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Salim Yusuf

Executive Director; Senior Scientist

Salim Yusuf is an internationally renowned cardiologist and epidemiologist, whose work over 40 years has substantially influenced prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Born in India, medically qualified at St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore in 1976, he received a Rhodes Scholarship and obtained a DPhil from Oxford, during which he (along with Richard Peto, Rory Collins and Peter Sleight) initiated the concepts of large, simple trials, and meta-analysis. He proposed the concept of combination drug treatment for prevention of CVD to achieve large reductions in CVD with a single pill (now called the polypill concept), but more importantly has been evaluating the concept through large randomized trials.

He leads several global studies involving more than 60 countries in every inhabited continent of the world aimed at enhancing knowledge about the biological, behavioural and societal causes, consequences, and approaches to the control of heart diseases, and strokes through large multi-country programs such as INTERHEART, INTERSTROKE, and PURE.

He holds a Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario Research Chair and has received (among others) the Lifetime Research Achievement award of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society; the Paul Wood Silver Medal of the British Cardiac Society; the European Society of Cardiology gold medal, the clinical Research Prize of the American Heart Association and the International Award and the Braunwald Lecture of the American College of Cardiology. He has been inducted into the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame; been appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada, and received the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award in 2014. He has received four honorary doctorates, and is among the top 20 most cited health researchers in history.

Salim Yusuf has published more than 1,000 articles in refereed journals, rising to the second most cited researcher in the world for 2011. He has mentored more than 120 scientists, several of whom are in leadership positions across the globe. He has been President of the World Heart Federation (2015-2016), where he initiated several programs (the Emerging Leaders program, road maps for CVD control and a course for training primary care practitioners in CVD prevention) aimed at halving the CVD burden globally within a generation. The World Heart Federation has recognized his contributions by naming the program the Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Programme.

He is a Distinguished University Professor of Medicine, and Executive Director of the Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University and Chief Scientist, Hamilton Health Sciences.

Koon Teo

Emeritus Scientist

Koon Teo is a Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, McMaster University, and provides senior leadership to PHRI’s direction and research studies. He has served as the acting director of the Division of Cardiology at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences, and Chief of Cardiology, McMaster University Medical Centre. His wide range of work includes 16 book chapters, 356 articles and 280 abstracts featured in more than 15 medical journals worldwide.

He was the Canadian Principal Investigator for the COURAGE trial the results of which impact the practice of cardiology worldwide, and for the Canadian Institute for Health Research funded ongoing FAMILY study examining the origins of obesity and cardiometabolic risk factors in early childhood. He is also co-principal investigator of The International Polycap Study (TIPS).

Ingrid Copland

Senior Research Coordinator

Ingrid Copland has been working in research for McMaster University since 1991. She has been at PHRI for 23 years where she has coordinated large, international, industry and investigator initiated trials. Since 2014 she has been with the perioperative and surgery department coordinating observational, drug and device trials.