November 19, 2009 - For HSFC McDonald Scholar, research is in his blood.
Careers can be shaped by childhood dreams – and sometimes fate. Just ask David Hess.
Growing up in Kitchener, Ont., he knew he wanted to be a doctor. “I was always interested in science and medicine,” he says. That ambition was fuelled by what happened to him at age 15. Diagnosed with aplastic anemia, Hess received a bone marrow transplant from his brother: “I’ve been living with his marrow in my blood for 23 years.”
That experience triggered a fascination with transplantation biology that has never subsided. Dr. Hess is now a scientist in the vascular biology research group at Robarts Research Institute and an assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario. He’s also the recipient of this year’s HSFC McDonald Scholarship, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada’s top award for New Investigators.
His goal – to better understand the fundamental cellular functions governing the growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis). That’s critical for the development of cellular therapies to treat widespread restricted blood supply and resulting tissue damage due to peripheral vascular disease, ischemic heart disease, and stroke.
Courtesy of The Heart and Stroke Foundation