The Department warmly congratulates Professor Dr. Terrance Snutch, who has been awarded the prestigious 2023 Margolese National Brain Disorders Prize by the UBC Faculty of Medicine. This award recognizes Dr. Snutch’s outstanding translational research, which has contributed significantly to the development of new therapeutic targets relevant to multiple neurological diseases.
As a foremost expert and pioneer in molecular neurobiology, Dr. Snutch’s ground-breaking work has laid the foundation for important areas in the broad field of calcium channel research, and has led to key advancements in understanding fundamental mechanisms in neurobiology. He achieved a number of important firsts in this area, including his novel findings demonstrating that the brain expresses a functionally diverse family of calcium channels, and also describing and elucidating the previously unknown R-type calcium channel. As a true innovator and visionary in the field, Dr. Snutch has contributed greatly to the design of first-in-class drugs aimed at treating brain disorders, the identification of numerous new molecular targets underlying brain diseases, screening methodologies and improved drug oral formulations, as reflected in over 100 U.S. and international issued patents.
Dr. Snutch has been a long-serving faculty member at UBC since 1989, holding joint appointments as a Professor with the Michael Smith Laboratories, the UBC Department of Psychiatry, the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, and the UBC Department of Zoology. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2001, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2008, and in 2016, as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. In 2021, Dr. Snutch was the recipient of the Bill and Marilyn Webber Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his distinguished career at UBC.
Congratulations once again to Dr. Snutch on receiving this extraordinary honour by the UBC Faculty of Medicine!