Dr. Valia Lestou
GE³LS Research, UBC Centre for Disease Control
Univeristy of British Columbia

Project: Functional Genomics for Emerging Infectious Diseases (PREPARE)
GE³LS Research: Understanding the Role of Experts in Risk Communication [details]

Dr. Lestou is currently a GE³LS researcher at the BC CDC and UBC staff (research and management) in the Department of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Lestou studied Biology in Vienna, Austria. She has a Masters in Biochemistry and a PhD in Cell Biology at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her thesis elaborated on the effects of viral infection in human cells. Dr. Lestou's scientific background and research is in human genetics and she completed her medical genetics training at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (CCMG/ACMG accreditation program).

For the last six years Dr. Lestou has been involved in bioethics, is a member and scientific reviewer for the UBC clinical research ethics review board (CREB), is a member of the Genome BC educational committee, is appointed by the EU and the Greek Republic Ministry of Development for Research and Technology as a scientific and ethics expert advisor. Dr. Lestou has lectured in numerous countries and taught at the BCIT, UBC, the University of Manitoba, University of Nebraska Medical Center, University Health Network, and U of T.

As a member of the PREPARE project, Dr. Lestou is part of the highly interdisciplinary LASER team and is currently investigating ways for an efficient, effective and ethical risk communication. Her goal is to create an effective toolkit, which would be applied to support a scientific and ethically valuable communication and policy implementation strategies.


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