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null Appointment of Dr. Peter McPherson as Interim Director of the Proteomics Platform, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC)

I am writing to inform you of the change in leadership of the Proteomics facility at the RI-MUHC as of July. After five years, Dr. Tommy Nilsson will be stepping down as director of the facility. The RI is much indebted to Dr. Nilsson for setting up and organizing this technology platform, and for successfully transitioning it to the Glen.

I am glad to report that Dr. Peter McPherson has agreed to take over the position on an interim basis, effective immediately. Dr. McPherson is a James McGill Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery and of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Montreal Neurological Institute (the Neuro) of McGill University, where he is also Associate Director of the Neurodegenerative Disease Research Group. As well, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Dr. McPherson received B.Sc. (1986) and M.Sc. (1988) degrees from the University of Manitoba, and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Iowa in 1992. He completed his post-doctoral training at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. McPherson joined the faculty at the MNI in 1995 as a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, where he has carried out his innovative work in endocytosis.  His laboratory uses biochemical and molecular biological approaches to identify novel proteins involved in controlling the endocytic pathway. His laboratory has published pioneering papers using subcellular proteomics to study the molecular make-up of clathrin-coated vesicles. A number of proteins identified in these studies have been linked to neurological diseases, including Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and autosomal recessive spastic ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay. Moreover, recent studies have forged new links between endocytic trafficking proteins and cancer.

Please join me in thanking Dr. Nilsson for his services and in welcoming Dr. McPherson to his new role at the RI.

Best regards,

Vassilios Papadopoulos, DPharm, PhD
Executive Director, RI-MUHC