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Dr. Eve Tsai receives 2007 Young Clinician Investigator Award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons


June 4, 2007

Dr. Eve Tsai has been selected as one of five recipients of the 2007 Young Clinician Investigator Award. Established by the Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation (NREF) of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) in 1985, the Young Clinician Investigator Award supports young faculty who are pursuing careers as clinician investigators. The one-year stipend for each grant recipient is $40,000. Dr. Tsai’s award was cosponsored by Kyphon, Inc.

Dr. Tsai is an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Ottawa, a spinal cord surgeon at The Ottawa Hospital, and an associate scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. In 2006, she completed a one-year Spine Fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. She is author or co-author of nearly 50 peer-reviewed articles, abstracts and book chapters, and has presented at more than 100 scientific meetings.

This award will enable Dr. Tsai to pursue advanced research on regeneration after spinal cord injury, which affects nearly 12,000 people every year in the United States and Canada. It has been demonstrated that bioengineered constructs with a combination of growth factors and cell transplants can partially improve recovery after spinal cord injury in rats. “We are now working to develop biodegradable constructs and improve upon the combination of agents required to enable the complete restoration of function after injury. This translational research is necessary to develop therapeutic constructs that will allow repair of the human spinal cord,” stated Dr. Tsai.

Dr. Tsai pursued undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta and obtained early admission to the University of Toronto medical school where she received her medical degree in 1995. She went on to complete her neurosurgical residency at the University of Toronto in 2005. During her residency, she completed a doctorate in neuroscience in 2004 at the University of Toronto.

For additional information on the NREF Young Clinician Investigator Award, please visit: www.aans.org/research/fellowship/nref_y.asp.