Lawrence is a Neuromuscular Neurologist specializing in diseases of the muscles and nerves. He is the Director of the Calgary Neuromuscular Program and the Calgary ALS and Motor Neuron Disease Clinic. He serves as Director, Innovation and Commercialization, at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the University of Calgary where he leads efforts support researchers to commercialize exciting emerging neurotechnologies into clinical use.
Lawrence’s research includes extensive experience development and conduct of phase II and III clinical trials of new therapies for different muscle and nerve diseases. He has published 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
He previously served as the Chair of the Advisory Group of the Canadian Clinical Trial Co-ordination Centre (a collaboration between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Innovative Medicines Canada and the academic health centres across Canada).
He is the National Principal Investigator of the Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry that now includes 31 participating clinics and over the past eight years has recruited over 4500 patients including over 1600 with ALS.
Lawrence is the co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Dataffinity Health Inc, a successful digital health company focusing on the end-to-end development and operation of data platforms (registries) that facilitate the collection of patient data through clinician networks to provide insights into disease natural history and effects of therapies. Dataffinity is currently managing national and multi-national projects in 7 countries through partnerships with multiple research networks and major pharmaceutical companies.