian era England, who currently runs the global Sanctuary Network, an organization tasked with finding a series of creatures called "abnormals", and later bring them to a Sanctuary base for refuge to protect them from the human population. The character is over two and a half centuries old, having been given her advanced longevity by injecting herself with vampire blood, as well as reliving the 20th century from time travel.