Yu Tian Wang, MD/PhD, obtained his PhD in neuroscience in 1992 from Memorial University in Canada, and both his BM in medicine in 1982 and MSc in physiology in 1985 from Shandong University Medical School in China. He worked in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto as an assistant and then associate professor between 1994 and 2001. He is currently a professor in the Department of Medicine and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at the University of British Columbia and the holder of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of B.C. & Yukon Chair in Stroke Research. He was also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International scholar from 2001 to 2011, and has been a fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Royal Society of Canada since 2006.

Dr. Wang’s research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms responsible for regulating the function and intracellular trafficking of neurotransmitter receptors critical for brain functions such as learning, memory and cognition, and on investigating the manner by which these mechanisms may be altered in central nervous disease processes. His goal is to be able to treat central nervous disorders such as stroke, epilepsy and drug addiction by designing new therapeutics, which specifically targets these receptors and their pathways.