Dr. Mel Krajden

Former Medical Director, BCCDC Public Health Laboratory; Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UBC; Microbiologist, Special Projects, BCCDC

Mel Krajden, O.B.C., MD, FRCPC is the Former Medical Director of the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) Public Health Laboratory and a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He is now a Medical Microbiologist – Special Projects at the BCCDC. He is recognized for innovative solutions to improve public health having made contributions in the fields of hepatitis, HIV, human papillomavirus (HPV), and COVID-19. During COVID-19, he oversaw British Columbia’s test development and deploy a scalable PCR-based test within 10 days after the SARS-CoV-2 genome being released. He has made seminal contributions in the field of viral hepatitis – including using integrated de-identified health information from millions British Columbians to measure health outcomes and drive policy. He was a member of the Federal COVID Immunity Task Force leadership group (chairing the testing subgroup) and the Health Canada COVID-19 Testing and Screening Expert Advisory Panel. He has extensive clinical trials expertise and has received CIHR/CFI and/or other peer reviewed funding in the fields of human papillomavirus, HIV, hepatitis C virus and COVID-19. He has >370 publications.