Donation boosts university’s brain power
March 23, 2006 - A $3-million gift will give the University of Alberta a leg up when it comes to fighting the damage of Alzheimer's disease, strokes and other neurological disorders.
"The foresight and amazing philanthropy behind this gift will allow the University of Alberta to establish - not one, but two, two new chairs, research chairs - the Henri M. Toupin Chair in Neurology and the Henri M. Toupin Chair in Neurodegenerative Disorders," said U of A President Indira Samarasekera. "I don't think there's any field, when you think about where the frontiers of medicine are in brain and brain-related research, that quite enjoys the prospect of major advances as this field does."
The $3-million gift from the Henri M. Toupin Medical Foundation was given to the university in memory of an Edmonton doctor who was known for his patient-centred care, said the U of A's Chair of Medicine, Dr. Jon Meddings. "He would have been tickled pink by this," said Meddings, who was a student under Henri Toupin. "It's one of the things he would have loved. It's a tremendous thing that was done and done in the memory of a great neurologist in this city."
While the foundation has been active since the 1980s, funding equipment purchases, research grants and scholarships, this gift is its crowning glory.
"The time has come, we felt, to try and move on to something bigger and better," said Chris Laing, chair of the Henri M. Toupin Medical Foundation board. "What happened is the board decided, to continue in memorandum of Dr. Toupin, to distribute his entire legacy to the university to which he was formerly connected and had a lot of passion for."
The $3 million is just the tip of the iceberg, said Samarasekera.
"We expect, and we have every reason to believe that our expectations will be met, that this donation will be matched one-to-one by the provincial government's Access to the Future Fund," she said. "So, that's a wonderful endorsement and will allow the foundation's donation to be amplified through the provincial commitment."
The donation will build partnerships to enhance ground-breaking work, said Meddings. "We have outstanding people here. We're leaders in stroke research. We're leaders in movement disorders. We're leaders in degenerative diseases of the brain, and the Toupin Foundation, for a large part, has done a lot of that," he said. "What this is going to do is look towards the future. This is an opportunity to get two world-class leaders to work in the already-fertile ground that the Toupin Foundation has set up."
The two new research positions will go a long way towards furthering the U of A's goal of becoming one of the top 20 universities by 2020, said Samarasekera.
"We can only serve our local community well, both the province and the country, by being one of the best in the world. And visionary gifts like those of the Toupin Foundation are fundamental to this," she said, thanking the foundation. "I know that you will be amazed at the many-fold returns of this gift. Our U of A neurologists will be in the forefront of research and education and you can take a great deal of credit for putting them there. And, in the end, we all benefit."
Related Internal Links
