David Lorne John Tyrrell OC FRSC (born 1943) is a Canadian physician. [1]
David Lorne John Tyrrell OC FRSC (born 1943) is a Canadian physician. [1]
Born on February 10, 1943, in Edmonton, Alberta, [1] he grew up on the family farm near Duffield and studied at the University of Alberta. Tyrrell interned at the University of Alberta Hospital and then went on to earn a PhD in pharmacology from Queen's University in 1972. He returned to Alberta in 1975 to train in internal medicine. [2] From 1982 to 1994, he was director of the Infectious Diseases division and later the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Alberta. In 1994, he became dean of the faculty of medicine at the university. In 2010, he secured a large donation for the university which established the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology. [3]
Tyrrell's research into viral hepatitis lead to the development of the oral antiviral drug lamivudine. [4] This treatment enabled the use of liver transplants for persons infected with Hepatitis B. In collaboration with Norman Miles Kneteman (University of Alberta, Department of Surgery), Tyrrell and his team contributed to the development of a mouse with a humanized liver to be used for testing drugs to treat Hepatitis C. [1] [5]
He was named to the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2000 and became an officer in the Order of Canada in 2002. Tyrrell became a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004. In 2009, he was named chair of the board of directors for the Gairdner Foundation. [4] Tyrrell was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2011. [1] He was a Killam Prize winner in 2015. [6]
Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver tissue. Some people or animals with hepatitis have no symptoms, whereas others develop yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes (jaundice), poor appetite, vomiting, tiredness, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Hepatitis is acute if it resolves within six months, and chronic if it lasts longer than six months. Acute hepatitis can resolve on its own, progress to chronic hepatitis, or (rarely) result in acute liver failure. Chronic hepatitis may progress to scarring of the liver (cirrhosis), liver failure, and liver cancer.
Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection period, people often have mild or no symptoms. Early symptoms can include fever, dark urine, abdominal pain, and yellow tinged skin. The virus persists in the liver, becoming chronic, in about 70% of those initially infected. Early on, chronic infection typically has no symptoms. Over many years however, it often leads to liver disease and occasionally cirrhosis. In some cases, those with cirrhosis will develop serious complications such as liver failure, liver cancer, or dilated blood vessels in the esophagus and stomach.
Liver disease, or hepatic disease, is any of many diseases of the liver. If long-lasting it is termed chronic liver disease. Although the diseases differ in detail, liver diseases often have features in common.
Raymond Urgel Lemieux, CC, AOE, FRS was a Canadian organic chemist, who pioneered many discoveries in the field of chemistry, his first and most famous being the synthesis of sucrose. His contributions include the discovery of the anomeric effect and the development of general methodologies for the synthesis of saccharides still employed in the area of carbohydrate chemistry. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society (England), and a recipient of the prestigious Albert Einstein World Award of Science and Wolf Prize in Chemistry.
John Robert Evans was a Canadian cardiologist, academic, businessperson, and civic leader.
Dr. A. M. James Shapiro is a British-Canadian surgeon best known for leading the clinical team that developed the Edmonton Protocol – an islet transplant procedure for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Dr. Shapiro is Professor of Surgery, Medicine, and Surgical Oncology at the University of Alberta and the Director of the Clinical Islet Transplant Program and the Living Donor Liver Transplant Program with Alberta Health Services.
The Edmonton protocol is a method of implantation of pancreatic islets for the treatment of type 1 diabetes mellitus, specifically "brittle" type 1 diabetics prone to hypoglycemic unawareness. The protocol is named for the islet transplantation group at the University of Alberta in the Canadian city of Edmonton, where the protocol was first devised in the late 1990s, and published in The New England Journal of Medicine in July 2000.
Lorne Allan Babiuk, is a Canadian scientist specializing in immunology, pathogenesis, virology, molecular virology, and vaccinology. He is the Vice-President of Research at the University of Alberta and the former Director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr Babiuk holds the Canada Research Chair in Vaccinology and Biotechnology and is Chair of the Board for Pan-Provincial Vaccine Enterprise (PREVENT), a vaccine development company.
Dame Sheila Patricia Violet Sherlock DBE, FRCP FRCPE FRS HFRSE FMGA FCRGA was a British physician and medical educator who is considered the major 20th-century contributor to the field of hepatology.
The Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at University of Alberta is located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Established in 1913, it is one of the oldest medical schools in Western Canada and is composed of 21 departments, two stand-alone divisions, 9 research groups, and 24 research centers and institutes. Educational, clinical and research activities are conducted in 29 buildings on or near the University of Alberta north campus.
Michael R. Hayden, is a Killam Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, the highest honour UBC can confer on any faculty member. Only four such awards have ever been conferred in the Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Hayden is also Canada Research Chair in Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine. Hayden is best known for his research in Huntington disease (HD).
Allan R. Ronald is a Canadian doctor and microbiologist. He has been instrumental in the investigation into sexually transmitted infections in Africa, particularly in the fields of HIV/AIDS. Ronald is the recipient of multiple awards and honours.
Sir Michael Houghton is a British scientist and Nobel Prize laureate. Along with Qui-Lim Choo, George Kuo and Daniel W. Bradley, he co-discovered Hepatitis C in 1989. He also co-discovered the Hepatitis D genome in 1986. The discovery of the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) led to the rapid development of diagnostic reagents to detect HCV in blood supplies, which has reduced the risk of acquiring HCV through blood transfusion from one in three to about one in two million. It is estimated that antibody testing has prevented at least 40,000 new infections per year in the US alone and many more worldwide.
Jay Houston Hoofnagle is an American Doctor of Medicine. He is a leading expert in hepatotoxicity, hepatitis, cirrhosis and other diseases of the liver, and director of the Liver Disease Research Branch in the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition at the National Institutes of Health.
James C. Hogg is a Canadian physician and one of Canada's leading pulmonary pathologists. Hogg has been recognized for his research into Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. He received the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award in 2013. He became an officer of the Order of Canada in 2005 and was named to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2010. He also received the Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.
John Herbert Dirks is a Canadian physician.
Antoine M. Hakim is a Canadian engineer and physician.
Ronald G. Worton is a Canadian doctor.
Francis Allan Plummer was a Canadian scientist, academic and HIV/AIDS researcher. He was "a recognized specialist in infectious diseases whose work influenced public health policy in Canada and abroad". He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Microbiology at the University of Manitoba and Scientific Director General, National Microbiology Laboratory.
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to the American virologists Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice "for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus." During the award ceremony on December 10, 2020, Prof. Gunilla Karlsson-Hedestam said:
"The discovery of the Hepatitis C virus by this year’s Laureates laid the foundation for our current understanding about how the virus survives in its niche during the long chronic phase of the infection, and how liver disease develops. And importantly, it led to the development of highly effective anti-viral medicines that now cure the infection in almost all treated persons."