Infectious Diseases

Overview

The Infectious Disease division at Lawson focuses on finding innovative solutions to the challenges of infectious pathogens – disorders caused by organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites.

Partnering with both London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care London, our most important goal is the constant improvement in the standard care we offer to our patients. New knowledge developed through research can be applied directly to care within the hospitals.

Research Areas

Our clinician researchers have particular interests in the many areas of infectious diseases: HIV, viral hepatitis, infections related to transplants, infections and inner city health, infection control, antimicrobial stewardship and infections in developing countries. An emerging concentration is the understanding of the impact of the human microbiome on health and infectious diseases.

Dr. Michael Silverman: Fecal Microbial Transplantation for C. difficile and metabolic syndrome and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in developing countries; and, prevention of inappropriate antibiotic use in community outpatient practice.

Dr. Silverman is a pioneer in the field of Fecal Microbial Transplantation (FMT) for treatment of Clostridium difficile. He was one of the first to perform the procedure in North America and the only Physician doing FMT in South Western Ontario. In 2015, he was awarded a grant by Academic Medical Organisation of Southwestern Ontario (AMOSO) for FMT in the treatment of Metabolic Syndrome. Dr. Seema Nair Parvathy, Research Coordinator, associates with him on this project and Laura Craven, currently a Masters student at Western University, is also working on this project.

Dr. Silverman holds an ICES Grant (2015) on Prevention of Antibiotic Overprescribing in Community Practice. He is a site PI on several multinational RCT’s (randomized controlled trials) in HIV care and community-acquired influenza. He is a substudy PI for a Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) sponsored study of progesterone supplementation in pregnant HIV infected mothers (2014); a CIHR Grant for the study of Sex Hormone Drug Levels Induced by Antiretroviral Drugs and the Impact on Low Birth Weight (2013); and, another CHIR grant for HIV co-morbidities (2012).

He is a member of several professional organizations including the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (AMMI), Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research (CCGHR), American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).

Dr. Sameer Elsayed: Detection and tracking of antimicrobial resistance; development and implementation of molecular diagnostic assays for infectious diseases; and, identification of novel strategies that support antimicrobial stewardship initiatives.
Dr. Sarah Shalhoub: The study of infectious diseases in solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplants.
Dr. Lise Bondy: Infections in injection drug users.
Dr. Megan Devlin
Dr. Huma Saeed