Principal Investigator:

Dr. Baljit Singh,

BVSc&AH, MVSc, PhD; Professor and Associate Dean, Research Veterinary Biomedical Sciences:

Baljit Singh has a well-established, extra-murally funded and internationally recognized research program in the area of lung inflammation, infectious disease and nanomedicines. He has supervised the research work of more than 70 post-graduate, undergraduate and postdoctoral students. Many of his students have won prestigious awards and scholarships at the national and international levels.  Baljit has been a Visiting Professors at the German Centre for Excellence in Immunology, Hannover. He is also an Associate Editor of Cell and Tissue Research and the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology.

Baljit Singh teaches anatomy in the veterinary medical program and selected courses to the graduate students. His teaching has been recognized through many awards including the 3M Canadian National Teaching Fellowship (2009), the Master Teacher Award of the University of Saskatchewan (2008) and the Norden Distinguished Professor in Veterinary Medicine (2003). He led the development of a new course called Biomedical Rounds, which received the Alan Blizzard National Award for Collaboration in University Teaching (2010).

Baljit has served many professional associations and community organizations.  He is a member of the Canadian National Examining Board for Veterinary Medicine since 2006. He was the President of the American Association of Veterinary Anatomists (2005-2008) and a member of the American Education Commission for Foreign Veterinary Graduates (2008-2011). His community and professional work has been recognized with R.P. Gilmor Award (1994) and the Outstanding Community Service Award (1993) at the University of Guelph. He also is a member of the Board of Management of the Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University.

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Co-Applicants

Vikram Misra,

Professor and Department Head, Veterinary Microbiology:

Volker Gerdts,

Professor, WCVM and Associate Director of Research, Vaccine and Infectious Disease:

Dr. Gerdts is the Associate Director of Research at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre (VIDO-InterVac) in Saskatoon, Canada. He graduated in 1994 from Hanover Veterinary School, Germany and received in 1997 the German equivalent of a PhD from the Federal Research Centre for Animal Health and the Institute for Virology, Hanover Veterinary School. He became a Research Scientist in 1998 at the Federal Research Centre for Animal Health in Germany.  He joined VIDO as a Research Scientist in 2002. Since then he has held a number of positions including Full Professor in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology, Senior Research Scientist and Program Manager Neonatal Immunization, Joint Professor School of Public Health, and Program Director of the Vaccinology and Immunotherapeutics Graduate Program to name a few. He was awarded a CIHR New Investigator Award in 2006, a Young Investigator Award by the Canadian Bacterial Disease Network in 2003, and a scholarship from the German Research Council.  He has been review panel member for various organizations including the Gairdner Foundation, CIHR, NSERC, NIH, CFI, to name a few and has reviewed grants from over 30 different funding agencies. 

Dr. Gerdts’ research interest is in infectious diseases and vaccine development. He has been involved in several research projects focused on the development of novel vaccines for both humans and animals.  He has been the principal or co-applicant on grants totaling more than $ 25 Million in research funding. He was the Scientific Manager and Co-Applicant of a Grand Challenges in Global Health project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CIHR. The team developed a novel adjuvant combination that proved highly effective in neonates following a single immunization and that is affordable for children around the world. The adjuvant is currently being tested with vaccines against pertussis and RSV, and several viral and bacterial pathogens. He published over 60 peer reviewed articles, filed three patent applications and trained 7 postdocs, and 9 graduate students. As a veterinarian, his expertise is in working with large animals, which often prove to be superior models for humans. For example, his group published in Nature Medicine a new approach to prevent vertical disease transmission in humans by vaccinating the fetus in utero. Other examples include the development of a new animal model for pertussis in pigs or a gut-loop model for the development of oral vaccines.

Hugh Townsend,

Professor, Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Professor, Large Animal Medicine:

Hana Weingartl,

CFIA

Dr. Hana Weingartl obtained Doctorate in Natural Sciences from Charles University in Prague and PhD from Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, Canada.

