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photo UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA
Lost Ones
A LIFE IN
FULL BEAT
Gary Lopaschuk
June 4, 1955 – April 2, 2025
by CHRISTINA FRANGOU
WHEN GARY LOPASCHUK’S three
kids were little, they used to lay in bed
at night listening for their dad coming
to check on them. They’d hear his voice
whoop. The floor thump. And they’d know
their dad was springing down the hallway
in a series of backflips like the accom-
plished acrobat that he told them he was.
Don’t come out to look, he’d warned.
He might bowl them over with his pow-
erful flips and they’d be hurt. For a long
time, they heeded the warning. Until one
night, his son David peeked — and caught
his dad whooping, thumping his feet and
so engrossed in acting out this fantasy
that he was miming the motion of back-
flips with his hands.
Lopaschuk had a giant imagination
and an equally sized brain, and he
used both to revolutionize heart disease
research, and then educate the world
about it. He loved to give public talks
about cardiovascular health (you’ll find
plenty of them on the internet). The
heart, he liked to say, needs more energy
than any other organ in the body because
of its continuous need to contract. It gets
that energy from burning two kinds of
fuel — fatty acids and sugars.
Normally, the heart uses a balance
of both. Early in his career, Lopaschuk
became convinced the kinds of fuel used
by the heart — too much of one or the
other — affects its ability to function.
He proved this theory, and went on to help develop
drugs that manipulate the types of fuel the heart uses in
different diseases.
In 2005, Lopaschuk suddenly understood heart function
on a different level. His daughter Sarah, then 20, was
killed in a car accident while studying in Australia.
For a long time after, her father kept her photo as the
screensaver on his computer. He always carried a sad-
ness in his heart for his daughter, but his dedication to
the hearts of others stayed the same.
His ideas, colleagues agree, were ahead of their time,
and his research put the University of Alberta on the
global cardiovascular research map. Today, his work
on metabolic modulators — drugs that change how
the heart uses energy sources to make it work more
efficiently — is core to new generations of heart disease
and diabetes medicine.
To his students, Lopaschuk was titan in the world of
research — someone known for his unflagging support
and encyclopedic knowledge of the scientific literature.
But to his family, he was a goof in the best way. He came
up with wild ideas and followed through. He once bought
a huge boat on a whim. During the Vancouver Olympics,
he splurged on tickets to take his sons to the gold medal
game between Canada and the United States. He loved
sailing, golfing, scotch and the Edmonton Oilers.
He was still working at the U of A this April when, at
age 69, his heart stopped while watching his beloved
Oilers at Rogers Place with his son Tim. He didn’t suffer.
His colleagues and family call it a blessed passing. At the
funeral, friends and students remarked that dying at a
hockey game was exactly how he’d want to go. ED.
Lost Ones is a new series honouring local legends and unsung heroes
who’ve recently passed. To recommend someone whose story deserves
memorializing, email [email protected].
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