Dr. Gerlinde Metz, who has established one of the world’s leading research programs, with major contributions to the study of behavioural neuroscience, stress and trans-generational trauma, is the winner of the 2018 University of Lethbridge Speaker Research Award.

A Tier 1 Board of Governors Research Chair (Healthy Futures), Metz is renowned for a research program that has profoundly changed our understanding of how health is transmitted and perpetuated across generations.

“Dr. Metz’s work in the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience is nothing short of revolutionary,” says Dr. Erasmus Okine, the University’s vice-president (research). “Her strong interdisciplinary collaborations with colleagues from around the world speak to the cutting-edge nature of her research, and her findings promise to greatly influence public health in the future.”

Metz has shown how stress affects the risk of Parkinson’s disease and recovery from stroke and, more recently, developed animal models to explore trans-generational inheritance of stress responses and the epigenetic nature of these interactions.

Further, she has shown how stress impairs development through impacting the course of pregnancy and incidence of prematurity and its associated adverse impact on offspring. Her research team is now translating these findings to human subjects, work that is likely to greatly advance innovative approaches to personalized medicine.

Metz will receive the Speaker Research Award at the 2018 Spring Convocation I Ceremony at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 31, 2018 in the 1st Choice Savings Centre gymnasium.