Dr. Robert Conrad Brunham is a professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at UBC. He is also head of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and is an internationally recognized authority on infectious diseases.

Dr. Brunham approach links active research with public health decision-making. This approach was successfully demonstrated when he led B.C.’s tactical and strategic response during the 2003 SARS crisis, and during the avian influenza outbreak and the second wave of pandemic H1N1.

A B.C. native and a UBC graduate, Dr. Brunham’s academic career began at the University of Manitoba where he led the Department of Medical Microbiology and helped develop global collaboration.

As a direct result of his work with a maternity hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, Dr. Brunham helped discover that administering antimicrobial drops into a newborn baby’s eyes prevents infection which can cause blindness. This is now standard procedure worldwide.

Dr. Brunham’s research centres on the immunology and epidemiology of sexually transmitted diseases and on the origins of emerging infectious diseases. Much of his research deals with Chlamydia and developing a vaccine for it.

Dr. Brunham has received international recognition and awards including the 2004 Thomas Parran Award from the American Sexually Transmitted Disease Association, the 2005 CIHR Partnership Award for leadership in the SARS Accelerated Vaccine Initiative, and the Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology Nicole Award in 2007.