III Institute Advisory Board Members – Biographies
Patrice Allibert, PhD
CEO
GenePOC Inc.
Dr. Patrice Allibert joined GenePOC Inc. In June 2012 after spending more than 25 years in the biotech domain.
After completing his PhD in Molecular Biology (Grenoble, 1986), Dr. Allibert acquired his first experience in Human Diagnostic with bioMérieux. During the 15 years he spent with this company, he was the pioneer of the Molecular Biology deployment in this company by successfully launching the first HLA-DR test based on molecular methods for bone marrow and graft transplantation. He was also the Project Manager for the DNA chip using the Affymetrix technology.
Dr. Allibert then worked 5 years with another biotech company in the animal Health domain (Merial) as Corporate Director for BioAnalytical Development, leading R&D teams both in France and US. He was located in the Atlanta area and played a key role in the launch of new animal vaccines using new approaches like DNA and canarypox vectors as well as the first Porcine Circovirus vaccine. He also implemented Molecular Biology as a technology for Quality Control as well as a new tool to analyze Clinical Studies in the veterinary domain.
In 2006 he joined BD Diagnostics as Vice President R&D Molecular in Québec. Dr. Allibert was in charge of developing multiple tests and technologies to cover the increasing needs for the Health Acquired Infections (HAI). Since 2006, 6 new products were added to the menu. Dr. Allibert was a key actor in the acquisition of HandyLab Inc. in 2009 that will provide to BD Diagnostics the future fully Automated and Integrated Molecular Platform required to successfully develop the market. He was also instrumental in the installation of BD Diagnostics in Quebec managing the construction of a 80,000 sq/ft R&D building.
In 2011 and 2012, Dr. Allibert moved to his new role as Vice President Strategic Innovation for Molecular Infectious Diseases. His major goal consisted of identifying new technology areas as well as new emerging diseases to extend the BD Diagnostics Molecular portfolio.
He is now CEO at GenePOC Inc., a company located in Québec which develops DNAbased microfluidic devices which allow the rapid diagnostic of infectious diseases at Point Of Care.
Between 1998 and 2001 Dr. Allibert acted as an expert for the European Community (Genomic and Proteomic domains) and was involved in the EU Program V. He is now a member of the Institute Advisory Board of the CHIR Institute of Infection and Immunity.
Contact information:
GenePOC Inc.,
2590 Laurier Blvd
Tour Belle Cour, Suite 210,
Québec, QC G1V 4M6
Email: patrice.allibert@genepoc.ca
Jonathan B. Angel, MD
Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine
University of Ottawa
Jonathan Angel graduated from medical school at the University of Toronto in 1988, which was followed by an internal medicine residency in Toronto. After one year as the chief medical resident at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, he did his clinical and research infectious diseases training at the New England Medical Center/Tufts University in Boston.
In 1995, Dr. Angel joined the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine at the Ottawa General Hospital. Since that time he has been involved in laboratory based and clinical research as well as teaching and patient care.
His research, supported by the CIHR, the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research and a Career Scientist Award from the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, is focused on understanding how HIV damages the immune system and how these insights can potentially lead to new therapies. Dr. Angel is currently a Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, a Senior Scientist in the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the Director of the HIV Clinic at the Ottawa Hospital.
Contact information:
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
725 Parkdale Ave.
Ottawa, ON K1Y 4E9
Email: jangel@ottawahospital.on.ca
Dr. Roy Duncan, PhD
Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Dalhousie University
Dr. Roy Duncan obtained his B.Sc. in Microbiology from the University of Guelph and his M.Sc. in Virology from Queen's University. Following a short stint as a research technician in government and academic research labs, he returned to the University of Guelph to complete his Ph.D. in Virology, followed by postdoctoral studies on virus-cell interactions at the University of Calgary.
Dr. Duncan's research group has pioneered the discovery and analysis of the reovirus fusion-associated small transmembrane (FAST) proteins. This novel family of virus-encoded cellular fusogens provides insights into the process of cell-cell membrane fusion, an essential feature of viral pathogenesis, musculo-skeletal development, fertilization, placenta formation, inflammation, and tumour development. As the founder and CEO of Fusogenix Inc., a biotech startup company, Dr. Duncan is also developing the FAST proteins and fusogenic liposomes for targeted intracellular delivery of drugs and vaccines.
Dr. Duncan was the recipient of a CIHR Investigator Award, the Max Forman Senior Research Prize from the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation, and his interest and passion for teaching has been recognized by several teaching and mentoring awards. He has a long-standing involvement in grant review panels, is the Executive Director of the Dalhousie Infectious Disease Research Alliance, and is a member of the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology in Halifax.
