Dr. Brian Kwon has been named a Canada Research Chair for his work in spinal cord injury. Started in 2000 by the Federal Government, the awards are given to outstanding researchers acknowledged by their peers as world leaders in their fields. The chair was announced this morning by the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology) at the University of Toronto.
As the Canada Research Chair in Spinal Cord Injury, Dr. Kwon plans to continue his innovative translational research program with an emphasis on investigations that will impact the lives of people who have suffered a spinal cord injury. This includes clinical trials to test exciting new therapies, developing novel biological methods for predicting recovery after SCI, and establishing a framework for how promising SCI therapies should be evaluated in the laboratory before translation into human patients, with input from researchers, clinicians, and people living with SCI.
Dr. Kwon, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics in the UBC Faculty of Medicine, is a spine surgeon at Vancouver General Hospital, a level 1 trauma centre and the sole referral centre for all spinal cord injuries in BC. His primary clinical and scientific research focus at ICORD is in spine trauma and SCI.
As a surgeon-scientist, Dr. Kwon is particularly interested in the way that research in the lab translates to treatments in the clinic, and how results in the clinic lead to new directions in the lab. “Ultimately, this is all about the individuals who suffer a spinal cord injury and the immeasurable impact it has on them and their families,” said Dr. Kwon. ” Through both clinical and basic science research, we must find a way to do more―the status quo is simply not good enough.”
Dr. Kwon was named one of Business in Vancouver’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 2010. He is a Scholar of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and a holds a New Investigator award from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. He has published more than 100 scientific manuscripts in peer reviewed journals, has written over 30 book chapters, has generated over $10M in competitive grant funding to support SCI research, and has lectured internationally on the topic of spinal cord injury.
