CANADIAN NEUROSCIENTIST WINS INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN THE DELIVERY OF HEALTH CARE

Joseph B. Martin, M.D., Ph.D., Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Neurobiology and Clinical Neuroscience, has been Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine since 1997. Prior to his current position, Dr. Martin served for four years as Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and four years as the Chancellor of UCSF. During his tenure as Dean, he established the W.M. Keck Foundation Center for Integrative Neurosciences dedicated to combining studies of the brain and behavior, the Gladstone Institute for Virology and Immunology dedicated to AIDS research, and began planning for a Comprehensive Cancer Center. As Chancellor there he prepared a long-range development plan for the renewal of the campus, obtaining a commitment from the City of San Francisco to expand the UCSF Campus to a second major site in Mission Bay.

At Harvard, he helped establish, in 1999, the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, an innovative collaboration which brings together seven Harvard-affiliated institutions intent on reducing the burden of cancer. In 2001, with the support of an anonymous donor, Dr. Martin formed the Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair, a virtual community of over 500 neurology and neuroscientist faculty and researchers working together on understanding the prevention, causes, and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. In 2003, Dr. Martin dedicated Harvard Medical School’s New Research Building. This 525,000 square foot structure, the largest building ever constructed at Harvard, is designed to cultivate scientific collaboration between the basic and clinical sciences.

Dr. Martin was born in Bassano, Alberta, Canada in 1938. He received his premedical and medical education at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, earning the M.D. degree in 1962. He completed a residency in neurology in 1966 and fellowship in neuropathology in 1967 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and received his Ph.D. in anatomy from the University of Rochester in 1971.