Philip Awadalla
Philip Awadalla PhD is a Professor at Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. He is the National Scientific Director and Lead of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath) and the Executive Scientific Director of the Ontario Health Study at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research where he is also the Executive Director of the Genome Canada Canadian Data Integration Centre and Director of Computational Biology.
Dr. Awadalla is a genome scientist and genetic epidemiologist who has worked in the developing world on human - pathogen interactions, with an emphasis on malaria, having publications appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy, the Royal Society, Nature Genetics and Nature Reviews Genetics. His work as an advisor to the NIH and Wellcome Trust funded H3Africa program supported previous US Administrations rapid deployments to respond to Ebola and other pathogen outbreaks in West Africa. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he mobilized the Ontario Health Study and CanPath to address questions about exposures, prevalence, risk factors, and mental health. CanPath and OHS are performing real-time analyses of immunology and vaccine efficacy, supported by the CIHR, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Covid-19 Immunity Task Force.
Pandemic Related Publications
Using image-based haplotype alignments to map global adaptation of SARS-CoV-19
Clonal hematopoiesis is associated with risk of severe Covid-19
Genome-wide variation and identification of vaccine targets in the Plasmodium falciparum genome
Evidence for additive and interaction effects of host genotype and infection in malaria
The Evolutionary Genomics of Pathogen Recombination nature.com/articles/nrg964
CanPath Webinar: Using population cohorts to support COVID-19 research
Webinar: CanPath COVID-19 Questionnaire Results: A Preliminary Analysis https://canpath.ca/2020/11/webinar-cpha-dec-2020/