[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Yusuf-Head-Shot-2005.jpg” caption=”Salim Yusuf”]Salim Yusuf, a professor of medicine at McMaster University, is to be inducted as a Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada at a ceremony in Ottawa this weekend.

Election to the Royal Society is the highest honour that can be attained by scientists, scholars and artists in Canada. Those chosen as fellows are recognized for their dedication to achieving excellence, and enhancing Canada's competitiveness on a global basis.

Yusuf, who is also the director of the Population Health Research Institute, a joint venture of McMaster and Hamilton Health Sciences, is a leading cardiologist, epidemiologist and scientist.

The Royal Society cited his many landmark studies involving more than 50 countries that have helped identify new preventive and treatment strategies for cardiovascular diseases, as factors for his selection to the society.

The ceremony on Sunday will be the second time in a week that Yusuf is honoured for his research. On Nov. 22, he was among the top health researchers in Canada honoured at the Canadian Health Research Awards ceremony in Ottawa.

He was one of the finalists for the prestigious Michael Smith Prize in Health Research from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Canada's national health research funding agency.

The prize recognizes innovation, creativity, leadership and dedication to health research. Yusuf was one of three finalists for the award, which was won by Janet Rossant, chief of research at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

Yusuf was cited by CIHR for his extensive research contributions, particularly in the field of cardiovascular disease. He is credited with developing the concept of large, simple trials, which is now widely accepted, and he has influenced research in several fields of medicine.

Trained in India, Britain and the U.S. and a Rhodes Scholar, Yusuf was involved in initiating the concept of large simple trials and developing concepts of meta-analysis. He currently holds a research chair from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.