Professor
Anatomy and Cell Biology
Physiology and Pharmacology
Dale W. Laird holds a BSc in Biology from the University of Prince Edward Island, and a MSc and PhD, both in Biochemistry, from the University of British Columbia. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology in 1992, his initial academic appointment as an Assistant Professor was at McGill University in Montreal. After receiving promotion and tenure to Associate Professor, Dr. Laird relocated to Western University in 1997 where he was promoted to Full Professor in 2002. Dr. Laird's research interests involve studies related to the function of gap junction proteins, connexins, and a related family of channel proteins, pannexins, in health and disease.
Dr. Laird has received several awards which include the Premier's Research Excellence Award, the Medical Research Council Scientist Award, a Faculty Scholar Award and the Dean’s Award of Excellence - Research. He held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair for the maximum allowed time from 2004-2018. In 2016, he had the honour of being inducted as a Fellow into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and in 2018 was recognized as a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Western Ontario.
