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Matthew Tunis

Dr. Matthew Tunis, PhD, BSc is a Canadian immunization and respiratory diseases specialist based in Ottawa, Ontario. He is notable in the COVID-19 pandemic due to his role on the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) during the approval process of the first COVID-19 vaccines.

Education

Tunis attended the University of British Columbia (UBC) for his Bachelor of Science, Integrated Sciences from 2002-2006. He then moved to Dalhousie University where he completed a Doctor of Philosophy program in microbiology and immunology.

He was certified by Medavie HealthEd after training as a paramedic in 2012-2013.

Affiliations

Dalhousie University

After completing his PhD research studies, Tunis was a research assistant at Dalhousie University, where he “designed, carried out, and interpreted results of animal studies investigating food allergy and basic immunology.”

Emergency Health Services Nova Scotia

From July 2013 to July 2014, Tunis was a primary care paramedic with Emergency Health Services Nova Scotia.

Public Health Agency of Canada

Tunis has served as the executive secretary on the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) since August 2018, employed by the Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases under the Public Health Agency of Canada.1) He also serves as a Scientific Project Coordinator, having started the role in September 2015. Prior to that, he was a research analyst.2)

In December 2018, he co-delivered a presentation with Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh at the Canadian Immunization Conference titled “What's new with NACI?” describing the recent expansion of NACI's roles and responsibilities.3) 4)

University of Ottawa

Tunis is an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health.5)

Research

Funding

Tunis has received research funding from AllerGen, the Canadian Institutes of Health Reseach (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).6) 7) He received funding from NACI research on RSV.8)

COVID-19

Tunis is a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) COVID-19 Vaccines Working Group, acting as a primary liaison member on behalf of NACI.9) 10) 11)

He co-authored a study titled “Enhancing COVID-19 vaccination intentions by eliciting altruistic motives in younger adults: Evaluating the efficacy of a brief video intervention”, funded by a grant from the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4).12)

1)
National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI): Membership and representation. (2020, December 18). Wayback Machine; Government of Canada. https://web.archive.org/web/20201218222110/https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/immunization/national-advisory-committee-on-immunization-naci/naci-membership-representation.html
2)
Matthew Tunis, PhD. LinkedIn. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-tunis-phd-a0b17287/
4)
Quach-Thanh, C., & Tunis, M. (2018, December 5). What’s new with NACI? Canadian Immunization Conference. https://web.archive.org/web/20220418234836/http://cic2018.isilive.ca/files/270/Matthew%20Tunis.pdf
5)
University of Ottawa. Tunis, Matthew. Department of Epidemiology. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://archive.ph/BG7ni
6)
Tunis, M. C., Dawod, B., Carson, K. R., Veinotte, L. L., & Marshall, J. S. (2015). Toll‐like receptor 2 activators modulate oral tolerance in mice. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 45(11), 1690–1702. https://doi.org/10.1111/cea.12605
7)
Tunis, M. C., & Marshall, J. S. (2014). Toll-Like Receptor 2 as a Regulator of Oral Tolerance in the Gastrointestinal Tract. Mediators of Inflammation, 2014, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/606383
8)
Wingert, A., Pillay, J., Moore, D. L., Vandermeer, B., Dyson, M. P., Sinilaite, A., Tunis, M., & Hartling, L. (2021). Burden of illness in infants and young children hospitalized for respiratory syncytial virus: A rapid review. Canada Communicable Disease Report, 47(09), 381–396. https://doi.org/10.14745/ccdr.v47i09a05
9)
Bell, B. P. (2020, August 26). ACIP COVID-19 Vaccines Work Group. CDC Stacks. https://web.archive.org/web/20220419011634/https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/93435
10)
Wallace, M., Moulia, D., Blain, A. E., Ricketts, E. K., Minhaj, F. S., Link-Gelles, R., Curran, K. G., Hadler, S. C., Asif, A., Godfrey, M., Hall, E., Fiore, A., Meyer, S., Su, J. R., Weintraub, E., Oster, M. E., Shimabukuro, T. T., Campos-Outcalt, D., Morgan, R. L., & Bell, B. P. (2022). The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ Recommendation for use of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in adults aged ≥18 years and considerations for extended intervals for administration of primary series doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines — United States, February 2022. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 71(11), 416–421. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7111a4
11)
Woodworth, K. R., Moulia, D., Collins, J. P., Hadler, S. C., Jones, J. M., Reddy, S. C., Chamberland, M., Campos-Outcalt, D., Morgan, R. L., Brooks, O., Talbot, H. K., Lee, G. M., Bell, B. P., Daley, M. F., Mbaeyi, S., Dooling, K., & Oliver, S. E. (2021). The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ Interim Recommendation for Use of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine in Children Aged 5–11 Years — United States, November 2021. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 70(45), 1579–1583. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7045e1
12)
Zhu, P., Tatar, O., Griffin-Mathieu, G., Perez, S., Haward, B., Zimet, G., Tunis, M., Dubé, È., & Rosberger, Z. (2022). Enhancing COVID-19 vaccination intentions by eliciting altruistic motives in younger adults: Evaluating the efficacy of a brief video intervention (Preprint). https://doi.org/10.2196/preprints.37328
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