Biography
Overview
George Wells, PhD, is Principal Investigator of the Cardiovascular Research Methods Centre at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and Professor in the School of Epidemiology, and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. Also at the University of Ottawa, he serves as Professor in the Department of Medicine and Senior Scientist Affiliate at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
Background
Dr. Wells has worked extensively with national and international government and non-government research organizations, as well as private pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He has been on the executive and steering committees of national and international research programs as well as on committees with the following focus: external safety and efficacy monitoring, scientific grant review, editorial, and scientific advisory. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology and on the Editorial Committee for the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Dr. Wells received the University of Ottawa Excellence in Research Award in 2014 and the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation Distinguished Scientist Award in 2007.
Dr. Wells is the author or co-author of over 900 published articles and 1000 scientific abstracts. He has been the Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on over 280 research projects with research funding exceeding $180 million. He has made numerous national and international scientific presentations. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at the university level for over 35 years and has supervised or co-supervised over 100 master or doctoral students.
Research & clinical interests
Dr. Wells’ research interests are in the design and analysis of clinical trials, statistical methodology related to disease processes and health care delivery, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, economic evaluations and the development and assessment of decision support technologies for patients and practitioners.
Latest publications
- Wells, G.A., Hsieh, S-C., Peterson, J., Zheng, C., Kelly, S. E., Shea, B. and Tugwell, P., “Etidronate for the Primary and Secondary Prevention of Osteoporotic Fractures in Postmenopausal women”. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - Musculoskeletal & Back and Neck (DOI: –
10.1002/14651858.CD003376.pub4 - October 2023), Vol. 4, No. 4, CD003376, April 2024. - Sapp, J., Tang, A., Parkash, R., Stevenson, W., Healey, J. and Wells, G.A., “A Randomized Clinical Trial of Catheter Ablation and Antiarrhythmic Drug Therapy for Suppression of Ventricular Tachycardia in Ischemic Cardiomyopathy: The VANISH2 Trial”. American Heart Journal, (E-pub ahead of print – DOI: 10.1016/j.ahj.2024.04.009 – April 2024), 2024.
- Sandner, S., Gaudino, M., Redfors, B., Angiolillo, D., Ben-Yehuda, O., Bhatt, D., Fremes, S., Lamy, A., Marano, R., Mehran, R., Pocock, S., Rao, S., Spertus, J., Weinsaft, J., Wells, G.A., and Ruel, M., “One-Month DAPT with Ticagrelor and Aspirin for Patients Undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass
Grafting: Rationale and Design of the Randomized, Multicentre, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled ODIN Trial”. Eurointervention, (DOI: 10.42244/EIJ-D-23-00699), Vol. 20, No. 5, e322-e328, March 2024. - Langlois, J., Hamstra, S., Dagenais, Y., Lemieux, R., Lecourtois, M., Yetisir, E., Bellemare, C., Bergeron, G. and Wells, G.A., “Objects Drawn from Haptic Perception and Vision-Based Spatial Abilities”. Anatomical Sciences Education, (E-pub ahead of print – DOI: 10.1002/ase.2366 – December 2023), Vol. 17, No. 2, 433-443, March 2024.
- Kelly, S., Benkhedda, K., Brooks, S., MacFarlane, A., Greene-Finestone, L., Skidmore, B., Clifford, T. and Wells, G.A., “Risk of Bias in Cross-Sectional Studies: Protocol for a Scoping Review of Concepts and Tools”. MethodsX, (E-pub ahead of print - DOI: 10.1016/j.mex.2024.102610 – June 2024), Vol. 12, No. 102610, 1-6, February 2024.
- Lewis, K., Smith, M., Stacey, D., Carley, M., Graham, I., and Cochrane Review of Patients Decision Aids Research Team (Dr. G. A. Wells a member), “Evaluation of an Integrated Knowledge Translation Approach used for Updating the Cochrane Review of Patient Decision Aids: A Pre-Post
Mixed Methods Study”. Research Involvement and Engagement, (DOI: 10.1186/s40900-024-00550-w - January 2024), Vol. 10, No. 1, 21, February 2024. - Joza, J., Nair, G., Birnie, D., Nery, P., Redpath, C., Sarrazin, J-F., Roux, J-F., Parkash, R., Bernier, M., Sterns, L., Sapp, J., Novak, P., Veenhuyzen, G., Morillo, C., Singh, S., Sadek, M., Golian, M., Klein, A., Sturmer, M., Chauhan, V., Angaran, P., Green, M., Bernick, J., Wells, G.A., Essebag, V. for the AWARE – RCT (Augmented Wide Area Circumferential Catheter Ablation for Reduction of Atrial Fibrillation Recurrence), “High-Power Short-Duration vs Low-Power Long-Duration Ablation for Pulmonary Vein Isolation: A Substudy of the AWARE Randomized Controlled Trial”. Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology, (E-pub ahead of print - DOI: 10.1111/jce.16123 – November 2023), Vol. 35, No. 1, 136-145, January 2024.
- Sapp, J., Sivakumaran, S., Redpath, C., Khan, H., Parkash, R., Exner, D., Healey, J., Thibault, B., Sterns, L., Lam, N., Manlucu, J., Mokhtar, A., Sumner, G., McKinlay, S., Kimber, S., Mondesert, B., Talajic, M., Rouleau, J., McCarron, E., Wells, G.A. and Tang, A. for the RAFT Long-Term Study
Team. “Long-Term Outcomes of the Resynchronization-Defibrillation Heart Failure Trial”. New England Journal of Medicine, (DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2304542), Vol. 390, No. 3, 212-220, January 2024.