Canada Excellence Chair to stimulate translational research

The announcement of Dr. Adrian Owen as the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neuroscience and Imaging at Western May 17 will further expand the breadth of neuroscience research across Schulich and across campus.

Owen was been awarded $10 million from the federal government's CERC program. He will hold appointments in the Department of Psychology, as well as the Schulich Departments of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Physiology and Pharmacology, and Clinical Neurological Sciences. He will also be a Robarts Scientist.

Owen was recruited to Western through a CERC proposal led by Mike Lehman, Chair, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology and Mel Goodale, Director of the Centre for Brain and Mind. Ravi Menon, Robarts Research Institute, was also instrumental in helping bring Owen to Canada to use the fMRI equipment established at Robarts.

"This is a tremendous opportunity to build a truly translational neuroscience program that extends in ways to involve molecular neuroscientists, cognitive neuroscientists, psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical neuroscientists, imaging experts and other disciplines in a quest to understand the brain," says Mike Lehman. "With an aging population, and the prevalence of brain diseases that affect the elderly such as Alzheimer's, this is a critical mission."

Lehman adds, "The collaborative, multidisciplinary model developed here is a major reason why we have attracted Dr. Owen - a world leader in the field."

Dr. Owen will bring his research team to Western beginning January 1, 2011