Contact information:
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Faculty of Medicine
Dalhousie University
Halifax, NS B3H 1X5
Email: roy.duncan@dal.ca
Dr. Peter Ernst, DVM., PhD
Professor, Department of Pathology, University of California
San Diego
Dr. Peter Ernst is a Professor of Pathology at the University of California, San Diego, CA. His research interest is in gastrointestinal inflammation with specific interests in lymphoepithelial cell interactions in H. pylori infection and inflammatory bowel disease. The ultimate goal of understanding the pathogenesis of these diseases is to enhance the design of immunotherapies for the treatment or prevention of chronic gastrointestinal inflammation.
Currently, Dr. Ernst is pursuing two main projects. The goal of the first is to understand the role of Th cells in the pathogenesis of gastroduodenal disease in humans infected with H. pylori. These studies entail a characterization of the T cell response in gastric mucosa. Dr. Ernst has shown that Th1 responses dominate in the normal and infected stomach, largely in association with the local production of IL-12 and IL-18. These Th1 cell release mediators that promote inflammation, for example but stimulating the production of neutrophil chemokines by the epithelial cells. In addition, activated Th1 cells can target the epithelium by inducing apoptosis and epithelial cell death. This is done directly by cytolytic cytokines produced by both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells as well as the effects of these cytokines on epithelial cell expression of Fas. The latter results in an increase in Fas-mediated killing by adjacent T cells expressing Fas ligand. A novel aspect of this work is the role of reactive oxygen species in selecting for Th1 cells. Studies are being carried out to examine the impact that oxidative stress has on Th cell differentiation and function.
In the second project, Dr. Ernst is using mouse models of chronic colitis to study lymphoepithelial cell interactions. Similar to the events in the stomach, Th1 cells predominate in several models of colitis and lead to epithelial cell death. This occurs directly, via Fas/Fas ligand interactions as well as indirectly, by oxidative stress that is induced by activated T cells.
Some of the pathogenic events in both models are prevented by anti-inflammatory mediators including IL-10. Regulatory T cells in the gut appear to produce high levels of IL-10 and adenosine and both mediators may be important in preventing autoimmune diseases including colitis. Thus, other studies involve the characterization of regulatory T cells in the gut and their induction by luminal antigen.
Contact Information:
Professor, Department of Pathology
Head, Division of Comparative Pathology and Medicine
University of California
San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive
MC 0612 San Diego, CA, 92093-0612
Email: pernst@ucsd.edu
Aida Fernandes, Hon. BSc, MBA
Chief Science & Education Officer
Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada
Aida Fernandes is the current Chief Science & Education Officer at the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada (CCFC). In her role, Aida leads the organization's research, health promotion and advocacy programs. She is responsible developing and implementing CCFC's scientific and education strategy and building partnerships that will advance basic, translational, clinical, epidemiological, and health services research in inflammatory bowel disease.
Before to joining the CCFC in April 2012, Aida was the Director of Medical/Scientific & Community Programs at the Cystic Fibrosis Canada. Ms. Fernandes worked with Cystic Fibrosis Canada in several different capacities since 2001, including Manager, Chapter Relations and Director, Volunteer & Personnel Resources. In her role, Ms. Fernandes oversaw an $8 M program budget of medical and scientific grants and awards; and supported the work of the Medical/Scientific Advisory Committee.
During her time at Cystic Fibrosis Canada, Aida has supported the development of special research initiatives aimed at advancing knowledge and therapeutic targets for cystic fibrosis patients, including the CF Technology Initiative a partnership with the University of British Columbia and Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) capitalizing on Canadian CF research discoveries and accelerating the commercialization of new therapies.
Aida has also served on a number of governing bodies in the voluntary health sector including: Public Health Agency of Canada's Respiratory Diseases Surveillance Advisory Committee, HealthPartners Board of Directors, Health Charities' Coalition of Canada Research Committee, and Canadian Genetics Coalition.
Aida holds a bachelor's degree in Human Biology from the University of Toronto and a Master of Business Administration in Non-Profit Management & Leadership from York University's Schulich School of Business.
Contact information
Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada
60 St. Clair Avenue East, Suite 600
Toronto, ON M4T 1N5
Email: afernandes@ccfc.ca
Brenda Hemmelgarn, MD, PhD
Associate Professor
Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences
University of Calgary
Dr Hemmelgarn is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary Alberta. She is a clinician scientist with clinical training in medicine (McMaster University) and sub-specialty training in nephrology (University of Calgary). She also obtained a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University.
