5th Annual MI4 Scientific Symposium

Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D. is a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on the mechanisms of immune defense against viruses at mucosal surfaces, which are a major site of entry for infectious agents. Professor Iwasaki received her Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Toronto and completed her postdoctoral training with the National Institutes of Health before joining Yale’s faculty in 2000. She has received many awards and honors and has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 2014. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018, to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. Professor Iwasaki has been a leading scientific voice during the COVID-19 pandemic and is also well known for her Twitter advocacy on women and underrepresented minorities in the science and medicine fields and has been named to the 2023 STATUS list of the ultimate list of leaders in life sciences. Dr. Iwasaki is the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity and is at the forefront of several long COVID investigations including the Mount-Sinai Yale Long COVID study, Yale LISTEN study, and Yale Paxlovid trial.

Adriana Jarrett is a Youth Programs Specialist, with a background in human development and social services. In 2020, while Adriana was attending university, she was diagnosed with Bovine TB. She underwent 9 months of treatment over the course of 12 months with multiple complications, and is now a member of we are TB. We are TB is an organization that provides support groups, in Spanish and English, and advocates to end TB.

Dr. Joyce Rauch is Professor of Medicine and a member of the Divisions of Rheumatology and Experimental Medicine at McGill University, as well as an Associate Member of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Rauch received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from McGill University in 1979, and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Tufts University School of Medicine. In 1981, she returned to McGill University to establish her own research laboratory. Dr. Rauch’s current research focuses on the mechanistic roles of cell death and innate and adaptive immunity in the initiation and pathogenesis of autoimmune disease (particularly systemic lupus erythematosus). Her research uses murine models to investigate the initiation and pathogenesis of disease; and clinical samples to investigate biomarkers and cellular defects associated with clinical manifestations of disease.

Dr. Vinh is Infectious Disease physician, Medical Microbiologist and Section head (ID-Hematology-Oncology/Transplant) at the McGill University Health Centre. He is Fonds de recherche du Québec-Santé Senior Clinician-scientist. As the Director of the Centre of Excellence for Genetic Research in Infection and Immunity, his translational research program aims to decipher how molecular defects of human immunity contribute to infections that are recurrent, recalcitrant, and/or unusually severe in patients.

Dr. Thombs completed his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Fordham University in 2004 then was a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He began his career at McGill in 2006 and is currently a Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Thombs has published over 380 peer-reviewed articles, many in the world’s top medical journals, and has been awarded almost $25 million in grant funding as Principal Investigator. He founded and directs the Scleroderma Patient-Intervention Network (SPIN), a collaboration of over 150 investigators, health care providers, patients, and patient advocates from 9 countries and 50 scleroderma expert centers. SPIN maintains a cohort of over 2,000 people with the rare autoimmune disease systemic sclerosis and conducts trials to address problems prioritized by patients. Dr. Thombs also founded and directs the DEPRESion Screening Data (DEPRESSD) Project, which currently includes more than 350 investigators from > 50 countries, who have contributed > 300 primary datasets to conduct individual participant data meta-analyses to address gaps in evidence on depression screening tools. He additionally leads high-profile meta-research to improve research methods and reporting and has led major clinical and research guidelines. Dr. Thombs was Chair of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care from 2017 to 2021, the first non-physician in this role.

https://www.thombsresearchteam.ca/