Network Member Directory

Dr. Antonio Aviña-Zubieta completed medical school (1989) and his internal medicine training (1990-91) at the University of Guadalajara before pursuing a rheumatology fellowship at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (1991-93). After his formal training in Mexico, Dr. Aviña undertook a Clinical Research Fellowship at the University of Alberta (1993-95), and subsequently completed a Master’s Degree in Experimental Medicine at the same university (1997). He returned to Mexico City in 1998 where he established the first clinical epidemiology research unit at La Raza National Medical Center.  Here, Dr. Avina was appointed as its first head, in addition to serving as an active staff member within the department of rheumatology at the same hospital.

In 2004, Dr. Aviña received a scholarship from both the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT-MEXICO) and the Mexican Institute of Social Security to pursue his PhD at the University of British Columbia (UBC), which he completed in 2010. Following graduation, Dr. Aviña began a faculty appointment as an Assistant Professor with the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, and was granted a Network Scholar research training award from the Canadian Arthritis Network-The Arthritis Society to start his career as a new investigator. He was also named the first ever BC Lupus Society Scholar (2010), a title he continues to hold. Dr. Aviña currently mentors one PhD student, three master students, and six clinical trainees.

Dr. Aviña’s current research interests include the disease burden of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) including cardiovascular disease, costs, overall and cause specific mortality in individuals with SARDs. In order to conduct his research, Dr. Aviña has put together an administrative data cohort that includes all individuals in British Columbia with SARDs. This data includes all hospital, outpatient physician billing claims, all dispensed medications, vital statistics information, and cancer registry. It also includes laboratory test results and self-report data from survey, unique features of Dr. Aviña’s cohort that are not found in any other similar cohort across the world. Access to this one of a kind data set will allow Dr. Aviña to explore research questions that were not feasible before, leading to a deeper understanding of these diseases, the development of new strategies to prevent SARDs and their associated complications, as well as the creation of tools to help both patients and health care providers better manage SARDs. Dr. Aviña has co-authored more than 115 publications in refereed journals, book chapters, and peer reviewed abstracts, and has given presentations at a number of national and international conferences. To recognize his research program, Dr. Aviña was awarded a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar award for the maximum term of 5 years (2014-19). Currently, he is also the lead of the SARDs component of a team grant funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Dr. Cheryl Barnabe is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. She is a CIHR New Investigator and holds a CIHR Foundation Scheme Grant for her research program that is addressing arthritis care disparities for Indigenous populations in Canada. With a multidisciplinary team, collaborative and transformative health research initiatives that benefit Indigenous patients and communities, and strengthen care systems in their capacity to provide patient-centered care, are performed.

Dr. Fortin obtained his medical degree from ‘Université Laval’ in Quebec City and graduated from McGill University in Rheumatology.  He then obtained a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University School of Public Health.  He followed three years of special training in clinical epidemiology as a Harvard post-doctoral research fellow under the direction of Dr. Matthew H. Liang at the RobertBreckBrighamMulti-PurposeArthritisCenter of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  He returned as an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Medicine at McGillUniversity and to the Montreal General Hospital/McGill University Health Centre and Research Institute between 1992 and 2000, where he was funded uninterruptedly by operating grants from The Arthritis Society (TAS) and/or the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).  Dr. Fortin joined the staff of Toronto Western Division/University Health Network (UHN) and Research Institute in 2000 as a Clinician Scientist and Director of Clinical Research for the Arthritis Centre of Excellence.  He became Full Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto in 2007 and held cross-appointments as staff at the Hospital for Sick Children and as Associate Professor at the Institute of Medical Sciences and the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation of the University of Toronto.   In August 2011, he moved to Quebec City, Canada and became Full Professor with tenure at Université Laval and Clinicial Researcher at the ‘Centre de Recherche du CHU de Québec’. In February 2012, he was appointed Assistant Director for Clinical Research at the research centre.

Dr. Fortin has been working on a better understanding of the bio-psycho-social impact of chronic rheumatic diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS), systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARD), osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. He is particularly interested in developing interventions for the treatment of SLE, APS and SARD.

