ICRH News
Renowned Cardiac Biologist Awarded ICRH Distinguished Lecture and Prize at Canadian Cardiovascular Congress in Edmonton
The CIHR Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (ICRH) is pleased to announce that Dr. Eric Olson, from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, has been awarded the inaugural Distinguished Lecture and Prize for 2002. Dr. Olson was chosen for this award because of his extraordinary contributions to our understanding of cardiac developmental biology, and how developmental biology relates to conditions such as cardiomyopathy.
In collaboration with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, ICRH has established the annual ICRH Distinguished Lecture and Prize, to be awarded once each year to an outstanding researcher from across the spectrum of basic biomedical, clinical, health services and policy, and population health themes, for his or her contributions to the advancement of cardiovascular sciences. For this inaugural year, the recipient of this Lecture and Prize has been invited to deliver a special address at the annual Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.
Dr. Olson will present his lecture on Transcriptional Control of Heart Development and Disease on Wednesday, October 30, 2002, from 12:30 to 1:30 pm in Hall C, Assembly Level of the Shaw Conference Centre, Edmonton, AB.
Dr. Olson's talk about the possible molecular and biochemical basis of cardiovascular diseases couldn't be more timely. A more complete picture of the molecular and biochemical causes of cardiovascular disease is now emerging in Canada and elsewhere with funding support from agencies like the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Such funding for health research has allowed many Canadian researchers to gather clues about cardiovascular disease and its causes. Researchers now know that cardiovascular disease may arise before birth such as in the case of congenital malformations and metabolic diseases of the heart, or show the cumulative results of genetic and environmental influences later in life such as in stroke, ischemic heart disease and heart failure, to name a few common conditions. Dr. Olson will discuss the gene regulatory mechanisms responsible for cardiac growth and disease and molecular strategies for modifying cardiac form and function through changes in gene expression.
Cardiovascular diseases (e.g., ischemic heart disease, acute myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular disease, congenital heart disease, etc.) are ranked number one in terms of cost to society and accounted for a staggering 15.3% of the total cost of all illness in Canada in 1993 (e.g., $7.4 billion in direct costs and $12.4 billion in indirect costs 1993)1. Despite great progress over the past few decades in identifying, treating and preventing heart and blood vessel diseases, these still account for 36% of all deaths in Canada in 19972 and are growing as a burden worldwide.
Since 1995, Dr. Olson has served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Director of the Hamon Center for Basic Cancer Research. He has received numerous honors and awards, including most recently the Edgar Haber Cardiovascular Medicine Research Award, American Heart Association (1998), the American Heart Association Basic Research Prize (1999), and an NIH Merit Award running from 2000-2010. He was also recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998), the National Academy of Sciences (2000), and the Institute of Medicine (2001). He has co-authored well over 300 publications and chapters and currently serves on the editorial board of several professional and scientific journals.
For more information, contact Ms. Salima Harji:
Salima Harji, BSc, MHSc
Project Officer
CIHR Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health
Tel.: (604) 806-8658
Fax: (604) 806-8935
E-mail: sharji@mrl.ubc.ca
1 Economic Burden of Illness, 1993, Health Canada, Health Protection Branch - Laboratory Centre for Disease Control
2 Statistics Canada, 1997
