Dr Xavier Montalban elected member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences

Professor of the UAB Department of Medicine Dr Xavier Montalbán was recently elected one of the 77 nerw academics to form part of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. The new “Fellows” thus receive the highest recognition awarded by the Canadian government to health science academics.

Doctor Montalban is neurologist specialising in neuroimmunology. He began his professional career at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in the 1990s as director of the Clinical Neuroimmunology Unit. He also directed the Department of Neurology at the University of Toronto, and is currently the head of Neurology and Neuroimmunology at the Vall d'Hebron and director of the Multiple Sclerosis Centre of Catalonia (Cemcat), inaugurated in 2012. His research interests include clinical aspects of multiple sclerosis; he was at the head of the creation of the first Clinical Practice Guidelines in Multiple Sclerosis in Spanish (second worldwide). He has also fostered projects related to magnetic ressonance and biological prognostic, evolution and treatment response factors, as well as immunological mechanisms as director of Cemcat and of the Neuroimmunology Research Group.

In the past twenty years, he has directed five clinical trails on multiple sclerosis and written 300 original scientific papers, revisions in local and international indexed journals and several chapters for books. He directs the Neuroimmunology Section of the journal Neurología and forms part of the editorial boards of different journals. In addition, he is dirctor of the Chair in Neuroimmunology Cemcat (UAB), created in 2015 to boost teaching and research in this field, and director and coordinator of the online master's degree in Neuroimmunology offered by the UAB.