(Edmonton) Just back after 24 hours of travel from Africa overseeing clinical fieldwork in Uganda, Michael Hawkes looks bright-eyed and ready to tackle his next appointment. Hawkes is a graduate of the University of Alberta (MD '01, pediatrics residency '04) and, after some time away for training opportunities he is back on campus with his dream job in translational research as an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics.
Hawkes developed an interest in global health early in his career. "I went to Guyana, South America, with the Students' International Health Association in the first year of medical school," he explains. "That experience got me interested in issues of poverty, development and health." Further interest in tropical medicine led him to international electives and training in Peru, India and Africa.
A series of opportunities led Hawkes to the University of Toronto for further study and then brought him back to the University of Alberta for good. After a pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at the U of T, he completed a PhD there with nationally renowned malaria and tuberculosis researcher Kevin Kain. Hawkes worked on a project based in Uganda that morphed into a postdoctoral fellowship as a result of his work on a two-year randomized controlled trial of a novel treatment for malaria.
"The faculty position here at the U of A is perfectly suited to me," says Hawkes. "It's a combination of clinical work at the hospital, plus a focus on research that allows me to continue with biomedical work at the U of A and keep my hand in the clinical trials and translation of those findings to developing worlds."
In addition to working in an outpatient clinic at the Stollery Children's Hospital, Hawkes maintains a lab at the U of A and is working with collaborators Stephanie Yanow (School of Public Health) and Lorne Tyrrell (Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology) on developing protocols for studies on malaria. Start-up funds from the Department of Pediatrics and the Women's and Children's Health Research Institute (WCHRI) are enabling a project to look at the mechanism underlying brain involvement in cerebral malaria. Another project focuses on developing a model for malaria vaccine research.
Grand Challenges Canada has granted Hawkes two Stars in Global Health awards, one to develop solar-powered oxygen delivery for pneumonia treatment and the most recent to develop a finger prick test to replace the chest x-ray for pneumonia diagnostics. Both research projects target the developing world, where resources are scarce or unreliable and where the majority of the 2.1 million pneumonia deaths worldwide occur.
The energy and enthusiasm Hawkes has for his work is infectious, pardon the pun. "I am really lucky to have this job," he says with a smile.