The Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS) has announced 49 new Fellows elected for 2024, including DMCBH members Dr. Cheryl Wellington and Dr. Liisa Galea.
Election to Fellowship in the Academy is considered one of the highest honours for individuals in the Canadian health sciences community. It entails a commitment to serve the Academy and advance the health sciences across all of the Fellow’s disciplines.
“Election to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences acknowledges outstanding contributions to the health sciences,” says Dr. Trevor Young, President, CAHS. “We are proud of these Fellows’ accomplishments, and we are honoured to welcome them to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.”
Dr. Cheryl Wellington
Dr. Cheryl Wellington is Professor and Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC. Dr. Wellington’s research interests include Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury and neurology blood biomarkers. She is also internationally recognized for her work on lipid and lipoprotein metabolism in the brain, and her group has made key contributions to the understanding of the role of apolipoprotein E (apoE) in Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, her group recently developed a novel, non-surgical animal model of concussion that for the first time, accurately mimics the biomechanics and the neuropathology of human head injury.
Dr. Wellington holds multiple leadership and executive positions in the dementia and neurotrauma communities, including the Canadian Consortium for Neurodegeneration in Aging, Cure Alzheimer Fund, the Canadian Traumatic Brain Injury Research Consortium, the Canadian Concussion Network, the International Initiative on Traumatic Brain Injury Research and is a member of the Global Biomarker Standardization Consortium.
Dr. Liisa Galea
Dr. Liisa Galea is the Treliving Family Chair in Women’s Mental Health, Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Professor at the University of Toronto. She leads the Women’s Health Research Cluster and is also an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Psychology at UBC. Dr. Galea has made groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of how sex and sex hormones influence the brain in health and disease. Her work demonstrated that age and stress-related neuroplastic changes dramatically differ by sex, with implications for therapies targeting neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases.
Focusing on women’s health, her neuroscience discoveries have revealed the mechanisms by which previous pregnancy and estrogens can impact brain disorders. These findings have led to transformative approaches to the treatment of psychiatric illnesses and dementia. She is a tireless advocate for women’s brain health, raising awareness of the sex and gender gap in medicine.
Read the full CAHS announcement
