Dr. Philip Awadalla

Philip Awadalla, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Population and Medical Genomics in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal, and is the Executive Scientific Director of the CARTaGENE project. He was trained at the University of Edinburgh, and has now developed a population and medical genomics group whose main research interests have focused on the development of next-generation genomics approaches, model-based tools and population-based approaches to study disease. These tools have been used in analyses of the Human HapMap project and the 1000 Genomes Project publications. New tools focus on systems genomics approaches, including genomic, transcriptomic and other molecular approaches to capture signal in population-based samples as well tools to capture rare or de novo variants potentially critical to disease phenotypes. His main research interests include: 1) genomic epidemiology of chronic diseases in Quebec through the CARTaGENE project; 2) the genetic and environmental control points of developing world disorders such as sickle cell anemia and infectious diseases such as malaria; and 3) developing -omic approaches to identify causal variants and discover biomarkers for childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, immunodeficiencies and cancers. He currently holds a Genome Quebec/MDEIE Recruitment Award and the 2012 Joe Doupe, Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, Investigator of the Year Award.