His methodological interests cover the development and validation of health status measures and other clinical tools such as measures of disease activity or damage in SLE.  His other methodological interests include the development of risk profiles for arterial or venous thrombosis in APS, the testing of treatments of disease activity or cardiovascular disease in SLE, or the validation of biological markers in osteoarthritis. 

In 1995, he created the Canadian Network for Improved Outcomes in SLE (CaNIOS) with the specific goal of running a multi-centre, randomized, and controlled Study of Methotrexate in Lupus Erythematosus (SMILE).  CaNIOS brought together many lupus experts who, despite their limited individual cohorts, were able to pool information for the completion of SMILE.  CaNIOS is now conducting several CIHR and TAS funded national studies, including the recently funded project on ‘Empowering Patients as Active Partners in Their Care: Lupus Interactive Navigator (LIN)’, ‘The Dissemination of the Lupus Health Passport’, ‘Health Improvement and Prevention Program for Persons with SLE’ (HIPP study), and ‘Lupus Nephritis New Emerging Team’ (LuNNET), ‘

Dr Fortin received the Kirkland Scholar Award in 2007, and he received the prestigious Distinguished Senior Research Investigator Award from The Arthritis Society of Canada.  In 2010, he received the Hope Award from the Lupus Ontario to recognize his outstanding leadership in improving the lives of people with lupus. In July 2012, he received a tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases.

Dr. Jacek Kopec is a professor in the School of Population and Public Health, UBC, and Head, Division of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health Practice. He is also a Senior Scientist at Arthritis Research Canada and is affiliated with the UBC Department of Medicine, Centre for Hip Health and Mobility, Institute for Work and Health in Toronto, and NRG Oncology in the US.

Dr. Kopec earned his MD degree from the Pomeranian Medical University in Poland and his PhD from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McGill University. His scholastic achievements have been recognized with the National Health Research Scholar Award from Health Canada and the Senior Scholar Award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.

Dr. Kopec has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals. His main areas of research are musculoskeletal epidemiology, quality of life studies, and population health. Dr. Kopec has taught courses in epidemiology, measurement methods and survey design. He has supervised or co-supervised more than 30 graduate students.

Diane Lacaille MD MHSc FRCPC

Diane Lacaille is a Professor in the Division of Rheumatology at the University of British Columbia, and a senior scientist at Arthritis Research Canada, in Vancouver. She is affiliated with Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Center and she has a rheumatology practice in Richmond, BC. She holds the Mary Pack Chair in Arthritis Research from UBC and The Arthritis Society of Canada. She completed medical school and internal medicine training at Mc Gill University in Montreal, and her Rheumatology training and a Master’s in Health Sciences, clinical epidemiology, at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on two areas: 1) Studying the impact of arthritis on employment and preventing work disability. 2) Evaluating the quality of health care services received by people with RA, using a population-based cohort of RA for the province of BC. Her research has been supported by peer reviewed grants from the Canadian Institute for Health and Research, the Canadian Arthritis Network, The Arthritis Society of Canada and the Canadian Rheumatology Association. She was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal in 2013 for her research contributions.

Dr. Lisa Lix is Professor and Manitoba Research Chair and Director of Data Science within the George and Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation at the University of Manitoba. She was Centennial Chair in the School of Public Health at the University of Saskatchewan prior to this (2008 – 2012).

Dr. Lix’s areas of research expertise include health services research methods, statistical methods for evaluation of the quality of administrative health databases, the analysis of repeated measures and longitudinal data, and robust statistical methods for patient-reported outcomes. She collaborates widely on projects about population health and the association between chronic disease and quality of life. Dr. Lix has extensive experience working with administrative health databases from multiple provinces and this has provided her with unique insights into new methodological research opportunities. She is currently leading a three-year Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-funded project that will conduct comparative investigations of the quality of physician billing claims databases from Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

The excellence of Dr. Lix’s research program has been recognized through the following provincial and national awards: Manitoba Research Chair (2012 – 2017), University of Saskatchewan Centennial Chair (2008 – 2012), Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation Top New Socio-Health Investigator (2009), and CIHR New Investigator Award (2006 – 2011).

