Dr. Harold Atkins is a physician at the Ottawa Hospital Blood and Marrow Transplant Program, a scientist in the Centre for Innovative Cancer Research, and medical director of the Regenerative Medicine Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Atkins received his Bachelor of Medical Science and medical degree from the University of Ottawa, followed by a rotating internship year at the Victoria General Hospital in Victoria, B.C. He received specialty training in internal medicine at the University of Ottawa, with subsequent clinical and research fellowships in Hematology, Stem Cell Transplantation, and Experimental Hematology, at the University of Washington and the Ontario Cancer Institute.
Dr. Atkins specializes in the management of patients requiring stem cell transplantation and has spearheaded the use of stem cell transplantation for immune repair to treat patients with severe autoimmune diseases, particularly multiple sclerosis. He has also developed clinical trials exploring the role of dose-escalated radiation therapy to treat refractory blood cancers. His research includes a longstanding and fruitful collaboration with Dr. John Bell developing oncolytic viruses. More recently, he has been part of a multidisciplinary group of investigators involved with BioCanRx, working to develop CAR-T cell therapies.