Awards and Accolades: Libin Life 2020
Congratulations to the following clinicians, researchers and programs who received notable awards in 2019.
Dr. Hude Quan, PhD, received a prestigious Killam Annual Professor Award for excellence in teaching.
Dr. Todd Anderson, MD, stepped down from his role as director of the Libin Institute and was appointed vice dean of the Cumming School of Medicine.
Dr. Cvetan Trpkov, MD, is a sixth-year cardiology resident at the Cumming School of Medicine. He placed first in the CCTN/CHFS Research Competition at the 2019 Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, the largest conference for heart specialists in the country.
Dr. Sarah Childs, PhD, was appointed department head of the Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Dr. Jordan Squair, PhD, was named a 2019 Killam Laureate for his spinal cord stimulation project focused on the cardiovascular health of spinal cord injured patients. Squair is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Aaron Phillips, PhD.
CV&Me, the Libin Institute's sex and gender research collaborative, won a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion award in the team category. The awards are presented by UCalgary's Office of Professionalism, Equity and Diversity.
Institute Researchers collectively received $3.95M in CIHR project funding during the spring 2019 funding round. Libin boasted a 42 per cent success rate, far above the national average of 15.6 per cent.
Dr. Derek Chew, MD, is a cardiologist who specializes in heart rhythm issues, who received a $140,000 Banting Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He will use the funding to continue training in health economics.
Dr. James White, MD, PhD, received an ASTech award in the category of health innovations for his development and commercialization of software that enables precision healthcare delivery in cardiovascular diagnostics.
Dr. Brenda Hemmelgarn, MD, PhD, was appointed dean of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta.
Dr. S.R. Wayne Chen, PhD, was co-lead for a research project that revealed how a tiny molecule, calmodulin, modulates the cardiac ryanodine receptor, the heart’s calcium gateway. The resulting article was published in the prestigious journal Nature.
Dr. Sofia Ahmed, MD, was appointed the vice chair of research for the Department of Medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine.
Dr. Ed O’Brien, MD, was featured during the coveted Late Breaking Science sessions at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress—the largest cardiology conference in the world. He shared his work on HSP27, a protein that offers hope to post-menopausal women concerned about their cardiovascular health.