During a ceremony held in Vancouver on the evening of September 13, six McGill Faculty of Medicine representatives were among the 44 Canadians recognized for their leadership in the health sciences through their election as Fellows of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, one of the highest honours for individuals in the Canadian health sciences community. Elections are based on a nominating and peer review process that seeks to recognize those who are marked by a record of substantial accomplishment.
The six newly elected Fellows from McGill are:
JAMES MACKAY BROPHY: Dr. Brophy has trained as a professional engineer, medical doctor with a cardiology fellowship and completed a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. His eclectic research interests center on clinical cardiology, cardiovascular epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology (drug safety), and (Bayesian) medical decision making as well as health technology assessments, including economic analyses. He has been a continuously funded scholar from les Fonds de Recherche en Sante du Quebec for almost 20 years and holds the first MSSS/FRSQ Chair in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and EvidenceBased Medicine. He has published 300+ peer-reviewed articles and is a full professor of Medicine at McGill University. He chairs the hospital HTA and departmental research committees.
JULIEN DOYON: Dr. Doyon is Professor in the Department of Neurology & Neurosurgery at McGill University, Director of the McConnell Brain Imaging Center at the Montreal Neurological Institute and founding Director of the Quebec Bio-Imaging Network funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec: Santé. He has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the brain plasticity and sleep neurophysiological mechanisms associated with the learning and long-term transformation of motor skill memories in the healthy and diseased adult human brain. Because of his scientific work and leadership in neuroimaging, he now enjoys an enviable reputation on the international scientific scene.
LILY HECHTMAN: Dr. Hechtman is Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at McGill University, and Director of Research in the Division of Child Psychiatry. She is a child and adult psychiatrist based at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, and an internationally recognized researcher in the area of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Her research has focused on long term prospective studies of children with ADHD followed into adolescence and adulthood, multimodal treatment studies, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy treatment studies for adolescents and adults with ADHD. She has been continuously funded since 1988 by the U.S. NIMH, NIDA, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Her research has garnered a number of national and international awards. She is a founding member and has served as chair of the Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance (CADDRA), a pioneering professional organization whose objectives are to improve the lives of patients with ADHD across the lifespan through research, education, and advocacy.
NADA JABADO: Dr. Jabado was the first to identify a histone mutation in human disease, thereby generating a paradigm shift in understanding the biology of cancer. Her landmark papers demonstrate a direct effect of epigenetic dysregulation during development in the causal origin of fatal brain tumors in children and young adults. Her novel approach has fundamentally advanced cancer research by focusing on the role of the epigenome in cancer genesis and progression.
MINDY F. LEVIN: Dr. Levin is a physiotherapist and Professor in the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy at McGill University. She is one of Canada’s best known physiotherapist-educator-researchers in the field of motor control and neurological rehabilitation. She is recognized worldwide for her research into the mechanisms underlying movement problems in children and adults with brain injury as well as into how to maximize recovery of movement by tapping into the brain’s neuroplasticity, using innovative technologies such as virtual reality. She contributes to national and international policy-making bodies and lends her expertise to international groups to advance the state of knowledge about stroke rehabilitation.
MOSHE SZYF: Dr. Szyf is a pioneer in the field of epigenetics. He was the first to propose and provide experimental evidence that DNA methylation plays a causal role in cancer and he founded the first pharma that developed DNA methylation inhibitors for cancer treatment MethylGene Inc in Montreal. Szyf lab has studied for decades the links between cancer and DNA methylation and the implications for cancer therapy and diagnosis. Szyf lab launched the emerging field of behavioral epigenetics providing a molecular link between Nurture and Nature.Congratulations to all our new Fellows!