The Governing Council of McGill University and the Board of Directors of the McGill University Health Center (MUHC) have approved a three-year extension of the appointment of Dr. Guy Rouleau as director of the Neuro (Montreal-Hospital Neurological Institute), from 1 January. , 2023.
Dr. Rouleau was first appointed director in 2013 and renewed in 2018. During his time as director, he improved access to care for patients with neurological disorders and supported the growth of clinical programs. As a result, The Neuro made great clinical advances; for example, the Neurocritical Care Unit, created in 2021, is one of the most active and essential elements of the hospital, with the majority of patients admitted to The Neuro. Dr. Rouleau also led the recruitment of more than 40 world-class professors and physicians at The Neuro and an additional 20 professors in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Open science champion
One of Dr. Rouleau’s most important contributions has been to guide The Neuro toward an open science institutional policy: the exchange of data and samples with the larger scientific community to increase the potential for medical advances. In 2016, he co-founded the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute, designed to advocate for and facilitate the practice of open science in Canada and around the world. Launched in the summer of 2021, an important component of The Neuro’s open science practice is the genetic and imaging repository of clinical biospecimens, one of the largest biological repositories of neurological disorders in the world.
The quality of Dr.’s research and clinical work. Rouleau has also been an asset to The Neuro, McGill University and the MUHC. One of its historical achievements is its contribution to the identification of dozens of disease-causing genes and its discovery of new mutational mechanisms. His discovery of genes that cause neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as autism, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, hereditary neuropathies, epilepsy, and schizophrenia, has led to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that lead to these symptoms. the disease.
A distinguished career
Dr. Rouleau received his doctorate with honors in 1980 from the University of Ottawa and completed his clinical training in Neurology at McGill University from 1980 to 1985. He then completed a doctorate in Genetics at the University of Ottawa. of Harvard. He returned to Montreal in 1989 to establish his research and clinical career at McGill University, where he remained for 15 years. In 2004 he moved to the University of Montreal where he created the Center of Excellence in Neuromics (Center of Excellence in Neuromics) and became director of the Research Center at Ste University Hospital. -Justine before becoming director of Neuro.
Over the course of his research career spanning more than 30 years, he has published nearly 850 articles in peer-reviewed journals, which have been cited more than 74,000 times.
An officer of the Order of Canada and the National Order of Quebec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada, Dr. Rouleau received the Collège des médecins du Québec Award of Excellence in 2014 for his outstanding contributions to neurogenetics and medicine, as well as the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award in 2020 for his contributions as a physician-scientist and leader. in health care and research. In 2021, his international colleagues also elected him first vice president of the World Federation of Neurology.