![\"photo](\"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/dec-04-science.04.Alan-Bernstein-from-AB.jpg\")
<\/a>For more than 30 years, CIFAR has been bringing some of the top researchers in Canada and around the world together to focus on worldwide challenges. It provides a space for sustained, small-scale, intimate conversations between groups of investigators that come from diverse disciplines and perspectives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to take risks,\u201d said Bernstein. \u201cWe expect our researchers to take risks. Tough questions are always, by definition, risky.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always been global in the sense that half our fellows come from outside Canada. We have 14 programs divided into three broad initiatives. One is a brain initiative. The second is around \u2026 the environmental and physical sciences. And, the third one is around building stronger societies. Within that, there are a number of programs. Each program typically has 20-30 fellows who meet on a regular basis and discuss issues around their particular program.\u201d<\/p>\n
One program concerns child and brain development. \u201cThere are about 25 people in that program and they range from pediatricians to fruit fly neurogeneticists, psychologists, epidemiologists, molecular biologists and policy people,\u201d said the doctor.<\/p>\n
While all of the 25 have their own particular research program, they come to CIFAR to focus on one question, which, in this case, is how do we optimize child and brain development?<\/p>\n
Fifteen years ago, Bernstein became the first president of the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the national funding agency for health research. It was a job he had to create. Seven years later, he joined CIFAR.<\/p>\n
During his first five years there, Bernstein also ran a lab. \u201cMy lab was in Toronto at the Mount Sinai Hospital, where I\u2019d been the director,\u201d he explained. \u201cI just found that, after five years, I wasn\u2019t being fair to the people in my lab in the sense that I just couldn\u2019t devote the kind of time, energy and brainpower to my own scientists that they deserved \u2026 and that the science deserved. So, I made the tough decision after a year of agonizing about it, to give up my lab.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he closed his lab, Bernstein made sure that everybody had a job. Although the transition was quite traumatic for him at the time, he realized he was still a scientist, that he did not need to run a lab to be one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still do, maybe more so than before, think very deeply about science and read much more widely now than I ever used to,\u201d said Bernstein. \u201cBefore, I only read about health research things, but now I read about everything \u2013 from cosmology and gravity to successful societies, and childhood development.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April of this year, Bernstein was one of six inductees into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Laureates \u201care individuals whose outstanding contributions to medicine and the health sciences have led to extraordinary improvements in human health. Their work may be a single meritorious contribution or a lifetime of superior accomplishments. Pioneers in their field, they are role models and inspiration to young Canadians to pursue careers in the health sciences.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was deeply honored,\u201d said Bernstein of being chosen. \u201cIt\u2019s a high honor, indeed. I know a lot about the Hall of Fame because when I was the president of CIHR, I had to chair the selection committee.\u2026 I had a chance to go to a lot of the ceremonies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things that your colleagues bestow on you, so it was especially meaningful to me, as these are my colleagues, saying, \u2018Alan, we think your contributions to Canadian medicine and health research have been at a calibre that you\u2019re deserving to be inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of Bernstein\u2019s family was able to be at the April 23 ceremony \u2013 his wife, sister and son. \u201cSo, that was also very nice for me,\u201d he said. \u201cActually, it was very nice to be in Winnipeg. The ceremony moves around from year to year and, this year, it was in Winnipeg.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernstein had not been back to Winnipeg for a long time and was looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and places. And also some new ones, such as visiting the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. \u201cThat was an especially moving experience,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sure it is for everybody who goes there. It\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the induction ceremony, a video was made in which some of his former students were interviewed, as well as some colleagues from his time at CIHR.<\/p>\n
\u201cSir John Bell, who\u2019s a Canadian, but also the Regis Professor of Medicine at Oxford University \u2013 a very accomplished, very senior guy in the global medical scene \u2013 also said some nice words about me,\u201d said Bernstein.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always interesting to hear what other people think about you. It was very meaningful to me that a couple of my students \u2013 a post-op in my lab and one who\u2019d been a student with me \u2013 spoke. To hear what they had to say from their perspective about what it was like to be in my lab, that meant great deal to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
What Bernstein found most moving about the video was the message that it conveyed \u2013 that the most important legacy a scientist leaves behind is the training of his or her students.<\/p>\n
\u201cScience is never-ending, so the art of doing science has to be passed from one generation to the next,\u201d said Bernstein. \u201cThat\u2019s just a privilege, to be able to interact with and help introduce young people to science.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Current president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Dr. Alan Bernstein has been a scientist all his life. \u201cWhen I was asked if I was interested in the [CIFAR] position, it was a natural evolution of my own journey through science, so I said yes immediately,\u201d said Bernstein. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4950,4948,4949,4951],"class_list":["post-16183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national","tag-advanced-research","tag-alan-bernstein","tag-cifar","tag-medical-hall-of-fame"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}