PHILADELPHIA - Garret FitzGerald, MD, FRS, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics and chair, Department of Pharmacology, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Louis and Arthur Lucian Award, given by McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He is cited for his ground-breaking work on cardiovascular disease. The award consists of a $CAN60,000 prize and one-to-two week professional visit to McGill to give a formal Lucian Lecture, to have interchanges with members of the McGill community, and possibly to undertake a research collaboration with McGill investigators in the field of circulatory diseases.

FitzGerald, also professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and the McNeil Professor in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, takes an integrative approach to studying the mechanisms of drug action and is known internationally for his work on eicosanoids and related lipid mediators. His research contributed fundamentally to the development of low-dose aspirin as a preventive approach to heart disease. His group was the first to predict and then explain mechanistically the cardiovascular hazard from NSAIDs. His team has also contributed substantially to the understanding of the importance of peripheral clocks in the regulation of cardiovascular and metabolic function.

I am honored to receive the Lucian Award and humbled to follow so many distinguished scientists who have received this distinction, said FitzGerald. It reflects on the enthusiasm, creativity and hard work of so many colleagues with whom I have been privileged to work over many years.

The Louis and Artur Lucian Award was established through a bequest to McGill University under the will of the late Olga Leibovici to honor the donor's two brothers, and was conferred for the first time in 1978. The Award is designed to honor outstanding research in the field of circulatory diseases by a scientific investigator or group of investigators whose contribution to knowledge in this field is deemed worthy of special recognition. As per the terms of the bequest, the work of the nominee must be current.

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Penn Translational Medicine Researcher Named 2012 Louis and Arthur Lucian Award Recipient