On March 10, the CRCHUM Interdisciplinary Conference will welcome Mélanie Dieudé, Director of Research Operations and a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases of the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Medicine and an associate researcher with the CRCHUM’s Immunopathology Research Theme, as well as Renée Bazin, Scientific Director of Medical Affairs and Innovation at Héma-Québec and a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Bio-informatics at Université Laval.

At this conference, Renée Bazin and Mélanie Dieudé will present Héma-Québec’s research and development (R&D) activities as well as its team, who are dedicated to supporting development and innovation in all of Héma-Québec’s product lines, including blood and stable products, stem cells, human tissue and breast milk. Héma-Québec’s mission is to efficiently meet the Quebec public’s needs for quality blood and other biological products of human origin.

In addition, Héma-Québec offers scholarships and a unique and stimulating training environment. In collaboration with researchers from academia, the researchers on the R&D team also supervise students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as postdoctoral and clinical researchers. In alignment with Héma-Québec’s vision to be a strategic partner of the health care system, the research and development team promotes an environment that encourages innovation through networking and collaboration with many local, national and international partners from academia and industry.

Renée Bazin obtained a PhD in biochemistry from Université Laval in 1988. She began her career as a researcher with the Canadian Red Cross Society. In 1998, she was appointed Director of Research in Héma-Québec’s Research and Development Department. She worked on several research topics, mostly focusing on the study of blood cells and proteins and more specifically on monoclonal antibodies and serum immunoglobulins. As an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Bio-Informatics at Université Laval, she has supervised the research work of several MSc and PhD students.

More recently, she was responsible for projects related to the immune response to COVID-19, including projects on convalescent plasma and seroprevalence studies. In addition, she actively collaborates on projects dealing with the humoral response following infection by, or vaccination against, SARS-CoV-2. She has also just been admitted as an associate scientific member of the BEST Collaborative, an international research organization in the field of transfusion medicine and cellular therapies.

Mélanie Dieudé played a leading role in the scientific development of the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program (CDTRP) and held the position of Executive Director of the CDTRP from 2020 to 2022. An immunologist by training, Mélanie Dieudé is also a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases of the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Medicine and an associate researcher with the CHUM Research Centre’s Immunopathology Research Theme.

Dieudé’s team at the CRCHUM works on showing the interaction between zoonoses and immunosuppression and on studying vascular-injury derived autoimmune responses, which is important in graft rejection, graft-versus-host disease and systemic lupus erythematosus.

Dieudé joined Héma-Québec in January 2022 as Director of Research Operations, Medical Affairs and Innovation. In this capacity, she leads a team of more than 40 prolific scientists consisting of researchers and highly qualified research professionals working in various areas, including transfusion medicine, stem cells, human breast milk and human tissue for transplantation.