Blood and Vascular Disease Research Unit

The Blood and Vascular Disease Research Unit (BVDRU)

The Blood and Vascular Disease Research Unit of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto was established in 1963 by four doctors, J. Fraser Mustard, Robert L. MacMillan, Kenneth Brown and Hugh A. Smythe. The President of the University, Claude Bissell, was persuaded by one of their patients, Percy Gardiner, to approve the formation of this Unit and he then led the fund-raising necessary to equip the Unit. Grants to support the research were provided by the Medical Research Council, the Ontario Heart Foundation, the Department of National Health and Welfare, the Defense Research Board, and Geigy Pharmaceutical of Canada. The former residence of the President of the University at 86 Queen’s Park was acquired by the Faculty of Medicine and remodeled to provide first-class laboratory space for this outstanding research group and visiting scientists from many countries.
The BVDRU was closed in 1966 when Fraser Mustard left Toronto to help John Evans establish the new medical school at McMaster University, and the building at 86 Queen’s Park was about to be demolished to make way for a planetarium for the museum.
During the few years that the BVDRU operated, at least 37 original research publications arose from work done at the site. Among the noteworthy findings, the first experiments showing the inhibitory effect of aspirin on platelet function were carried out in the Unit in 1966, reported in January 1967 at a meeting of the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, and in June 1967 at the Oak Ridge Platelet Symposium (The effect of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) on platelet function. G. Evans, E.E. Nishizawa, M.A. Packham and J.F. Mustard, Blood 30:550, 1967). To-day, thousands of people take 81 mg of aspirin daily as preventive therapy for cardiovascular disease. MP