Photo of Jim Dowling

Dr. Jim Dowling

Hospital for Sick Children
Toronto, Canada


Introduction

It is with enthusiasm that I submit my nomination for the WMS Executive Board. I am proud to have been an active participant in WMS since 2006, when I attended my first congress in Bruges. I have been extensively involved in the society since; I have served as a poster facilitator, a session moderator, the WMS annual congress prize committee chairperson (2015-2018), and, most recently, have had the privilege of serving as a member of the Executive Committee (2019-2022). As a member of the EC, I have been active in several initiatives, including the re-organization of the WMS website and the “paper of the month” project. I am extremely excited to be the co-organizer of WMS2022 in Halifax, and have prepared for this role by serving on the organizing and planning committees for the previous two virtual WMS congresses.

Outside of WMS, I am very active in the neuromuscular community, including participation in ENMC workshops and the ENMC mentorship program, serving on the TACT core committee, and as the former chair of the Canadian Pediatric Neuromuscular Group. I am currently the chair of the executive committee of TREAT NMD, and have been working closely with the WMS leadership to facilitate harmonization between the two organization. I am extremely excited to hopefully have the opportunity to help WMS continue to grow and evolve, in order to be a society that serves and benefits all of its members around the globe. I am particularly interested in furthering accessibility to the society and the field in general, and in expanding education and training resources and opportunities.

Biography

I am a clinician scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, where I co-lead our neuromuscular program, and am a Professor of Paediatrics and Molecular Biology at the University of Toronto. I am privileged to have been trained at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia by Carsten Bonnemann, Gihan Tennekoon, and Richard Finkel.

My clinical expertise is in pediatric neuromuscular disorders, with my particular area of interest in the diagnosis and treatment of congenital muscle diseases. I have an active research program that spans from foundational muscle research to translational biology to clinical trials. My laboratory is focused on congenital myopathies, where we have helped identify several of the genetic causes, define many of the pre-clinical disease models, and uncover novel therapeutic approaches. Recent highlights from our group include the elucidation of a new genetic cause of malignant hyperthermia, identification and translation of tamoxifen as a potential therapeutic for X-linked myotubular myopathy, and establishment of a multi species pipeline for therapy development for congenital myopathies. On the clinical research side, I have been a team leader for natural history studies of several congenital myopathy subtypes, and have participated in multiple interventional trials for a range of pediatric neuromuscular diseases.

In addition to institutional leadershp roles, I currently serve as the chair of the executive committee of TREAT NMD, and as the pediatrics lead of the Canadian neuromuscular network (NMD4C). I am the neurogenetics lead for the Ontario provincial genetics program. I also serve on the editorial board of Neuromuscular Disorders and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Neuromuscular Diseases

Research benchmarks: 150 peer-reviewed publications. H-index: 43 (5700 citiations - google scholar). 

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