Dr. Timothy Booth

Director of the Viral Disease Division

Responsible for his Division’s staff and budget, supervises multiple labs; research focuses on viruses, intervention, and prevention of viruses.

Public Health Agency of Canada

Current research and/or projects

Dr. Booth acts as Director of influenza and respiratory viruses, Viral exanthemata, and Viral STDs sections and the Chief of Enterovirus and enteric viruses, and Diagnostic Imaging and Microscopy sections of the National Microbiology Lab.

Dr. Booth’s work forms three main themes: surveillance, genomics, and evolution of viruses and their impact on populations; basic research into structure and function of viruses and their replication and immune evasion mechanisms; and medical intervention strategies, including the development and use of vaccines and antivirals for infectious disease prevention and control.

Research and/or project statements

Directly responsible for the Division's 55 staff and $ 3.2m salaries).
Supervises the following:
- Canada's WHO (World Health Organisation) National Influenza Centre
- The PAHO/WHO National Polio Laboratory
- The PAHO/WHO Measles and Rubella Regional Reference Laboratory
Involved in the development of cryo-electron microscopy since 1990 and a founding member of the Royal Microscopical Society cryo-microscopy group.
Team achievements include:
- Isolation of the SARS coronavirus in 2003;
- Identification and rapid sequencing of the pandemic H1N1 virus in 2009
- Identification of the first two North American cases of avian influenza virus H7N9 infection in 2013
- Confirmation of the first human case of H5N1 bird flu in North America in 2013.
Published 100 peer-reviewed publications on the topics of viral diseases, public health, and vector biology.

Professional activities / interests

Undertake supervision of one to two graduate students in Medical Microbiology.

Member of the Global Polio Eradication group for the Pan-American Health Organization and for Canada.

Education and awards

Education:

PhD University of Greenwich/Wellcome Research Laboratories, London, United Kingdom, 1985

BSc (Hons.) Applied Biology (Animal Physiology), University of Bath, United Kingdom, 1981

Awards:

Dr. Andres Petrasovits Award for Excellence in Public Health, 2013. Member of the H5N1 Event Response Team for the work on the first case of H5N1 imported into North America.

Public Health Agency of Canada H1N1 team award, 2009.

Health Canada Special Team Excellence Award, SARS response, 2003.

Additional links

University of Manitoba:

http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/health_sciences/medicine/units/medical_microbiology/faculty/tim_booth.html

Research gate:

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/38920373_Timothy_F_Booth

Key publications

Beniac, D. R., Lamboo, L. L., and Booth, T. F. (2018) Filovirus Filament Proteins. Subcellular Biochemistry, Vol. 88, J. Robin Harris and David Bhella (Eds): Virus Protein and Nucleoprotein Complexes, 978-981-10-8455-3, 421228_1_En, (4) Springer.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8456-0_4

Beniac, D. R. and Booth, T. F. Structure of the Ebola virus glycoprotein spike within the virion envelope at 11 Å resolution. 2017 Nature Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 46374.

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46374

Golding, C.G., Lamboo, L.L., Beniac, D.R., Booth, T.F. The scanning electron microscope in microbiology and diagnosis of infectious disease. 2016 Scientific Reports, 6, 26516.

http://doi.org/10.1038/srep26516

Rotondo, J., Desai, S., Pless, R., (...), Squires, S., Booth, T.F. Acute flaccid paralysis surveillance: The need for ruling out polio infection. 2015 Paediatrics and Child Health (Canada), 20(6), pp. 309-310.

http://doi.org/10.1093/pch/20.6.309

Beniac, D.R., Booth Structure of the Ebola virus, T.F. Electron microscopy of suspicious samples and infectious specimens: Research and diagnostics. 2014 Microscopy and Microanalysis, 20(3), pp. 1172-1173.

http://doi.org/10.1017/S1431927614007594

LeBlanc, J. L., Pettipas,J., Gaston, D., Taylor, R., Hatchette,T.F., Booth, T. F., Mandes,R., McDermid, A. and Grudesk, E. (2016). Outbreak of Norovirus GII.P17-GII.17 in the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia. Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology. Volume 2016 (2016), Article ID 1280247.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/1280247

Majer A, Caligiuri KA, Gale KK, Niu Y, Phillipson CS, Booth TF, Booth A. SInduction of Multiple miR-200/182 Members in the Brains of Mice Are Associated with Acute Herpes Simplex Virus 1 Encephalitis. PLoS One. 2017 Jan 3;12(1):e0169081.

http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169081

Boese AS, Saba R, Campbell K, Majer A, Medina S, Burton L, Booth TF, Chong P, Westmacott G, Dutta SM, Saba JA, Booth SA. MicroRNA abundance is altered in synaptoneurosomes during prion disease. Mol Cell Neurosci. 2016 Mar;71:13-24.

http://doi.org/10.1016/j.mcn.2015.12.001

Peci A, Winter AL, Warshawsky B, Booth TF, Eshaghi A, Li A, Perusini S, Olsha R, Marchand-Austin A, Kristjanson E, Gubbay JB. Epidemiology of Enterovirus D68 in Ontario. PLoS One. 2015 Nov 23;10(11):e0142841.

http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0142841

Booth TF, Grudeski E, McDermid A, and Rotondo J. The polio eradication endgame: Why immunization and continued surveillance is critical. 2015 Canada Communicable Disease Report. Oct 1; 41-10:233-240.

https://doi.org/41. 233-240. 10.14745/ccdr.v41i10a03.