Dr John Wallace to receive Heymans Foundation Memorial Medal

Hamilton, ON – Dr John Wallace, professor, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine at McMaster University, will be awarded the Heymans Foundation Memorial Medal in Ghent, Belgium, on November 7. This prestigious award, named after Corneille Heymans, a 1938 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology/Medicine, has only been awarded 10 times since being established in 1972. Six of the previous winners were Nobel Laureates.

Dr Wallace will receive this honour based on his studies of hydrogen sulfide as a naturally occurring anti-inflammatory substance in the body, as well as the development of new medicines based on those findings, through the company he founded, Antibe Therapeutics.

For the past 20 years, his research has focused on gaining a better understanding of the causes of some of the most common digestive disorders, including irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, and colon cancer, as well as the ulcers that can arise from using painkillers and arthritis medication. In particular, he is interested in learning what role the bacteria in the digestive system play in the development of these diseases.