Date and Place of  Birth:

Peter St. George-Hyslop was born in Nairobi, Kenya on July 10, 1953.

Studies:

Driven by "curiosity and consumed by finding out the answer", St. George-Hyslop received his medical degree from the University of Ottawa in 1976. He then undertook post-graduate training in internal medicine (a branch of medicine concerned with the internal organs of the body) and neurology (a branch of medicine dealing with diseases and disorders of the nervous system and the brain) at the University of Toronto. He then pursued post-doctoral training in Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, where he also was appointed as an Instructor in Neurology and Molecular Genetics from 1987-1991.

Mission:

In 1991, St. George-Hyslop returned to the University of Toronto to pursue his interests in trying to "understand the mechanisms of brain function and how specific genes can modulate this function both in health and disease". His research is directed primarily at elucidating the genetic and molecular biological processes that cause human neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer disease, which constitutes the main focus of his work. In Canada, Alzheimer's is an illness that affects at least 300 000 people over the age of 65 and the Alzheimer Society of Canada estimates that more than 750 000 Canadians will have the disease by 2030.

Achievements:

Between 1987 and 1995, while trying to solve the enigma of Alzheimer disease, St. George-Hyslop and his research team discovered four genes associated with Alzheimer's – a series of groundbreaking discoveries that earned him international acclaim, and more importantly, made a significant impact on the field of molecular and biochemical research. In 2000, he and his team identified a key protein involved in the degeneration of nerve cells in Alzheimer disease. This most recent breakthrough discovery has set into motion the development of new drug therapies that are aimed at targeting this protein to hopefully regulate the process that leads to the disease.