On November 16, 2023, the Canadian government revealed the latest round of Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC). Out of the 34 new Chairs, three were selected to join McGill, with two among these new recruits joining the McGill Department of Medicine. Dana Small, recently appointed to the Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism in the Department of Medicine, has assumed the role of Canada Excellence Research Chair in Metabolism and the Brain. Additionally, Darcy Wagner is slated to begin her tenure in 2024 as the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Lung Regenerative Medicine within the Department of Medicine鈥檚 Division of Respiratory Medicine.
Among the most prestigious global research programs,聽聽are valued at $8 million over eight years to support internationally renowned researchers and their teams and to establish ambitious research programs at Canadian universities.
笔谤辞蹿别蝉蝉辞谤听Dana Small, who completed graduate degrees in Neuroscience and Clinical Psychology at McGill and was most recently a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University, leads pioneering work that combines human neuroimaging and metabolic measures with animal models to reveal new insights into the mechanisms linking obesity and brain disorders. As Canada Excellence Research Chair, Small plans to develop a paradigm-shifting approach to combat the obesity and diabetes pandemics.
As the founder and director of the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center, an international consortium that supports science in gut-brain health, the Chair will also bring new capacity to research at McGill and synergize with its world-class neuroscience and metabolism research and training programs to benefit the University, Quebec and Canada. 鈥淭he biological imperative of optimizing energy acquisition, use and storage is a driver of brain evolution and behaviour,鈥� said Small. 鈥淭he CERC award provides me with the resources to build a truly unique program to discover the logic governing the integration of the mind and metabolism. The ultimate goal is to explain the mechanisms linking neurological and metabolic disease.鈥�
笔谤辞蹿别蝉蝉辞谤听Darcy Wagner鈥檚 research is pushing boundaries by developing synthetic therapies for acute and chronic lung disease, which are the third and fourth leading causes of death in the world. Joining McGill from Lund University鈥檚 Wallenberg Centre for Molecular Medicine, Wagner aims to leverage recent advances in different disciplines such as biomaterials, stem cell biology and advanced biomanufacturing. As Research Chair in Lung Regenerative Medicine, her program will develop new manufacturing techniques based on 3D bioprinting approaches to improve the precision at which lung tissue can be generated.
Welcome & congratulations Prof. Small and Prof. Wagner!
With source files from the聽McGill Reporter