Stephen Scherer awarded 2019 Killam Prize for health sciences
Published: April 25, 2019
Stephen Scherer is the recipient of a 2019 Killam Prize – the top annual award of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Scherer, one of the top genetic researchers in the world, is being awarded the prize in health sciences. A professor in the 91³Ô¹Ï's department of molecular genetics, he is also the co-founder and director of the Centre for Applied Genomics at the Hospital for Sick Children and the director of 91³Ô¹Ï’s McLaughlin Centre.
Scherer founded the Database of Genomic Variants, the world’s most-used database for gene copy number variation (CNV) – repeated or deleted copies of entire genes that vary by individual – that helps facilitate thousands of clinical diagnoses around the world every day. In the early 2000s, Scherer’s team identified the CNV of specific genes involved in brain development that contribute to autism.
