The Robarts Research Institute is a medical research institute at the University of Western Ontario, as part of the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. [1] Staff scientists work to investigate a range of diseases including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer.
The institute was founded in 1986 by neurologist Henry Barnett, known for his discovery of aspirin as a preventive therapy for heart attack and stroke. Mark J. Poznansky became Scientific Director in 1993 and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2005 for his work at Robarts.
Robarts is located in London, Ontario (1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7). [2]
John Parmenter Robarts was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th premier of Ontario from 1961 to 1971. He was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.
Archibald Kelso Roberts was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1943 to 1948 and again from 1951 to 1967. Both times he represented the downtown Toronto riding of St. Patrick. He served as a senior cabinet minister in the governments of Leslie Frost and John Robarts.
James Fraser Mustard was a Canadian doctor and renowned researcher in early childhood development. Born, raised and educated in Toronto, Ontario, Mustard began his career as a research fellow at the University of Toronto where he studied the effects of blood lipids, their relation to heart disease and how Aspirin could mitigate those effects. He published the first clinical trial showing that aspirin could prevent heart attacks and strokes. In 1966, he was one of the founding faculty members at McMaster University's newly established medical school. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and the medical school at McMaster University from 1972 to 1982. In 1982, he helped found the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and served as its founding president, serving until 1996. He wrote several papers and studies on early childhood development, including a report used by the Ontario Government that helped create a province-wide full-day kindergarten program. He won many awards including being made a companion of the Order of Canada – the order's highest level – and was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. He died November 16, 2011.
Henry Joseph Macaulay Barnett was a Canadian physician and neurologist, a leading stroke researcher as a result of being the principal investigator in several major clinical trials. As a clinical scientist, he did pioneering research in stroke prevention, beginning with the use of aspirin.
Charles George Drake was a Canadian neurosurgeon known for his work on treating aneurysms.
William Brady, CM is a Canadian print and radio journalist, manager and executive who has been involved with various local and national organizations.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada is a Canadian charity dedicated to advocacy, education, and the funding of research surrounding heart disease and stroke.
Philip J.A.F. Aziz was a Canadian artist. He lived in London, Ontario, and was of Lebanese Greek Orthodox Christian descent. He was recognized for his work in the technique of egg tempera-en-gesso panel, a method popular during the Renaissance.
The Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry is the combined medical school and dental school of the University of Western Ontario, a public university in London, Ontario, Canada
The Hamilton General Hospital (HGH) is a major teaching hospital in Downtown Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, located at the intersection of Barton Street East and Victoria Avenue North. It is operated by Hamilton Health Sciences and is formally affiliated with the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University. HGH is Canada's largest hospital by bed count.
Expenditures by Canadian universities on scientific research and development accounted for about 40% of all spending on scientific research and development in Canada in 2006.
John Quinn Trojanowski was an American academic research neuroscientist specializing in neurodegeneration. He and his partner, Virginia Man-Yee Lee, MBA, Ph.D., are noted for identifying the roles of three proteins in neurodegenerative diseases: tau in Alzheimer's disease, alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's disease, and TDP-43 in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal degeneration.
The Stem Cell Network (SCN) is a Canadian non-profit that supports stem cell and regenerative medicine research, teaches the next generation of highly qualified personal, and delivers outreach activities across Canada. The Network has been supported by the Government of Canada, since inception in 2001. SCN has catalyzed 25 clinical trials, 21 start-up companies, incubated several international and Canadian research networks and organizations, and established the Till & McCulloch Meetings, Canada's foremost stem cell research event.
Mark J. Poznansky is a research scientist, science administrator and science blogger. He is the past president and CEO of the Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI) and was previously chair of the board of OGI, and the founder of G2G Consulting Inc. He is a member of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario and was CEO, president and scientific director of Robarts Research Institute.
John David Spence is a Canadian medical doctor, medical researcher and Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario. He is affiliated with the University of Western Ontario and the Robarts Research Institute, one of Canada's leading medical research organizations. Before his retirement from clinical practice in July 2022, he was also affiliated with the London Health Sciences Centre's University Hospital. He is a recognized expert in stroke prevention and stroke prevention research, with more than 600 peer-reviewed publications since 1970. He delivered more than 600 lectures on stroke prevention in 42 countries. In 2015, he received the Research Excellence Award from the Canadian Society for Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. In 2019, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, and in 2020 he received the William Feinberg Award from the American Heart Association for excellence in clinical stroke research.
Calvin Ralph Stiller is a Canadian physician, scientist, and entrepreneur. He retired as a member of the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University in London, Ontario.
Vladimir Hachinski is a Canadian clinical neuroscientist and researcher based at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University. He is also a Senior Scientist at London's Robarts Research Institute. His research pertains in the greatest part to stroke and dementia, the interactions between them and their joint prevention through holistic brain health promotion. He and John W. Norris helped to establish the world's first successful stroke unit at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, and, by extension, helped cement stroke units as the standard of care for stroke patients everywhere. He discovered that the control of the heart by the brain is asymmetric, the fight/flight (sympathetic) response being controlled by the right hemisphere and the rest and digest (parasympathetic) response being controlled by the left hemisphere and damage to one key component can lead to heart irregularities and sudden death. This discovery has added fundamental knowledge to how the brain controls the heart and blood pressure and lays the foundation for helping prevent sudden death.
Aaron Fenster is a medical physicist at the University of Western Ontario Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario, Canada. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2013 for his contributions to medical imaging and three-dimensional ultrasound-guided interventions. He is also a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and co-program director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Imaging Program. He holds Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and received further training at the Ontario Cancer Institute.
Marlys Laverne Koschinsky is a Canadian cardiovascular researcher. As of 2015, she is the executive director at the University of Western Ontario's Robarts Research Institute. Koschinsky formally served as Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Windsor.
Ravi Shankar Menon is a Canadian-American biophysicist. He is a former Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging at the University of Western Ontario and director of the Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping at the Robarts Research Institute.
