Clark receives AANP Meritorious Contribution Award
LMP professor emeritus Brent Clark received the American Association of Neuropathologists (AANP) Meritorious Contribution Award at AANP’s 101st annual meeting in Minneapolis earlier this month. The award recognizes AANP members who have made significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge in neuropathology.
Washington University neuropathologist Robert Schmidt and UT Health San Antonio neuropathologist Margaret Flanagan presented the award. Schmidt was Clark’s colleague in training at Washington University. Flanagan is a former LMP colleague.
In his remarks “Brent Clark – The Early Years,” Schmidt traced Clark’s life from his boyhood in the small southwestern Minnesota town of Truman to his summer fellowship working with the noted Mayo cardiac pathologist Jack Titus to his undergraduate education at Macalester College in St. Paul and his MD and PhD training at Washington University in Saint Louis.
“From his nomination letters for this award I realized that the character traits he exhibited so long ago at the beginning of his career at Washington University are the same ones so visible ever since,” Schmidt said. “I expected great things of Brent. I was not disappointed. Sometimes good guys do finish first.”
In her remarks “Brent Clark – The Later Years,” Flanagan highlighted Clark’s collaboration with University Regents Professor Harry Orr, his longtime LMP colleague: “When Brent arrived at the University of Minnesota in 1990 working alongside Dr. Joo Ho Sung in Neuropathology before assuming the position of Director in 1992. It was here that he began what would become an extraordinary three-decade collaboration with Dr. Harry T. Orr, a fellow Washington University PhD graduate. Their partnership exemplifies the finest qualities of translational neuroscience research – merging Dr. Clark's meticulous neuropathological expertise with Dr. Orr's molecular insights to transform our understanding of neurodegenerative disease mechanisms.”
The slide presentation accompanying Clark’s award ceremony can be accessed here.
Clark became professor emeritus in 2020. See the LMP web feature “Neuropathologist Clark’s career reflects the influence of an early mentor.”
