A warm welcome

Darren Bridgewater

A promising Toronto-based developmental biologist is set to become Dalhousie’s first basic scientist stationed in Saint John, with the university’s New Brunswick MD program in September 2010.

Hired in late August as a tenure-track assistant professor in anatomy and neurobiology for the Faculty of Medicine, Darren Bridgewater was steeling himself and his young family for a whirlwind move to Halifax. The upheaval, however, is all part of what he calls “an adventure.”  Apart from a fondly remembered trip to the province as a child, the maritimes are unchartered territory for him. His sneak peek at Halifax in August when he came to sign his contract was reassuring, he says.

This academic year will see him in the Nova Scotia capital, becoming familiar with the medical school’s undergraduate curriculum, before relocating to Saint John next August as a founding faculty member of Dalhousie’s first satellite medical undergraduate program. In Saint John, he will run Dalhousie’s new anatomy and histology laboratories in the Saint John Regional Hospital and teach first- and second-year New Brunswick medical students. Dr. Bridgewater, a London, Ont. native, holds a doctorate from the University of Western Ontario in anatomy and cell biology. His undergraduate degree, also from Western, is in honors genetics.

What excites him most about his new position is the opportunity to do more teaching.  “I was looking for a position that was a good mix of teaching and research. I have been doing mainly research and I was looking for more of a balance."

For him, teaching is a rewarding challenge. “First, it’s a great way to learn; second, I love interacting with students,” he says.  And, on a more philosophical note, he adds, “there are very few ways of achieving immortality; teaching is one of them.” As he points out, unlike many other endeavors, teaching can shape and influence future generations.

This term he is doing demonstrations for first-year medical students in gross human anatomy and for their counterparts in second year, studying neuroanatomy.

A seasoned researcher, Dr. Bridgewater is interested in the diseases and development of the kidney. In Toronto, he was a post-doctoral research fellow with the Program in Developmental Biology, in the Division of Nephrology, at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute. His research focus, he explains, stems from the fact that 90 per cent of patients with childhood kidney disease have kidneys that have developed inappropriately.

“So I’m trying to understand how the kidney develops properly in order to understand what goes wrong in the disease process.”  He plans to pursue those interests at Dalhousie this year as well as take a look at the genetic mechanisms of kidney disease by examining renal disease associated with Schimke immuno-osseous dysplasia.

Dr. Bridgewater has a wife of six years, Lynda, and a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Addison.