Donald Welsh has been appointed to the position of the Cecil and Linda Rorabeck Chair in Molecular Neuroscience and Vascular Biology
I am pleased to announce that Donald Welsh, PhD, professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and scientist at Robarts Research Institute, has been appointed to the position of the Cecil and Linda Rorabeck Chair in Molecular Neuroscience and Vascular Biology, at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University.
As the Cecil and Linda Rorabeck Chair in Molecular Neuroscience and Vascular Biology, Professor Welsh will join 450 active researchers at the Schulich Medicine & Dentistry with more than 130 million dollars in annual research funding and join more than 40 researchers within the Robarts Research Institute. This active group of researchers and clinicians in London hold expertise in diseases associated with aging of cells of the brain, vasculature or heart.
Professor Welsh graduated with a PhD in Biophysics from the University of Guelph. He completed his Post-doctoral Fellowships at Yale University and Vermont University. He also received his Master’s of Physical Education at the University of British Columbia in 1988.
Professor Welsh joined the Department of Physiology & Pharmacology at the University of Calgary as an Assistant Professor in 2001. In 2006, he became an Associate Professor and in 2014 Professor. He has participated on numerous committees including: chair of the Smooth Muscle Research Group (SMRG; 2006-2009), graduate director of the Cardiovascular & Respiratory Sciences program, Libin Institute education committee chair, co-leader of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute “Cerebral Circulation Theme”, , and chair of NSERC and CIHR grant panels. He has also published 62 manuscripts in respected peer reviewed journals and over 100 abstracts.
During the past 14 years Professor Welsh has methodically built an integrative, basic biomedical research laboratory currently comprised of 7 trainees (two postdoctoral fellows, two graduate students, one undergraduate student and two technicians) and a range of experimental equipment (two patch clamp rigs, three isolated vessel set ups, two confocal microscopes, PCR and western blotting equipment, computers for computational modeling).
His laboratory has established two research themes centered on: 1) signal transduction and the regulation of smooth muscle/endothelial ion channels; and 2) cell-cell communication in vascular tissue. His work within the lab focuses primarily on the cerebral circulation and he typically probes a defined research question by blending theoretical approaches such as computational modeling with experimental techniques that extend from single proteins, to cells, and then to whole tissues. This integrative approach requires his laboratory to work with an array of international collaborators from Europe, Australia and the United States.
Please join me in congratulating Professor Welsh on his appointment.
Dr. Michael J. Strong,
Dean Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry
