Dr. Patrick
Choy, Director of the Centre for Research and Treatment of Atherosclerosis
(CRTA), University of Manitoba, is an international leader in lipid and
lipoprotein research. He is currently the Associate Dean (Research) in the
Faculty of Medicine, and jointly appointed as Professor of Biochemistry and
Medical Genetics, with cross-appointment as Professor of Pathology. He won a
Research Scholarship from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada through
open competition early in his career, and subsequently, a Scientist award from
the Medical Research Council of Canada. He served as the President of the
Canadian Biochemical Society, a Board member of the Canadian Federation of
Biological Societies (CFBS) and a Board member of the Heart and Stroke
Foundation.
The
contribution of Dr. Choy to the scientific community includes his previous
service as the Chair of the MRC Scholarship Review Committee, a member of the
MRC Biochemistry Grants Review Committee and a member of the Cardiovascular A
Committee. Internationally, he served as a member of NSF (USA) Review Committee
and a reviewer for the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. For many years, he also served on
Editorial Boards of several top biochemical journals. He had organized many
national and international meetings, and served on many symposia organizing
committees, including several CFBS Meetings.
He is
currently the Vice-President of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Manitoba,
the Vice-Chair of the Manitoba Health Research Council, the Chair of the Senior
Scholarship Committee of the Alberta Heritage Foundation, a member of the
Expert Advisory Committee for Natural Health Products, Health Canada, an
advisor to the Health Ministry of the European Union, a member of the Advisory
Committee to the Institute for Biodiagnostics, National Research Council of
Canada, the Chair of the Research Advisory Committee to MHSF, a member of the
Task Force for WED, and a member of Canada West Health Innovation Council.
The research
interest of Dr. Choy is in the metabolism of lipids and lipoproteins in the
cardiovascular system. He has published over 100 full-length research papers in
these subjects, many of them in very high impact biomedical journals including
papers in Nature (impact factor = 25), Trends in Biochem Sciences (impact
factor = 13), Gastroenterology (impact factor = 12) and Journal of Biological
Chemistry (impact factor = 7.3). He has contributed to many book chapters
pertaining to these areas of research.
His contribution to the study of cardiac phospholipids is epitomized by
an invitation from McGraw Hill to contribute an article on Phospholipid in the
Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. The research work of Dr. Choy has
received uninterrupted support in the last twenty-five years from the MRC/CIHR
and a variety of private sources, including Merck-Frosst, Parke-Davis, Fournier
Pharma, Bayer and the Federated Insurance Companies of Canada.
In the last
two decades, Dr. Choy has made several landmark contributions to the studies of
lipids and lipoproteins. He is the first to demonstrate that phospholipids are
synthesized in situ in the heart, and the phospholipids synthesized in the
heart are not exported to other tissues (Zelinski et al, JBC, 1980). He is the
first to discover the cytosolic form of phospholipase A2 in the cardiac tissue
(Cao et al, JBC, 1987), and the importance of vitamin E in the regulation of
the phospholipase A2 activity. He is the first to document the effect of lysoPC
in the impairment of blood vessel relaxation in modified low density
lipoproteins (Liu et al. Cardiov Res, 1994). Recently, he has discovered a new
pathway for the synthesis of lipids in the heart by the direct acylation of
glycerol (Lee et al, J. Lipid Res. 2001). His contribution to lipid metabolism
in the cardiovascular field has been recognized by his colleagues, and he has
been invited as keynote speakers to major conferences and symposia, including
the Gordon Research Conference, the International Symposium in Lipid Research
and the XVII World Congress for Heart Research in July 2001.
Dr. Choy obtained his bachelor degree at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and his doctoral degrees at the University of North Dakota, USA. He did his postdoctoral work at the University of British Columbia. Since his appointment at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Choy has trained over 20 graduate students and an equal number of postdoctoral fellows. All his former students are currently employed as faculty members at various universities or senior scientists in industry. Two of his former postdoctoral fellows have been appointed Associate Dean of Medicine, one at the Fudan University and the other at the Wannan Medical College in China.