Here are short biographies for the 2011 Mini-Med-Pharma lecturers:
Dr. Jacquetta Trasler, M.D., Ph.D.
Embryology: Where Babies Come From and What Happens When Things Go Wrong
October 19, 2011
Jacquetta Trasler is a James McGill Professor of Pediatrics, Human Genetics and Pharmacology & Therapeutics at McGill University and Associate Director of Pediatric Research at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) in Montreal. She directs the Developmental Genetics Laboratory at The Montreal Children’s Hospital of the MUHC and teaches pharmacology and genetics to undergraduate, graduate and medical students. At McGill, Dr. Trasler has mentored a number of pre-medical and graduate students and directed the McGill University M.D./Ph.D. Program from 1999-2007.
Dr. Trasler’s research interests focus on epigenetics and the molecular and developmental regulation of gene expression in the germline with implications for the resulting embryos, with specific interests in DNA methylation and genomic imprinting and the molecular and cellular targets for drug effects on germ cells. As an independent investigator, she has won several career awards including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Scientist Award and the National Scholar Award from the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec. She was also awarded the 2000 Prix d’Excellence for Pediatric Research from the Inter-Service Clubs Council of Quebec, the 2001 Young Andrologist Award from the American Society of Andrology, and the 2009 Aldo Research Award of Excellence from the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Her research is supported by several grants from competitive funding agencies including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Operating Grant and Strategic Initiative Programs). Dr. Trasler is a member of the Institute Advisory Board for the CIHR Institute of Genetics, is a member of journal editorial boards, and is active in a number of professional societies, including serving as President of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society in 2001.
Dr. Ariane Marelli
Cardiology: From Infancy To Adulthood
October 26, 2011
Dr. Ariane Marelli is Associate Professor of Medicine at McGill University. She completed her core training in adult cardiology and a fellowship in pediatric cardiology at McGill University. She obtained advanced fellowship training in Adult Congenital Heart Disease at the University of California in Los Angeles. She took her first faculty position at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston where she was charged with setting up an adult congenital clinic. She returned to the McGill University Health Centre in l997 where she founded and directs the McGill Adult Unit for Congenital Heart Disease that now follows close to 2000 patients.
Dr. Marelli has written papers and book chapters on congenital heart disease in adults. She lectures internationally on topics related to adults with congenital heart disease. She has received awards of excellence from the McGill University Health Center Research Institute and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Quebec. Her research has been funded by the Fonds de de Recherche en Santé du Québec, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Institute of Health Research. She has supervised graduate students, local and international post-doctoral fellows. Her research interests involve the changing epidemiology of congenital heart disease and health services delivery in adults with congenital heart disease. Her research tools have included large administrative databases and electronic health records. She created and manages a population-based congenital heart disease database that covers over 70,000 patients with congenital heart disease from birth to old age in Quebec, from 1983-2005.
She is the only Canadian to serve on the Epidemiology and Prevention Council, Statistics Committee of the American Heart where she authors the Congenital Heart Disease section of Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics. She is on the Medical Advisory Board of the American Congenital Heart Association. She is on the dataset committee of the Congenital Heart Public Consortium where she chaired the sub-committee on facts related to CHD that were presented at a congressional hearing in Washington DC on September 19th, 2011.
She contributes to Cecil’s textbook of Medicine where she has been offered a “life-long” invitation to single author the chapter on adult congenital heart disease. She is currently co-authoring Perloff’s Clinical Recognition of Congenital Heart Disease 6th edition, the most widely sold textbook of congenital heart disease. On April 30th herself and Dr. Jack Lewin, CEO of the American College of Cardiology were the first recipient of the 2011 Heart Heroes Award.
Dr. Hans H. Zingg
Obesity and Diabetes: An Expanding Epidemic. Can We Stop It?
November 2, 2011
Dr. Zingg is a native of Switzerland where he earned his Medical Degree from the University of Basel in 1973. In 1982 he completed his Ph.D. at McGill University in Experimental Medicine and continued his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. He was appointed as an assistant professor at McGill University in 1984 where he rose quickly through the ranks to full professor. In 1991, he was named Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology at the Royal Victoria Hospital and, in 2000, Associate Director (Fundamental Research) of the MUHC Research Institute. Since 2002, he is the Chair of the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, McGill University.
In addition to his administrative duties, Dr. Zingg is both an active physician and a basic researcher. He is a member of the prestigious Association of American Physicians and the focus of his clinic at the Metabolic Day Centre of the Royal Victoria Hospital is on endocrine/metabolic diseases. His research focuses in on the mechanisms of hormone action, specifically the molecular mechanisms of action of hormone receptors. He has trained many students and postdoctoral fellows and has published widely in the scientific literature. His awards include the Wyeth-Ayerst Chair in Reproduction, the Senior Scientist Award from the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigations.
Dr. Brian Ward
Infectious Diseases: Who is really 'in charge'?
November 9, 2011
Dr Ward received his medical training at McGill University (1980) followed by residencies/fellowships in Internal Medicine (1988) and Infectious Diseases (1990) at Johns Hopkins and in Microbiology at McGill (1991). His research training began at Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar (MSc 1980) and continued at Johns Hopkins (1986-90). He joined the Faculty of Medicine at McGill in 1991. He is currently professor of Medicine as well as Associate Director of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (Fundamental Science). He is also Associate Director of the JD MacLean Centre for Tropical Diseases and co-directs both the McGill Vaccine Evaluation Centre and the National Reference Laboratory for Parasitology. He has served on a wide range of national and international advisory committees dealing with vaccines and international health. He has also served on a number of clinical or scientific advisory boards for biotech-pharma companies. His research interests can be broadly divided into three areas: 1) micronutrient-virus interactions, 2) vaccine development and evaluation and 3) international health issues with a particular interest in parasite diagnostics and factors that influence HIV transmission.
