Professor, Medicine & Microbiology, 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). He currently serves on the Institutional Advisory Board of the CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity and as one of the Chairs of the CIHR-Industry review panel.

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.

This group consists of six laboratories with overlapping and complementary skills in influenza diagnostic test development, evaluation, and execution. Investigators are drawn from academia (Boivin, Hatchette, Kollman, Ward) and public health (Booth, Petric). PCIRN activities can be divided into support for the research themes and exploitation of the samples collected for assay development.

Support for PICRN theme research

• Coordinate access to routine testing (e.g., HAI, PCR) for the research themes.
• Coordinate training for redundant HAI testing and cross-site test validation.
• Establish control and quality assurance program within PCIRN laboratory sites.
• Create and maintain archive of PCIRN samples and reagents.

Specifically 

• Assay development to enhance PICRN research capacity and competitiveness Hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) assay
• HAI assay plan
• HAI collaboration plan: Private to public handover and pandemic readiness
• High-throughput alternatives to HAI testing
• Peptide array-based assay
• Virus-like particle (VLP)-based assay
• Neutralizing antibody and IgG avidity assays
• Micro-neutralization assay
• IgG avidity (IgGAv) assay
• Neuraminidase antibodies
• PCR and high throughput real-time PCR genotyping assay
• Serum distribution management
• Shortcomings and limitations