“I cannot wait to see how far we can go together,” says Dr. Haakon Nygaard.

Recently appointed medical manager of the Alzheimer and Related Disorders Clinic, Dr. Nygaard sees opportunity all around him. The clinic, located within the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH) at UBC Hospital, is positioned on the edge of discovery.

“The Centre offers an unprecedented opportunity to create an academic environment where clinicians and scientists across disciplines share ideas, and work towards a common goal of a future without dementia,” he explains.

Dr. Nygaard joined the DMCBH as a clinician-scientist in 2014, and through the generous support of Charles Fipke, was the inaugural holder of the Fipke endowed chair in Alzheimer research. Dr. Nygaard brings strong clinical and research expertise to the VCH-operated clinic.

“I’m very honoured to assume clinical leadership, recognizing the enduring impact of Dr. Lynn Beattie who founded the clinic and directed its steady expansion, and Dr. Howard Feldman who brought international recognition to our clinical and research programs,” says Dr. Nygaard. “We are entering a new era of dementia diagnosis and treatment, and I look forward continue building an academic dementia program delivering world-class clinical care driven by research.”

Previously, Dr. Nygaard was an assistant professor of Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine. He founded and co-directed the Yale Memory Clinic, and he has a well-established research record with many established research grants and initiatives to his credit. In addition to his laboratory, which focuses on disease modelling and novel therapeutics in dementia, he is a principal investigator of a trial repurposing an experimental cancer drug for use with Alzheimer’s disease.

“It is a very exciting time to be involved in dementia research, with many novel therapeutic approaches being developed. UBC has a decades-long reputation of seminal contributions to dementia research, and the hope is that through close collaboration, more of these discoveries will reach our clinic, eventually benefiting the tens of thousands of patients in BC suffering from dementia.”

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Brain Matters: research and clinic news from the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health

Adapted from centreforbrainhealth.ca. Photo courtesy of UBC Faculty of Medicine.