Katherine Plewes

Katherine Plewes is a Canadian Adult Infectious Diseases specialist and Clinical Investigator at MORU as an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow in Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford. After annual electives from 2002 to 2006 at SMRU, she was inspired to pursue clinical research focused on the pathophysiology and treatment of malaria joining the team in Bangladesh from 2007. From 2011-2016, she completed her DPhil in Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford focused on the pathophysiology of malaria-associated AKI and conducted a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of paracetamol as a renoprotective therapy in severe falciparum malaria. Demonstrating that paracetamol reduces kidney dysfunction generated the pivotal results and impetus for her leading the current RCT evaluating the renoprotective effect of paracetamol in children with severe malaria conducted at KIMORU, Democratic Republic of the Congo; funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Project Grant.

As Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Health Professional-Investigator, she is a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, College of Physician and Surgeons of BC, and American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. She fulfills roles as the UBC Tropical and Geographic Medicine Intensive Short Course co-director, Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) Canadian Advisory on Tropical Medicine and Travel (CATMAT) committee member, PHAC Canadian Malaria Network BC designate physician, and GeoSentinel Global Surveillance Network Vancouver site director.