Larry Svenson is the Director of Epidemiology and Surveillance for the Alberta Ministry of Health. He also is an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary and with the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta.  Larry is a member of numerous advisory committees to the Public Health Agency of Canada in the areas of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, mental health, chronic respiratory diseases, and neurological conditions.  

Larry’s current research interests are focused on the development of surveillance systems for communicable and non-communicable diseases and the application of evidence to the development and evaluation of policies and programs.

Dr. Thorne is on the Consultant Staff at Southlake Regional Health Care in Newmarket, Ontario, and Director of The Arthritis Program; this is a unique inter/trans-disciplinary program established to optimize outcomes for people who have arthritis and other rheumatic disorders. He is active in patient education, having established an Inflammatory Arthritis Program, Osteoarthritis Program, Fibromyalgia Program, JRA Program, as well as an Osteoporosis Program.  He has worked extensively with the Arthritis Society including on the Web Site “arthritis.ca”. He has been involved in establishing Outreach Programs (Kenora, Ontario) and instrumental in setting up Arthritis Care Programs in other Centers; including The Barrie Arthritis Program at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie ON.

He is sought for his expertise in developing Outcome Based clinical Programs, not only in Arthritis Care, but also Shared Care in a Comprehensive Musculoskeletal Program, Wound Management and NeuroRehab/Stroke Care. These programs have resulted in measured improved standardized outcomes for patients, and for the improved reduction in hospital utilization  and Length of Stay (Best Practice)

He is active in Clinical Research as Principal Investigator with The Arthritis Program Research Group Inc., assisting in Canadian as well as International Studies of new therapeutic agents as well as projects to better describe types of arthritis and their care. As part of a strategic interest in identifying ‘Best Practices’, he has established an Early Arthritis Clinic, collaborating with a national initiative (CATCH), and an Osteoporosis Intervention Clinic, establishing a unique collaboration with Osteoporosis Canada and the Ontario Osteoporosis Strategy. He sits on the Steering  and Scientific Ctte of the Ontario Biologic Research Initiative, a collaborative attempt among stakeholders to describe and disseminate outcomes and best practices, in the management of Rheumatoid Arthritis. He is past-President of the Canadian Rheumatology Association (2012-2014) and is past-Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Rheumatology Association (1995-2004); and past Treasurer of PANLAR (Pan American League of The Association of Rheumatologists (2002-2006); founding member of the Ontario Rheumatology Association and past-President (2008); and past Chair of the Simcoe York District Health Council.  He is a lecturer in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto.  He holds a Fellowship with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology, and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and American College of Rheumatology.

Dr. Thorne has had the opportunity to provide advice on Arthritis Care to Governmental Agencies, The Arthritis Society and the Pharmaceutical Industry, including but not exclusive with today’s sponsor. He has participated in Guidelines development and co-authored the chapter on Rheumatoid Arthritis in the third edition of Therapeutic Choices (2000).

Dr. Tucker is a pediatric rheumatologist and clinical researcher at the BC Children’s Hospital.   Her research interests include physical activity in juvenile arthritis, long term outcomes of childhood onset rheumatic diseases, transition of youth with rheumatic diseases to adult health care, and juvenile onset systemic lupus.  She plays a leading role in the Canadian pediatric rheumatology research network, CAPRI, and collaborates with other pediatric rheumatology research networks in the US and Europe.

Jessica Widdifield is a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University in Montreal and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto. She received her PhD in 2013 in Health Outcomes & Evaluations in Health Services Research at the University of Toronto, Institute of Health Policy, Management, & Evaluation. She is a Banting Scholar and also funded by The Arthritis Society.

 

Her research to date has focused on population-based epidemiological assessments of autoimmune diseases, including pharmacoepidemiology and evaluating processes of care and quality care (such as timely access to specialists & access to treatments). Much of her work involves improving methods for rheumatology research and surveillance using health administrative databases, electronic medical records and data linkages.