Dr Hemmelgarn's research interests are in the study of chronic medical conditions including chronic kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, as well as health services research aimed at improving management of these chronic conditions. Dr Hemmelgarn holds provincial and national salary awards and operating grants, and is the recipient of the Roy and Vi Baay Chair in Kidney Research. She is also actively involved in Clinical Practice Guideline development both nationally through the Canadian Society of Nephrology and internationally through Kidney Disease : Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO), and has over 200 peer-reviewed publications.
Contact information:
Foothills Hospital
1403 29th St NW
Calgary, AB
T2N 2T9
Email: Brenda.hemmelgarn@albertahealthservices.ca
Dr. Anthony M. Jevnikar, MD (Chair)
Neprologist
Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology
Western University
Dr. Jevnikar completed undergraduate and graduate programs in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Western Ontario and received his MD from the Schulich School of Medicine in 1981.He received further research training in transplant and renal molecular immunology as a Fellow at Harvard University with Dr. V. Kelley at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He is now a transplant nephrologist , professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology and Surgery, Medical Director of Kidney Transplantation and Co-Director of the Multi Organ Transplant Program at University Hospital in London, Ontario.
Dr. Jevnikar is internationally recognized for basic research in epithelial cell injury and the regulation of cellular death by endogenous inhibitors of apoptosis as a means to promote allograft survival. This work has led to novel discoveries such as the role and inhibition of epithelial cell death receptors that induce "self injury" and organ dysfunction during inflammation.
His research has been continuously supported since 1988 by the Kidney Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and as well from the NIH for tolerance work in non human primates.
Dr. Jevnikar has been an active member of both the Canadian and American Societies of Transplantation, was President of the Canadian Society of Transplantation from 2002-04 , has served many important committees including the co-chair of the Education Committee (2005-2007), and planned numerous educational meetings to train new transplant scientists. As a first for a Canadian, he was the Chair of the 2009 American Transplant Congress, which is the largest annual international transplant meeting.
Contact information:
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
University of Western Ontario
London, ON N6H 3Y8
Email: jevnikar@uwo.ca
Christopher Kaposy, PhD (Ethics designate)
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Dr. Christopher Kaposy is an Assistant Professor of Health Care Ethics in the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Dr. Kaposy studied Philosophy at McMaster University in Hamilton, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1997. He went on to receive his Master of Arts degree in Philosophy from Concordia University, and completed his Ph.D., also in Philosophy, at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2006. Christopher continued his training with a post-doctoral fellowship in the Ethics of Health Research and Policy Program at Dalhousie University, where he also held an assistant professorship until joining Memorial University in 2009.
Contact information:
Faculty of Medicine
Division of Community Health and Humanities
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's, NL A1C 5S7
Email: christopher.kaposy@med.mun.ca
Dr. Mohamed Karmali, MD, FRCPC(C)
Director General, Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses
Public Health Agency of Canada
Dr. Mohamed Karmali graduated in Medicine from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1972, and went on to specialize in Internal Medicine and Medical Microbiology at the Universities of Glasgow and Toronto. Formerly Head of Microbiology at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, he is presently Director-General, Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses, Public Health Agency of Canada and Professor of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University.
Dr. Karmali is recognized internationally for his research on infections due to Campylobacter and E. coli O157:H7 and other Verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (VTEC). He was one of the first to recognize the importance of Campylobacter in Canada, and, in 1979, published the seminal study on the etiological significance and natural history of Campylobacter jejuni infection in young children. One of the most popular laboratory diagnostic media for isolating Campylobacters is known as Karmali's medium.
In the early 1980s his group was the first to show the causal link between VTEC infection and the hemolytic uremic syndrome, a disease, of hitherto unknown cause, that is the commonest cause of acute renal failure in children, and he continues to be active in research in this area. He has been on the organizing committee of all five International conferences on VTEC infections, and has chaired a number of World Health Organization Meetings on VTEC. Before joining Health Canada in 1999, Dr. Karmali was a member of Health Canada's Science Advisory Board. Dr. Karmali was the recipient of the American Society of Microbiology's 2009 BD Award for Research in Clinical Microbiology.
