Soren Gantt
Dr. Soren Gantt is a Canadian pediatric infectious diseases epidemiologist based in Montreal, Quebec. He is notable in the COVID-19 pandemic due to his position with the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) when COVID-19 vaccines were first authorized in Canada.
Education
Gantt obtained a Bachelor of Sciences with Honours in Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. He then received M.D. and Ph.D. degrees through the Medical Scientist Training Program at New York University School of Medicine, where he worked on malaria vaccine development in the Department of Immunology. Dr. Gantt then completed a residency in Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases Fellowship, and a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital, addressing transmission and pathogenesis of HIV and herpes viruses.
Affiliations
Gantt received an National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pediatric Research Loan Repayment Program Award in 2003. In 2006, he was recognized as a scholar with the NIH Roadmap Clinical Research Career Development Program.
Gantt is former Head of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of British Columbia and Director of Clinical Research at BC Children’s Hospital. He departed Vancouver in July 2020.1)
Gantt is employed as a research and professor by the University of Montreal.2) He is a Pediatric Infectious Diseases specialist and director of clinical research at CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center.3) He serves as CHU Sainte-Justine's investigator for the MUHC Vaccine Study Centre alongside Caroline Quach-Trahn.4)
COVID-19
Gantt served as a member of Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) when COVID-19 vaccines were first approved in Canada. He later declared receiving funding from Pfizer and Moderna, whose vaccines he helped approve. Shockingly, he further discloses that he received funding for a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine trial, investigating its use in babies.5) 6) 7) He reported additional funding from Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Altona Diagnostics.8)
In a paper published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Gantt describes receiving consulting fees related to vaccines from Moderna, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Curevo Vaccine; research funding for vaccine research from Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and VBI Vaccines; and research funding for a COVID-19 vaccine trial from Symvivo.9)
1)
Wasserman, W. (2020, February 12). Farewell to Dr. Soren Gantt | Department of Pediatrics. University of British Columbia. https://archive.ph/fCDZ8
2)
Université de Montréal. Soren Gantt. Département de Microbiologie, Infectiologie et Immunologie. Retrieved April 16, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20220417050458/https://microbiologie.umontreal.ca/recherche/professeurs-chercheurs/soren-gantt/
3)
Biography. (2020). CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. https://web.archive.org/web/20210603074958/https://www.chusj.org/Bio?id=b3e2368d-ae9a-4f08-a8c3-c694adbb0bda&lang=en
4)
About. MUHC Vaccine Center. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://archive.ph/MX0cf
5)
Montreal clinical trial to vaccinate babies with COVID-19 shot. (2021, December 3). City News Montreal. https://web.archive.org/web/20220417174636/https://montreal.citynews.ca/video/2021/12/03/montreal-clinical-trial-to-vaccinate-babies-with-covid-19-shot/
6)
Sherwin, C. (2021, November 26). Babies and toddlers are getting COVID-19 vaccines in Montreal as part of a clinical trial. CTV News. https://archive.ph/u08Zc
7)
Lebatteux, D., Soudeyns, H., Boucoiran, I., Gantt, S., & Diallo, A. B. (2022). Machine learning-based approach KEVOLVE efficiently identifies SARS-CoV-2 variant-specific genomic signatures. bioRxiv. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.07.479343
8)
Byrne, C., Coombs, D., & Gantt, S. (2022). Modestly protective cytomegalovirus vaccination of young children effectively prevents congenital infection at the population level. medRxiv. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.03.24.22272898
9)
Abu-Raya, B., Gantt, S., & Sadarangani, M. (2020). Challenges in evaluating SARS-CoV-2 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian Medical Association Journal, cmaj.201237. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.201237