Biography
Earl G. Brown is an Emeritus Professor, in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa. Currently including as an affiliated scientist with the Neuroscience Program of the Ottawa Hospital Research institute, in the Parkinson’s Disease laboratory of Dr Michael Schlossmacher.
Dr. Brown obtained a B.Sc. in Microbiology at the University of Guelph in 1974 and a Ph.D. in virology from McMaster University in 1981. He obtained postdoctoral training in reovirus genetics in Dr. B.N. Fields laboratory, Harvard Medical School. Dr Brown then took a Research Scientist position in the Influenza Section, Laboratory Centre for Disease Control, Health Canada, before moving to the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Ottawa in 1989. While at the University of Ottawa he pursued genetic studies of RNA viruses with a focus on evolution of virulence in influenza virus, reovirus replication and oncolysis, and hepatitis C immune evasion. He is a founding member of the Canadian Oncolytic Virus Consortium that is developing viruses as novel tumor therapeutics. He was also the founding Executive Director of the University of Ottawa for Emerging Pathogens Research Centre (EPRC). Dr. Brown is an internationally recognized influenza researcher who sat on various committees and institutional groups (CIHR workshop on influenza research priorities 2005; CIHR Pandemic Preparedness Strategic Research Initiative Task group; Organizing and program committee Chair of the 2008 of Canadian Pandemic Preparedness Meeting ; Pandemic H5N1 Vaccine Working Group of the Public Health Agency of Canada; ) dealing with influenza pandemic preparedness. Dr Brown is also an active spokesman on virology and infectious diseases with national and international broadcasting and print media.
Selected Publications
- Lrrk2 alleles modulate inflammation during microbial infection of mice in a sex-dependent manner. Shutinoski B, Hakimi M, Harmsen IE, Lunn M, Rocha J, Lengacher N, Zhou YY, Khan J, Nguyen A, Hake-Volling Q, El-Kodsi D, Li J, Alikashani A, Beauchamp C, Majithia J, Coombs K, Shimshek D, Marcogliese PC, Park DS, Rioux JD, Philpott DJ, Woulfe JM, Hayley S, Sad S, Tomlinson JJ, Brown EG, Schlossmacher MG.Sci Transl Med. 2019 Sep 25;11(511):eaas9292. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aas9292.PMID: 31554740
- Sikora D, Rocheleau L, Brown EG, Pelchat M. Deep sequencing reveals the eight facets of the influenza A/HongKong/1/1968 (H3N2) virus cap-snatching process. Sci Rep. 2014 Aug 26;4:6181. doi: 10.1038/srep06181. PMID:25154590.
- Gauvin L, Bennett S, Liu H, Hakimi M, Schlossmacher M, Majithia J, Brown EG. Respiratory infection of mice with mammalian reoviruses causes systemic infection with age and strain dependent pneumonia and encephalitis. Virol J. 2013 Mar 1;10:67. doi: 10.1186/1743-422X-10-67.
- Doyle TM, Jaentschke B, Van Domselaar G, Hashem AM, Farnsworth A, Forbes NE, Li C, Wang J, He R, Brown EG, Li X. The universal epitope of influenza A viral neuraminidase fundamentally contributes to enzyme activity and viral replication. J Biol Chem. 2013 Jun 21;288(25):18283-9. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M113.468884. PMID: 23645684
- Selman, M., Dankar, S.K., Forbes, N.E., Jia, J.J., & Brown, E.G. Adaptive mutation in influenza A virus non-structural gene is linked to host switching and induces a novel protein by alternative splicing. Emerging Microbes and Infections 1, e42 (2012).
- Ping J, Selman M, Tyler S, Forbes N, Keleta L, Brown E. 2012 Low pathogenic avian influenza virus A/Turkey/Ontario/6213/1966(H5N1) is the progenitor of highly pathogenic A/Turkey/Ontario/7732/1966(H5N9). J Gen Virol. 2012 93(8):1649-57. Epub doi: 10.1099/vir.0.042895-0. 2012 May 16.
- Hu YW, Rocheleau L, Larke B, Chui L, Lee B, Ma M, Liu S, Omlin T, Pelchat M, Brown EG. Immunoglobulin mimicry by Hepatitis C Virus envelope protein E2. Virology. 2005 Feb 20; 332(2):538-49.
- David F. Stojdl, Brian D. Lichty, Benjamin R. tenOever, Jennifer M. Paterson, Anthony T. Power, Shane Knowles, Ricardo Marius, Jennifer Reynard, Laurent Poliquin, Harold Atkins, Earl G. Brown, Russell K. Durbin, Joan E. Durbin, John Hiscott, and John C. Bell. (2003) VSV strains with defects in their ability to shutdown innate immunity are potent systemic anti-cancer agents. Cancer Cell, Vol 4, 263-275.
- Ping J, Keleta L, Forbes NE, Dankar S, Stecho W, Tyler S, Zhou Y, Babiuk L, Weingartl H, Halpin RA, Boyne A, Bera J, Hostetler J, Fedorova NB, Proudfoot K, Katzel DA, Stockwell TB, Ghedin E, Spiro DJ, Brown EG. Genomic and protein structural maps of adaptive evolution of human influenza a virus to increased virulence in the mouse. PLoS One. 2011;6(6):e21740. Epub 2011 Jun 30.