We are pleased to announce that Professor Dr. Désiré Collen has kindly donated $50,000 to the Centre for Blood Research (CBR) to support a Translational Research Fellowship in Hemostasis-Thrombosis. The awardee is Dr. Erica Peterson, a UBC/VGH hematology fellow.

Désiré Collen received his MD and PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Leuven, Belgium. His early studies in coagulation and fibrinolysis in the 1970s led to his discovery of alpha-2-antiplasmin. Professor Collen has since made multiple contributions to the field of coagulation and vascular biology. He is internationally recognized as a talented and accomplished physician-scientist, a businessman and entrepeneur, a discover and developer of widely used medicines including the “clot-buster” medicine, tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA), an innovator, teacher, and a creator and leader of successful biotechnology enterprises. He has received four honorary doctorates and several scientific awards, including the prestigious Belgian Francqui Prize. Until 2008, he was the Director of the Center for Transgene Technology and Gene Therapy in Leuven and now is the Chairman of ThromboGenics, a successful publicly traded biotechnology firm which he founded. In 2010, Professor Collen was a Keynote speaker at the Earl W. Davie Symposium at the CBR.

Dr. Erica Peterson started her academic career studying thrombin-endothelial cell interactions as a MSc student at the Canadian Blood Services at the University of Ottawa under the supervision of CBR member Dr. Ed Pryzdial. She subsequently completed her MD at the University of Ottawa, and her Internal Medicine training at UBC where she is now completing a fellowship in Hematology.

With Professor Collen’s generous support, Dr. Peterson will be able to realize her goal of bridging the gap between the bench and the bedside, by studying the intersection of innate immunity and coagulation in the lab and in the clinic. Under the co-direction of Dr. Agnes Lee and Dr. Ed Conway, Erica will evaluate how complement activation participates in clot formation, identifying novel biochemical pathways that may contribute to our understanding of the thrombotic diathesis of patients with cancer. These translational studies will be performed at the CBR at the Life Sciences Institute, the Vancouver General Hospital and the BC Cancer Agency.

Throughout his career, Professor Collen has always been philanthropic in his efforts to promote education and training of clinician-scientists, encouraging knowledge transfer that will yield important medical breakthroughs. The CBR is honoured to be a recipient of his generosity.