Dr Ward received his medical training at McGill University (1980) followed by residencies/fellowships in Internal Medicine (1988) and Infectious Diseases (1990) at Johns Hopkins and in Microbiology at McGill (1991). His research training began at Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar (MSc 1980) and continued at Johns Hopkins (1986-90). He joined the Faculty of Medicine at McGill in 1991. He is currently professor of Medicine as well as Associate Director of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (Fundamental Science). He is also Associate Director of the JD MacLean Centre for Tropical Diseases and co-directs both the McGill Vaccine Evaluation Centre and the National Reference Laboratory for Parasitology. He has served on a wide range of national and international advisory committees dealing with vaccines and international health. He has also served on a number of clinical or scientific advisory boards for biotech-pharma companies. His research interests can be broadly divided into three areas: 1) micronutrient-virus interactions, 2) vaccine development and evaluation and 3) international health issues with a particular interest in parasite diagnostics and factors that influence HIV transmission.
Dr. Howard Chertkow
Alzheimers Disease: Where We Are and What the Future Holds
November 16, 2011
Howard Chertkow is a cognitive neurologist with 20 years experience. He is the founder and now director of the Jewish General Hospital/ McGill Memory Clinic. Dr. Chertkow is one of the country’s experts on Alzheimer’s disease and memory loss in the elderly. He has been continuously funded by the CIHR (Canadian Institutes for Health Research) and its forerunner, the MRC, for the past 20 years, and currently holds two CIHR grants to explore the natural history of Mild Cognitive Impairment and the neural substrate of semantic memory. His CV lists 258 publications, including 120 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. Dr. Chertkow’s salary support has included a prestigious “Chercheur national” award from the FRSQ.
Dr. Chertkow directs the Bloomfield Centre for Research in Aging, a multi-disciplinary research group of 10 scientists based at McGill’s Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Chertkow is past president of the Canadian Consortium of Centres for Clinical Cognitive Research (C5R), the national consortium of memory clinics that organizes Alzheimer’s Disease clinical trials in Canada. In 2008 Dr. Chertkow received the national Irma Parhad Award from C5R for contributions to excellence in Alzheimer’s Disease research. He was previously coordinator of the cognition axis of the provincial FRSQ network on Aging. Dr. Chertkow is the only non-American to sit on the NIH panel which oversees funding of the U.S. Alzheimer Disease Research Centres, and the NIH panel which recently published new guidelines to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease.. He currently sits on the Research Advisory Board of the Alzheimer Society of Canada, and a Quebec government board to draw up a provincial strategy for dementia management. He is vice president of the “Canadian Dementia Action Network” lobbying for a national Alzheimer’s Disease research strategy. In 2006 he chaired the Third Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia, which brought together many of the country’s experts to formulate new guidelines for physicians.
Dr. Albert Aguayo
Brain Mend?: The Challenge of Nerve Regeneration
November 23, 2011
Albert J. Aguayo is Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Centre for Research in Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. A scientific journal editor, as well as a member of several Editorial Boards, he has authored more than 150 scientific publications. He is the recipient of honorary degrees from the University of Lund (Sweden) and Queen's University (Canada). His awards include the Gairdner International Prize, the Wakeman (USA), Helmerich (USA), Ameritec (USA), Ipsen (France), Leo Parizeau (Canada), Cotzias (USA), Wilder-Penfield (Prix du Québec), the Alcon Research Institute Award for Vision Research (USA), the Killam Prize (Canada), the Christopher Reeve Medal (USA), The Queen Elizabeth (ER) Golden Jubilee Medal (Canada), the J.E. Purkinje Honorary Medal for Merit from the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, and the Canadian Medical Association’s F.N.G. Starr Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Aguayo has received Honorary Memberships in several professional organizations including the Latin American Academy of Sciences, the European Neurological Society, the Ontario Neuro-trauma Honorary Directorship, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives Distinguished Leadership and the Canadian Medical Association. Las year he was awarded McGill’s Medal for Exceptional Academic Achievement, was elected to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and named “One of the Ten Most Influential Hispanic Canadians”.
Professor Aguayo has taught at institutions in various parts of the world, including the Marine Biology Laboratories in Woods Hole (USA), Cold Spring Harbor (USA), the Society for Neuroscience’s “Neurobiology of Disease” and IBRO-sponsored schools and courses in the Philippines, Sri-Lanka, Spain, Morocco, South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, Uruguay and Canada. In 2006 he was awarded the “Cajal” lectureship chair at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). In 2007, the FRSQ/INMHA created the “Albert J.Aguayo International Fellowship in Neurosciences” to support the training in Quebec of students from developing countries. In 2010, McGill University inaugurated the “Albert J. Aguayo Annual Lecture in Neuroscience”. On the same year
He served as Secretary General of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) from 2000 to 2005 and was President of this organization from 2005 to 2007. IBRO is an ICSU and UNESCO affiliate that represents over 50,000 neuroscientists from 84 countries. Under his stewardship the membership of IBRO went from 46 to 73 affiliated organizations and its international school programme increased six-fold.
Dr. Aguayo’s main scientific interest is the study of the mammalian central nervous system's capacity for regeneration and repair.