Following her postdoctoral fellowship at the National Agricultural Research Institute in Jouy-en-Josas, France, she started to work at National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg. As a Head of the Special Pathogens Unit, Hana brought to operation the BSL4 laboratory of the Canadian Food Inspection agency. She focuses on animal models for zoonotic and emerging viruses of veterinary importance, such as henipaviruses, Rift Valley fever virus and recently also Ebola viruses, mainly in the area of pathogenesis,   often related to vaccine challenge model development.

Bruce Reeder,

Professor, Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, College of Medicine

Dr. Reeder received his medical training at the University of Saskatchewan, and a Fellowship in Public Health and Preventive Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, 1987.  He assisted with the development and served as the initial Acting Director of the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Public Health.

John Gordon,

Acting Associate Dean, Research College of Medicine:

Andrew Potter,

Director and CEO, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) and InterVac, and Professor, Veterinary Microbiology:

Dr. Andrew Potter is a graduate of Carleton University (Canada) and the University of Otago (New Zealand) and has worked at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, University of Saskatchewan, for the past 27 years serving as a research scientist, Associate Director (Research) and more recently, Director.  His primary research interests are in the areas of the pathogenesis of bacterial respiratory diseases and the development of vaccines for zoonotic diseases.  He has previously held an NSERC Senior Industrial Research Chair in the area of vaccine development for food and water safety pathogens.  Dr. Potter has mentored more than 45 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who currently hold positions in industry, academia and government worldwide.

He is also a founding Director and CEO of the Pan-Provincial Vaccine Enterprise (PREVENT), a recently established National Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research funded by the National Centres of Excellence Program of the Federal Government, as well as Director of the International Vaccine Centre.

His role in ITraP is Chair of the Program Evaluation Committee and also as a researcher.

Cheryl Waldner,

Professor, Epidemiology:

Dr. Cheryl Waldner worked as a veterinary and environmental consultant in Alberta before returning to the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in 1999. She has an interest in analytical epidemiology including the design and management of field studies in remote regions, spatial epidemiology and the multilevel analysis of complex observational studies. She has a joint appointment in the School of Public Health and has taught in classes to graduate students from across the UofS campus in infectious disease and analytical epidemiology. Her current public health research interests include the factors affecting drinking water quality and consumption in rural communities and the differences in microbial contamination of retail meat originating from different inspection environments.

 Other methodological research interests include the application of network analysis, system dynamics, and agent-based models for the investigation of gonorrhea in Saskatchewan, influenza, and CWD in wild deer populations. She is part of the outbreak investigation unit at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine and is actively involved in research examining factors affecting the productivity of cow-calf herds in Western Canada. Previously she has examined the environmental impacts of exposure to the oil and gas industry and environmental microbiological risks associated with livestock production including antimicrobial resistance. Dr. Waldner has more than 120 accepted or published peer-reviewed publications and has supervised 11 Masters and PhD students.

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Peter Phillips,

Program Coordinator:

Caitlin Labach:

I am currently the program coordinator for the International Training Program in Infectious Diseases, Food Safety and Public Policy (NSERC-CREATE) in the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM).  I grew up in Saskatoon and, right after completing high school, I enrolled in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at the University of Saskatchewan.  Four years later I convocated with Great Distinction with a Bachelor of Science in Renewable Resource Management.  After University I took the opportunity to travel part of the world, seeing parts of Spain, Italy, France, and England.  I then worked for a year as the research coordinator of the Wildlife Ecology and Community Engagement Lab in the department of Animal and Poultry Science.

My job involves coordinating the various activities related to undergraduate and graduate studies such as, student applications, funding, course programs and exchanges, and record keeping.  I will be a point of contact for the students here in Canada as well as those from our international collaborators in Germany and India.  I have also taken on the process of developing and maintaining the ITraP/CREATE website.  I am very excited to be a part of the launching of this one-of-a-kind project and am thrilled to be involved with such a fantastic group!

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