James Strong MD/PhD, FRCPC - Pediatrics

Dr. Strong is a medical officer in the Special Pathogens (SP) department at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) as well as a clinician-scientist in the departments of medical microbiology and infectious disease and pediatrics and child health.

As the head of diagnostics and therapeutics section, he oversees the diagnostics and reference services for most of the high containment viral pathogens for Canada – performing all diagnostics for hantaviruses, poxviruses, arenaviruses, filoviruses, bunyaviruses and flaviviruses.

He has also served as a member of the Global Outbreak, Alert and Response Network (GOARN) and consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) and partnered with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in diagnostic management of Ebola and Marburg virus outbreaks in equatorial Africa.

During non-outbreak times, the main focus of his lab is basic and applied research on high-consequence pathogens in animal and tissue culture models of these viral diseases.

This includes studies on the pathophysiology of filoviruses in cell culture and animal systems (e.g. mouse, hamster, guinea pig and nonhuman primates), expanding diagnostic testing for high-consequence viral infections and investigations into their ecology.

The aim of these studies is to better understand the mechanism of transmission and disease with the ultimate goal of developing interventions for these high consequence infections.

As part of this research, we have setup and tested an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) within our Containment Level 4 (CL4) suite to test supportive care on animal models of high containment pathogens (e.g. Ebola virus).

We have a reciprocal training partnership between Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre and the National Microbiology Laboratory, where physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and pharmacists provide expertise on ICU treatment to our staff while our staff provide bedside care, specimen handling, diagnostic and decontamination expertise to the health care staff.

Through this program, health care staff glean better understanding of high containment operations while giving our high containment staff better understanding of health care delivery in an ICU.

The lessons learned from such studies are also key to creating centres of excellence for high consequence pathogens to Canadian Hospitals.

Education

Accredited Pediatrician, University of Manitoba (2002)

PhD Molecular Virology, University of Calgary (1996)

Medical Doctor, University of Calgary (1997)

Bachelor of Science (After Degree), Cellular, Molecular, and Microbial Biology, University of Calgary (1990)

Bachelor of Science, Zoology (1988)

Awards

Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Studentship (1991-1996).

Award for International Health Student Electives – Tropical Medicine – Thailand (1997)

CIHR Clinician-Scientist Post-Doctoral Award (2002)

Team Excellence Award – Health Canada (2003)

Government of Canada in celebration of the 50th anniversary of our National Flag to 50 Canadians who have contributed to the well-being of our citizens

Order of Manitoba Buffalo Hunt (2016)

Faculty Educator of the Year, Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba (2020)