CSC Sandra Black Lecture | Sandra Black - Proteinopathy meets Small Vessel Disease: how biomarker advancement will help unravel complex inter-relationships in aging, dementia and stroke

Sandra E Black, O.C., O.Ont., Hon.DSc., MD, FRCP(C), FRSC, FANA, FAHA, FAAN is a Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto. An internationally known cognitive and stroke neurologist, she has been actively engaged in clinical trials for >30 years. She was inaugural Executive Director of the Toronto Dementia Research Alliance (2012-20), a collaborative of U of T’s academic memory programs, which assess 2000 new patients a year. In April 2020, she became Scientific Director of the Dr. Sandra Black Centre for Brain Resilience and Recovery, through a $10M anonymous lead gift. She has published >650 peer publications (+70 invited) (Google HI 120; >70,00 citations) in a 30-year research career bridging dementia and stroke, using standardized neuroimaging, cognitive, functional and neuropsychiatric measures, genetics, and neuropathology to study brain-behavior relationships in the common dementias, with a focus on inter- relationships of Small Vessel Disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Recognitions include Fellowship, Royal Society of Canada, UofT’s Faculty of Medicine Dean’s Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award, an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Waterloo, the Distinguished Achievement Award of AAN’s Society of Cognitive and Behavioural Neurology, and UBC’s 2022 Margolese Brain Disorders prize, recognizing Canadians who have made outstanding contributions to amelioration and treatment of brain disorders. She was appointed Member of the Order of Ontario (2011) and Officer in the Order of Canada in 2015 for her contributions to Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and vascular dementia.