Robbin Lindsay
MSc, PhD
Robbin Lindsay received his PhD from the University of Guelph on the factors that limit the distribution of the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, the main vector of Lyme disease, in Canada in 1995. Shortly thereafter he was hired as a research scientist with the Public Health Agency of Canada, Zoonotic Diseases and Special Pathogens section of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Activities performed at the NML focus on diagnostics, surveillance and basic/applied research on a wide variety of zoonotic diseases in Canada including tick-, mosquito- and rodent-borne zoonosis.
Dr. Lindsay’s team at the NML has been actively involved in tick surveillance across Canada for several decades and critical data related to geographic range of vector ticks, infection prevalence and strain diversity of a variety of tick-associated pathogens (including the agent of Lyme disease) has been generated. This information has also been used to validate risk models and populate risk maps for exposure to tick-borne pathogens in Canada. Expertise on pathogen detection (i.e., bacterial isolation, PCR) and characterisation methodologies (MLST and whole genome sequencing) will be shared within the research network under the Diagnostics Pillar 1 along with this Dr. Lindsay will make contributions to environmental surveillance for ticks and their associated pathogens and risk reduction strategies under the Prevention and risk reduction Pillar 2.