Contact information:
Director General
Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses
Public Health Agency of Canada
110 Stone Road West
Guelph, ON N1G 3W4
Email: mohamed_karmali@phac.aspc.gc.ca
Megan Levings, PhD
Canada Research Chair in Transplantation
Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, UBC
Scientist, Child and Family Research Institute (CFRI)
Dr. Levings obtained her B.Sc. from Simon Fraser University where she held a series of summer research positions in a fruit fly genetics lab. She subsequently decided to switch to mammalian cells, and did her graduate training in the genetics program with Dr. John Schrader at UBC. During this time she was focused on studying signal transduction by interleukin-4. In 1999 she moved to Milan to join Maria Grazia Roncarolo's lab and work on regulatory T cells (Treg). While in Milan, the group was the first to demonstrate that Treg from humans could be expanded in vitro and used to suppress immune responses to transplanted cells. Dr. Levings also developed several methods for deriving Treg cells in vitro and characterizing their biological function.
In 2003 Dr. Levings returned to Vancouver to accept a position in the Department of Surgery at UBC. Her lab is currently focused on defining the potential use of human Treg as a cellular therapy for transplantation, with a special interest in characterizing their intracellular signalling pathways, cell surface markers and mechanisms of action. Recently, her interests have expanded to include investigating the interaction between innate immune stimuli and Treg cells and developing animal models to study their role in mucosal immune responses. In July 2010 she relocated her lab to the Child and Family Research Institute (CFRI) at the Children's Hospital of BC.
Dr. Levings has been a long-standing member of the Canadian Society for Immunology and served on international and national peer-review committees. She has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Immunology since 2008 and in 2011 became a Section Editor.
Contact Information
Child and Family Research Institute
950 West 28th Ave., Room A4-186
Vancouver, B.C. V5Z 4H4
Email: megan.levings@ubc.ca
Michael Mulvey, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology,
University of Manitoba
Chief, Antimicrobial Resistance and Nosocomial Infections,
National Microbiology Laboratory,
Public Health Agency of Canada
Dr. Mulvey obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in 1990. His thesis work involved the identification and characterization of rpoS, the gene responsible for the stationary phase regulon in E. coli. After receiving an Alberta Heritage Fund Postdoctoral Fellowship, he studied the mammalian cellular response to picornavirus infection and epitope mapping of these viruses at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Alberta. In 1996, Dr. Mulvey moved to Health Canada, now the Public Health Agency of Canada, where he was responsible for establishing the Antimicrobial Resistance and Nosocomial Infections Laboratory. The laboratory provides diagnostic and molecular epidemiologic support to all provincial public health and hospital laboratories in Canada regarding nosocomial pathogens and also provides laboratory support for numerous programs focused on antimicrobial resistance. His research interests include the molecular mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance and the genetic mechanisms involved in epidemic MRSA and multidrug-resistant Enteric organisms and the development of educational tools to limit the spread of infectious diseases. He is an associate professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Manitoba and adjunct professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Calgary. He was awarded with both the Chief Scientist's Distinguished Scientist Award and the Deputy Minister's Excellence in Science Award both granted in 2004, and the Public Health Agency of Canada Research Merit Award in 2008. He has authored over 125 peer-reviewed publications and over 230 meeting abstracts.
Contact information
National Microbiology Laboratory
1015 Arlington St.
Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3E 3R2
Email: michael.mulvey@phac-aspc.gc.ca
Dr. Brian J. Ward, MSc, DTM&H, MDCM
Professor, Medicine & Microbiology
Associate Director of the Research Institute
of the McGill University Health Center
McGill University
Dr. Ward is currently professor of Medicine & Microbiology at McGill University and Associate Director of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center (Fundamental Science). He is Co-Director of the McGill Vaccine Evaluation Center, Director of the National Reference Center for Parasitology, and Associate Director of the JD MacLean Tropical Diseases Center. He is also a founding member of the Canadian Association for Immunization Research and Evaluation (CAIRE).
Dr. Ward completed his medical studies at McGill University (MDCM 1980) and received research training as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University (Québec/Corpus Christi: MSc 1980) and as a resident and postdoctoral fellow at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases: 1985-91). Additional clinical training was obtained at the University of London in tropical diseases (DMT&H: 1984) and at McGill in microbiology (1992).
Dr. Ward's research program covers four areas: 1) molecular mechanisms that underlie retinoid-virus interactions 2) vaccine development and evaluation 3) novel approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of neglected tropical diseases and 4) factors that influence mother-to-child-transmission of HIV. His work has been funded by CIHR, NIH, CIDA, PHAC, a range of national and international foundations as well as industry.
Contact information:
Montreal General Hospital
1650 Cedar Avenue Room L10-309
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1A4
Email: brian.ward@mcgill.ca
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