Dr. Laura Targownik joined the Section of Gastroenterology in the Division of Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba since 2003, after completing her fellowship in Digestive Diseases and obtaining a Master’s of Science in Health Services from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). She is a nationally recognized researcher for her work on the epidemiology of drug use in inflammatory bowel disease and is currently a principal investigator or co-investigator on grants funded by the American College of Gastroenterology, The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). She has authored or co-authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications, and serves on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Gastroenterology

Dr. Targownik is leading the initiative to use secondarily collected data to evaluate the utilization, effectiveness, and safety of medications used in the management of inflammatory bowel disease through the Scientific Consortium toOptimizePharmaco-Epidemiology Studies in Inflammatory
Bowel Disease (SCOPE-IBD). This group will collaborate with CANGIEC and its researchers and support staff to facilitate the performance of pharmacoepidemiologic studies using population-based data sources from across the county