2023 Canada Gairdner Awards Gala
Congratulations to the 2023 Canada Gairdner Award Laureates!
The 2023 Canada Gairdner Awards Gala took place on October 26 at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). An overwhelming sense of excitement, community and celebration was palpable as we awarded our 2023 Canada Gairdner Award laureates and their exceptional contributions to the health of people around the world. More than 400 were in attendance including dignitaries from Canada, USA, Argentina, government representatives, members of the scientific and academic communities and students invited by Visions of Science, The Knowledge Society and Canadian Association for Girls in Science (CAGIS).
Check out the photos from this event album right here!
Scroll down to watch all 2023 Gairdner Award Laureate acceptance speeches!
2023 Canada Gairdner International Awards
Awarded “For developing AlphaFold, which has been heralded as an AI-based solution to the 50-year grand challenge of protein structure prediction and has culminated in the release of the most accurate and complete picture of the structure of the human proteome, with enormous potential to accelerate biological and medical research.”Demis Hassabis, PhD CBE FRS FREng
Founder & CEO, DeepMind; AlphaFold Project Lead
John Jumper, PhD, MPhil
AlphaFold Lead and Senior Staff Research Scientist, DeepMind
Awarded “For their discoveries of how bacteria communicate with each other and surrounding non-bacterial cells, providing a new paradigm for how microbes behave and yielding novel avenues for therapeutics against infectious diseases.”Bonnie L. Bassler, PhD
Squibb Professor and Chair, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
E Peter Greenberg, PhD
Eugene and Martha Nester Endowed Professor of Microbiology, Department of Microbiology and Molecular & Cellular Biology Program, University of Washington School of Medicine
Michael R. Silverman, PhD
Emeritus Investigator, The Agouron Institute; Emeritus Adjunct Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
2023 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award
Awarded “For the development of innovative, evidence-based and low-cost global interventions in maternal and child health during the perinatal period that improve wellbeing and care during pregnancy, reduce morbidity and mortality, and promote equity in vulnerable populations.”
José Belizán, MD, PhD
2023 Canada Gairdner Momentum Awards
Awarded “For Indigenous-led mental health and substance use research that leads to culturally and contextually appropriate services for Indigenous children, adolescents, and adults.”
Christopher Mushquash, Ph.D., C.Psych
Awarded “For advancing the molecular and genomic understanding of brain tumours, leading to better ways of discriminating, classifying and managing brain tumour subtypes with potential to transform the clinical care of the disease.”
Gelareh Zadeh, MD, PhD, FRCS(C), FAANS
Related Winners
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Bonnie L. Bassler
PhD Bonnie Bassler is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Squibb Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Bonnie received a BS in Biochemistry from the University of California at Davis and a PhD in Biochemistry from the Johns Hopkins University. She performed postdoctoral work with Michael Silverman in Genetics at the Agouron Institute. Her research focuses on molecular mechanisms that bacteria use for intercellular communication; a process called quorum sensing. -
José Belizán
José Belizán is an obstetrician, doctor in Biology of Reproduction from Salvador University (Buenos Aires) and doctor in Medicine from Rosario University. He currently works as principal investigator in the Department of Research in Maternal and Child Health, Institute for Clinical Effectiveness in Argentina. He is an associate professor at Tulane University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) and Senior Researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET). -
E Peter Greenberg
PhDDr. Everett Peter Greenberg received his PhD in Microbiology in 1977 from the University of Massachusetts. After finishing his postdoctoral at Harvard University (1977-1978), he joined the faculty at Cornell University Microbiology (1978-1984). He later moved to the University of Iowa as Professor of Microbiology (1988-2000) and Shepperd Professor of Microbiology (2000-2005), finally joining the University of Washington in 2005 where he currently is the Nester Professor of Microbiology. Dr. Greenberg has studied quorum sensing since the late 1970s and is widely considered the father of the field of microbial quorum sensing. The term “quorum sensing” originates in a 1994 Journal of Bacteriology article on which he was senior author.
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Demis Hassabis
PhD CBE FRS FREngDemis Hassabis is the Founder and CEO of DeepMind, the world’s leading AI research company, and now a part of Alphabet. Founded in 2010, DeepMind has been at the forefront of the field ever since, producing landmark research breakthroughs such as AlphaGo, the first program to beat the world champion at the complex game of Go, and AlphaFold, which was heralded as a solution to the 50-year grand challenge of protein folding.
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John Jumper
PhD, MPhil John Jumper received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Chicago, where he developed machine learning methods to simulate protein dynamics. Prior to that, he worked at D.E. Shaw Research on molecular dynamics simulations of protein dynamics and supercooled liquids. He also holds an MPhil in Physics from the University of Cambridge and a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Vanderbilt University. At DeepMind, John is leading the development of new methods to apply machine learning to protein biology. -
Christopher Mushquash
Ph.D., C.PsychChristopher Mushquash, Ph.D., C.Psych., is Anishinawbe (Ojibway), and a member of Pawgwasheeng (Pays Plat First Nation). He is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lakehead University, and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University, Clinical Psychologist at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care, Vice President Research at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, and Chief Scientist at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute. -
Michael R. Silverman
PhDMike was born October 7, 1943 in Fort Collins Colorado. He was the son of a rural veterinarian who practiced in western Nebraska, USA. In high school, Mike studied vocational agriculture and later worked on an experimental farm where he developed an interest in plant diseases and bacteriology. He received BS (1966) and MS (1968) degrees in Bacteriology from the University of Nebraska. In 1972, Mike completed a PhD from the University of California, San Diego studying the molecular genetics of motility and chemotaxis in Escherichia coli. -
Gelareh Zadeh
MD, PhD, FRCS(C), FAANSDr. Gelareh Zadeh, MD, PhD, FRCS(C), FAANS, is the Dan Family Chair and Professor of Neurosurgery, University of Toronto. This role makes her the first Canadian Chair of Neurosurgery. She is Head of the Department of Neurosurgery at Toronto Western Hospital and Medical Director for the Krembil Brain Institute at University Health Network. Dr. Zadeh is a Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre where she runs a translational research program at MacFeeters-Hamilton Neuro-oncology Program and holds the Wilkins Family Brain Tumor Research Chair.
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