Alicia Berard, PhD

Research summary

Dr. Berard’s research program is related to female reproductive health, mucosal biology, immunology, and the microbiome, where she works with international human cohorts to study infection and diseases in the female genital tract, utilizing multi-omic tools of systems biology and in vitro co-culture model systems. 

As part of her work, she is one of the founding members of the THRIVE study umbrella, which focuses on investigating “The role of Host-bacterial Relationships and Immune function in different Vaginal Environments”. She is currently co-investigator on several CHIR and NIH funded team studies to investigate the role of the microbiome and mucosal immunology in bacterial vaginosis, HPV infections and cervical cancer progression, infertility, HIV infection and recurrent yeast infections. She leads local clinical observational cohorts that recruit participants for the different THRIVE studies, working with clinical partners within Shared Health, HSC, and Heartland fertility clinics. 

By combining complex high throughput tools such as metaprototeomics, sequencing, fluorescent imaging analysis and metabolomics, the Berard lab is able to comprehensively characterize the microbiome composition and function and associate these factors with host epithelial barrier and immune functions in the context of different reproductive health conditions.

While completing her PhD in Medical Microbiology Dr. Berard studied the differences in proteomic expression in viral infections (reovirus and herpes simplex viruses), performing a systems biology approach to study host-pathogenic interactions.

During her post-doctoral work, Dr. Berard studied mucosal biology in the context of HIV infection to determine mechanisms of pathogenesis and increased acquisition using similar systems biology approaches, SIV macaque models, co-culture, and vaginal epithelial barrier models.

As a research associate, she expanded her previous work to understand how the microbiome affects female reproductive health using multi-omic approaches including metaproteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, and flow cytometry, as well as multiple experimental bacterial co-culture assays to test mechanisms of barrier dysfunction, building the foundation for her work in the THRIVE studies, and building her own research program.

She trained in organizing clinical cohort studies during this period and lead logistical planning and execution of current local and international cohorts that are established and ongoing.

Education

• PhD, Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba (2015)
• Bachelor of Science (Honours), Biochemistry, University of Winnipeg (2006)

Awards

2024:

• Travel awardee for the 2024 CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity New Investigator Forum (NIF), King City, Toronto, Ontario ($2,814)

2016-18:

• Conference attendance scholarship for oral presentation, Mucosal Systems Meeting (2018)
• Registration scholarship, HIV Research for Prevention (HIVR4P)
• Key Scientific Article Feature (J Virol. 2015 Dec;89(23):11954-64), Global Medical Discovery

2007-12:

• Health Sciences Centre Studentship award, MHRC. $16,000/year
• Award of Excellence (Silver Category) in the Health Research National Research Poster Competition, CIHR
• Manitoba Graduate Scholarship, University of Manitoba, $16,000