Dr. Anthony E. Lang Wins 2018 Weston Brain Institute International Outstanding Achievement Award
TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 /CNW/ - Dr. Anthony E. Lang was presented last night with the 2018 Weston Brain Institute International Outstanding Achievement Award. This $40,000 award recognizes an exceptional researcher who has made significant advances in accelerating the development of therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases of aging through translational research, has demonstrated remarkable leadership, and has a record of impeccable citizenship in the research community. This year's prize was provided by The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, and was open to researchers based in Canada.
The Weston Brain Institute (the "Institute") operates in Canada and is the neuroscience branch of The W. Garfield Weston Foundation. The Institute's mandate is to accelerate the development of treatments for neurodegenerative diseases of aging. To help achieve this, the Institute addresses gaps and inefficiencies in the funding market by supporting high-risk, high-reward translational projects, while leveraging world-class business and scientific expertise in a fast and flexible granting process. The Selfridges Group Foundation provides funds through its own branch of the Weston Brain Institute to support medical research into the treatment for brain disorders in Europe.
Ensuring the world learns of scientific advances in a timely manner is also critical to accelerating treatments. The Weston Brain Institute International Outstanding Achievement Award was created to recognize and highlight recent outstanding contributions of researchers to the global fight against these diseases.
Dr. Anthony E. Lang
Dr. Lang is considered the world leader in movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD), and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), as evidenced by his more than 700 publications and 87,000 citations in the area.
He is a founding member of the Parkinson Study group, the largest worldwide network of PD clinicians focused on clinical trials for Parkinson's treatments. His work was critical in bringing several drugs to market for Parkinson's disease, including pramipexole, rasagiline, selegiline, and ropinirole. Dr. Lang has also been involved in developing cutting-edge therapeutic interventions for PD and PSP including implementing neuronal growth factors as neuroprotective agents, and neurosurgical interventions such as pallidotomy and deep brain stimulation.
Dr. Lang was also a leader in the creation of the MDS-UPDRS, the most commonly used scale globally to help diagnose PD and PSP patients and to determine their stage of disease progression.
Dr. Lang has made exceptional leadership contributions to the field at all levels, including recruiting expert scientists and clinicians in Parkinson's disease to the Toronto Western Hospital, a Parkinson's Foundation Center of Excellence. He has mentored more than 80 PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and clinician fellows, who have gone on to lead clinical research initiatives in neurodegenerative diseases of aging around the world.
Dr. Lang was elected President of the Movement Disorders Society from 2007-2009, appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010, elected as a Fellow to both the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada in 2011, and was chosen as an Honorary Member by the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society in 2014.
"We are delighted to award Dr. Lang the 2018 Weston Brain Institute International Outstanding Achievement award. Through his extensive work developing new treatments for Parkinson's disease, he has improved the quality of life of patients in Canada, and indeed worldwide," said Alexandra Stewart, Executive Director of the Weston Brain Institute.
Dr. Lang is the third recipient of the annual Weston Brain Institute International Outstanding Achievement award. The 2016 winner was Dr. Peter St George-Hyslop (Professor, University of Toronto) for accomplishments including developing mouse models of Alzheimer's disease as tools for drug screening. The 2017 winner awarded by the Selfridges Group Foundation was Prof. Nicholas Fox (Professor, University College London) for accomplishments including developing neuroimaging methods for the detection, differential diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression in neurodegenerative dementias. The 2019 award will be presented by the Weston Brain Institute of the Selfridges Group Foundation to a researcher based in Ireland, the Netherlands or the UK, before the award returns to Canada in 2020.
About the Weston Brain Institute
The Weston Brain Institute is Canada's largest privately funded national initiative aimed at accelerating breakthrough discoveries for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases of aging, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and frontotemporal dementia. The Institute directly supports Canada's world-class neuroscience research community and focuses on high-risk, high-reward projects, independent of commercial potential, that address the existing translational gap in neurodegenerative research using an innovative fast-track granting model. In Canada, the Institute is a program of The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, and in Europe, the Weston Brain Institute is a program of the Selfridges Group Foundation. www.westonbrain.org, www.westonfoundation.org; twitter: @westonbrain; Facebook: WestonBrainInstitute
About The W. Garfield Weston Foundation
For three generations, The W. Garfield Weston Foundation has pursued its mission to enhance and enrich the lives of Canadians. With a focus on medical research, the environment, and education, the Foundation aims to catalyze inquiry and innovation to bring about long-term change. As the Foundation marks its 60th anniversary, it continues to collaborate with a broad range of Canadian charities to further world-class research, explore new ideas, and create tangible benefits for the communities in which it works.
SOURCE Weston Brain Institute
please contact: Catherine Thomas, Director, External Communication, 416-844-2507
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