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Biography
Suzanne Lewis is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia. She is Investigator, BC Children's Hospital; Director, Autism SPectrum Interdisciplinary REsearch (ASPIRE) Program Chair, iTARGET Autism; Co-Chair, Autism Canada; and Chief Medical Officer & VP Research, Pacific Autism Family Network. Her clinical research interests are founded and strengthened through longstanding multidisciplinary team engagement with colleagues locally, nationally, and internationally, in the characterization of novel clinical genetic and genomic syndromes contributing to autism spectrum and related neurodevelopmental disorders. This work underscores the significant value of discovering new knowledge learned via the two-way translation of work between the laboratory and patient care in the clinic. As an investigator and Clinical Professor in the Provincial Programme for Medical Genetics at BC Children’s Hospital and UBC, Chief Medical Officer & Vice President of Research at the Pacific Autism Family Network (PAFN) and Director of the BC Autism Spectrum Interdisciplinary Research (ASPIRE) Program, Lewis leads a collaborative team which has discovered several new genomic (single nucleotide-/copy number-variant; SNV/CNV) syndromes and has described their detailed clinical phenotypes.
Lewis’ contributions to the autism community have been recognized through a CIHR Clinician Investigator Award, Career Clinician Scholar Award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR) and a B.C. Children’s Hospital Research Institute Investigator Grant Award (IGAP). As a Principal Investigator (PI) on many grants , Lewis has helped lead and secure major research funding through the CIHR, MSFHR, BCCHRI, Genome BC, Vancouver Foundation, US Dept. of Defense Autism Research Program, Autism Speaks, BC Knowledge Development Fund, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and Federal Treasury Board, raising collectively over $27M to bolster interdisciplinary autism training, research, knowledge exchange and translation to personalized health applications.