Suzanne Lewis

FCCMG, FRCPC, MD

Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Director, Autism SPectrum Interdisciplinary REsearch (ASPIRE) Program
Chair, iTARGET Autism (www.itargetautism.ca)
Co-Chair, Autism Canada
Chief Medical Officer & VP Research, Pacific Autism Family Network (PAFN; pacificautismfamily.com)

Dr. Lewis' 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, Dr. 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. Examples include newly recognized ASD/ID syndromes involving genes integral to 1q21, 2p15.1-16, 5p15.2, 7q11.2, 15q11-q13, 16p11.2, 18p12 and Xp11.2. International collaborative work also led to identifying the now important Aristaless (ARX) gene as the disease-specific gene causing childhood myoclonic epilepsy and X-linked Intellectual Disability (XLID; West Syndrome), accounting for ~10% of all XLID globally (Nature Genetics, April, 2002).

Dr. Lewis is Director of the UBC-based iTARGET (individualized Treatments for Autism Recovery using Genetic and Environmental Targets) Project, and in partnership with Genome BC, Autism Speaks, the BC Genome Sciences Center and the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, her team's descriptions of clinical (phenome) and biological (genome, metabolome, microbiome, proteome and exposome) associations with the symptom-based diagnosis of autism have delineated its many different forms due to its many different causes; hence more appropriately defining a precision medicine approach to understanding "The Autisms." Such work has advanced innovative endophenotyping approaches including 3D craniofacial digital imaging to delineate atypical face-brain asymmetry – now recognized as an etiologically informative subtype of ASDs since publication of this seminal work [Molecular Psychiatry 2008 [June]: 13(6):614-623De]. 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, Dr. 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.