Director
Dr. Manish Sadarangani
Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Sauder Family Chair in Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University of British Columbia
Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Dr. Sadarangani has been Director of the VEC since 2016. He completed his undergraduate medical training and pediatric residency in Cambridge, Oxford and London in the UK. He then completed his DPhil with the Oxford Vaccine Group in the UK, developing novel meningococcal vaccines, and completed a Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases in Vancouver in 2013 before returning to Oxford to work as a Pediatric Infectious Diseases physician. He has worked in pediatrics throughout the world, including in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Australia, North America and Europe. His research links clinical trials with basic microbiology, immunology and epidemiology to address clinically relevant problems related to immunization and vaccine-preventable diseases. Specific research interests include bacterial vaccines, understanding vaccine-induced immunity, maternal immunization, antibiotic resistance and CNS infections.
Investigators
Dr. Julie Bettinger
Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Dr. Bettinger is a Professor at the VEC in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include vaccine safety and vaccine preventable diseases as well as attitudes and beliefs around immunization uptake and use. She is the data center director for the Canadian Immunization Monitoring Program, Active (IMPACT), an active surveillance network for vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine adverse events in 12 tertiary care pediatric hospitals across Canada and the lead investigator for CANVAS.
Dr. Hana Mitchell
Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Dr. Mitchell is an infectious disease pediatrician with focus on immune compromised patients.
She completed her fellowship at BC Children’s Hospital and joined VEC in 2018. Her research interests include optimizing vaccination in solid organ transplant recipients and identifying effective knowledge translation strategies for communicating scientific research findings to frontline care providers, patients and their families.
Dr. Michael Hawkes
Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Michael Hawkes (BEng, McGill U; MD, U of Alberta; PhD, U of Toronto; DTM&H, Peru; FRCPC, Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases) is a clinician-scientist. In addition to a clinical practice in consultant Pediatric Infectious Diseases, he leads a translational research program in global pediatric infections. Diseases of focus include some of the leading infectious disease killers of children in the world today: malaria, pneumonia, Ebola, and HIV. He holds peer reviewed grants (CIHR, Grand Challenges Canada, Women and Children’s Health Research Institute, Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology) that support basic science research, epidemiologic studies, and clinical trials. He operates field sites in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has more than 140 peer-reviewed publications, which have been cited over 4,000 times in the medical literature. His research is improving outcomes in children with serious infections in some of the least developed areas of the globe.
Dr. Devon Greyson
Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Assistant Professor, Division of Health in Populations, School of Population and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Dr. Devon Greyson’s research focuses on public health communication and the use of information by public, clinicians, and health systems. Devon has a special interest in perinatal and pediatric health decision-making and experiences. Current work focuses on vaccine decision-making, use of cannabis during pregnancy and lactation, and mitigating the impacts of medical disinformation. Dr. Greyson is a qualitative and mixed methodologist with an interdisciplinary background that spans gender studies, information science, and public health.
Dr. Alastair McAlpine
Department of Infectious Diseases, BC Children's Hospital
Dr. McAlpine is a locum physician at the Pediatric Infectious Diseases department of BC Children's Hospital. In addition to clinical work, he also works with the Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) department. His particular interests include antimicrobial stewardship, vaccine research, and the role of social media in science communication.
Dr. Ashley Roberts
Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Division Head, Pediatric Infectious Diseases, BC Children's Hospital
Medical Director, Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, Provincial Health Services Authority
Dr. Roberts is the Division head of Paediatric Infectious Diseases at BC Children’s hospital (BCCH). In addition to clinical work at the Children’s hospital, she also works as an infectious diseases physician with TB control at the BC Centres for Disease Control (BCCDC). She is the Medical Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship program at the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) and is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Her particular areas of interest include equity, diversity and inclusion in medicine; antimicrobial resistance; antimicrobial stewardship and pediatric tuberculosis.
Dr. Laura Sauvé
Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Clinical Assistant Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Dr. Sauvé joined the VEC in 2007. She is a pediatric infectious disease specialist who has a focus in Pediatric HIV. She is the BC site co-investigator for the Immunization Monitoring Program, Active, a national surveillance system for vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine adverse events in 12 pediatric tertiary care centers across Canada. She also is the co-primary investigator of the Canadian Perinatal HIV Surveillance Program, which studies vertical transmission of HIV across Canada. Her main research interests include are in health equity, vaccine preventable disease, global child health and infections impacting equity-deserving populations – particularly congenital syphilis and pediatric HIV.
Dr. Estelle Morin
Pediatric Infectious Diseases Physician
Multi-Organ Transplant Program, BC Children's Hospital
Dr. Morin is a Pediatric Infectious Diseases physician with a focus on immunocompromised populations, including working with the Multi-Organ Transplant Program. She completed her ID training at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and joined the VEC team in the summer of 2022. Her interests include infections in immunocompromised/transplant populations, immunizations, and antimicrobial stewardship.
Dr. David Scheifele
Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Professor Emeritus, Division of Infectious and Immunological Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Dr. Scheifele is one of the original founders of the VEC and was the VEC Director from 1988-2016. In 2012, he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the prevention of infections in children. Dr. Scheifele is a pediatric infectious disease specialist and his many interests include the prevention of influenza, haemophilus influenzae type b infections (which cause meningitis), pneumococcal infections, and vaccine safety.
Dr. Ali Harandi
Guest Associate Professor
Dr. Harandi is an Associate Professor in Clinical Immunology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and a visiting Associate Professor at the VEC, Department of Peadiatrics, BCCHR, The University of British Columbia. He serves in the leadership of several EU/international projects on vaccine R&D, and also serves as an advisor to several non-profit research organizations. His main research goal is to characterize protective immune responses induced by vaccines and mucosal infections in humans.