
LEADERSHIP
Network Leads
Dr. Karina Top
Principal Investigator
Dr. Top is the Network co-Lead and Principal Investigator of the International Network of Special Immunization Services (INSIS). She is also the co-Lead and Principal Investigator for the Canadian Immunization Research Network’s (CIRN) Special Immunization Clinic Network (SIC Network).
Dr. Top’s research focuses on understanding causes and risk factors for adverse events following immunization, clinical management of patients with adverse events following immunization, and vaccine safety and effectiveness in immune-compromised patients and pregnant people.
She was recently recruited to the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada where she is now a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and a pediatric infectious disease consultant at the Stollery Children’s Hospital. She also maintains an adjunct faculty appointment with the Departments of Pediatrics and Community Health & Epidemiology at Dalhousie University and is an investigator at the Canadian Center for Vaccinology (CCfV) in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Robert “Bob” T. Chen, MD, serves as The Task Force’s Brighton Collaboration Scientific Director and has been a leader in research on the epidemiology of vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for more than 30 years.
Dr. Chen helped create the vaccine safety infrastructure needed to meet the “post-modern” challenges of mature immunization programs where adverse events are more prominent than the nearly eliminated target VPDs, including the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network, and the Brighton Collaboration.
Dr. Robert Chen
Principal Investigator

Working Groups
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Scientific Advisory Board (SAB)
INSIS facilitates stakeholder engagement and knowledge translation through its Scientific Advisory Board. SAB will provide a forum for two-way knowledge exchange on INSIS led studies.
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Biomarkers Working Group
INSIS works to characterize the clinical risk factors and molecular signatures/biomarkers associated with TTS, myocarditis, and pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccination with a formal governance structure of Biomarkers Working Group. The group is chaired by Dr. Ofer Levy from Precision Vaccines Program.
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Data Management Working Group
INSIS manages the centralized data center, data harmonization, and reports through its Data Management Working Group chaired by Dr. Al Ozonoff from Precision Vaccines Program.
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee is responsible for overseeing network activities including development and oversight of scientific standards, network priorities and operations, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge translation activities.
Steering Committee Members
Karina A. Top, MD MS
Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, Departments of Pediatrics, University of Alberta
Robert T. Chen, MD MA
Brighton Collaboration
Ofer Levy, MD Ph.D
Precision Vaccines Program, Boston Children’s Hospital
Al Ozonoff, Ph.D
Precision Vaccines Program, Boston Children’s Hospital
Bruce Carleton, PharmD
BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Clare Cutland, MBBCh, DCH, PhD
African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE), University of the Witwatersrand
Nigel Crawford, MD Ph.D
Royal Children’s Hospital, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Department Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne
C. Buddy Creech, MD MPH
Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Sonali Kochhar, MD
Global Healthcare Consulting, India; University of Washington
Gregory A. Poland, MD
Mayo Vaccine Research Group, Mayo Clinic
Steven Black, MD
Global Vaccine Data Network, The University of Auckland