It is a great pleasure to announce the inaugural appointment to the newly created Dr. Phil Gold Chair in Medicine. Our esteemed colleague, Dr. Vassilios Papadopoulos, McGill Professor and Director of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, has accepted this distinguished role, with the endorsement of the Hon. Arthur T. Porter, Director General and CEO of the MUHC, in a program developed in collaboration with Ronald Collett, President of The Montreal General Hospital Foundation. The endowed Dr. Phil Gold Chair is among the first created jointly by McGill and the MUHC.
An extraordinary scientist, Dr. Papadopoulos embodies the characteristics of scholarship, leadership and achievement that are the hallmarks of Dr. Gold’s exceptional career. In the course of his research, Dr. Papadopoulos has made breakthrough contributions in the investigation of the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in steroid biosynthesis, and in the fields of reproductive endocrinology, neurosciences and carcinogenesis. Of international repute, he has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, penned two books and contributed chapters for 40 more. He currently holds three NIH and two CIHR grants as principal investigator and was the driving force behind the 2008 awarding of a landmark $100-million grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to build and equip the Research Institute of the MUHC at the Glen Campus.
A professor in the McGill departments of Medicine, Biochemistry and Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Dr. Papadopoulos is a pharmacist by training who pursued advanced studies in Europe and Australia before joining the faculty at Georgetown University. He rose quickly through the ranks and was ultimately appointed head of the Georgetown Biomedical Research Organization, a position he held until joining the McGill community. He has garnered a number of awards, including the Biotechnology Leadership Award from Georgetown University. He is an elected member of the National Academies of Pharmacy and Medicine (France), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (USA) and a Canada Research Chair, Tier 1, in Biochemical Pharmacology.
As Phil Gold Chair, Dr. Papadopoulos will cultivate the major role the MUHC and the McGill Faculty of Medicine play as leaders in major medical disciplines. He will facilitate the recruitment of the most talented physicians, while helping to continue building the team of the best and brightest clinicians and researchers.
This Chair honours the work of Dr. Phil Gold, McGill Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Oncology and Executive Director of the Clinical Research Centre at the MUHC. Dr. Gold served as Physician-in-Chief at The Montreal General Hospital and Chair of the Department of Medicine at McGill from 1985 to 1990. He was also the inaugural Director of what is now the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre. Dr. Gold’s career is a wonderful mosaic of research excellence and compassionate patient care. Dr. Porter and I can think of no one better suited to assume the first Dr. Phil Gold Chair than Dr. Papadopoulos.
Richard I. Levin, MD
Vice-Principal (Health Affairs)
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
McGill University