Dr. Christopher Shaw is a Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of British Columbia, and holds cross appointments with the Department of Experimental Medicine and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. He is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles as well as numerous book chapters and special reviews. Shaw has edited four books on neuroscience themes. The main focus of his research has been on the Guamanian neurological disease spectrum, ALS-parkinsonism dementia complex (ALS-PDC). Recent work in the laboratory has developed animal models of the disease that are able to recapitulate all the essential behavioural and pathological features. The model is also being used to understand gene-toxin interactions, define neurodegeneration pathways involved, and to attempt therapeutic interventions at early, mid and late time points. Work in the laboratory also provided one of the first models of aluminum adjuvant-induced neuropathology and these studies have become a new research direction. He is the founder and a former director of Neurodyn, a biotechnology company based out of Prince Edward Island. Neurodyn’s efforts are directed at early phase detection and treatment for age-related neurological disorders. Dr. Shaw is also on the scientific advisory board of Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute.
He has four children. The youngest three were not vaccinated.
“In 2007, my student, Mike Petrik, and I did a simple study of aluminum adjuvants in colony mice vs age and sex matched controls. We were trying to follow a putative ALS cluster linked to the anthrax vaccine containing aluminum hydroxide. We expected that we would get a null result which would allow us to search for other potential factors. The results showed significant motor neuron loss and motor function changes. The results surprised us given that up until that time we had been of the conventional view that vaccines and their adjuvants were always safe. We did the study again and got similar results…and then we began to see that other researchers were finding many of the same effects.” -Dr. Shaw