Kenneth Harder

Dr. Harder received his PhD in genetics from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1996. He received Post-Doctoral training and was a Research Scientist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Melbourne Tumour Biology Branch in Australia, from 1998 to 2006. In 2006 Dr. Harder returned to UBC as a Canada Research Chair in Host-pathogen/tumour biology. He is currently leader of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology’s Infection, Inflammation and Immunity (I3) research group within the Life Sciences Institute. Dr. Harder and his laboratory are interested in understanding how particular populations of immune cells develop and function in health and disease. His group has extensive expertise in diverse medical research disciplines including biochemistry, cellular immunology, hematology, autoimmunity as well as models of intestinal infection/inflammation and cancer.

Most recently, Dr. Harder’s group has developed and employed systems biology approaches to identify cytokine-mediated immunological perturbations associated with cancer. This is part of a larger goal to develop better tumour immunotherapy approaches based on our improved understanding of phagocyte biology and immunosuppressive pathways undermining tumour immunity. His research is heavily reliant on advancements in high-dimensional single cell technologies and bioinformatics, harnessing both mass cytometry (CyTOF) and new cellular indexing of transcription and epitopes scRNAseq (CITE-seq) platforms, to advance the systems level understanding of the immune system in health and disease.

For an up-to-date list of publications by Dr. Harder, please see Harder Lab.