Researchers of tomorrow

An internationally recognized enriching training environment, every year CRCHUM welcomes students and postdoctoral fellows who are shaping the future of medical research.

In the last 10 years, more than 2000 international students and fellows have set foot in our facility. In the population health research offices and one of the 75 fundamental and clinical research laboratories, more than 23 languages are spoken today.

We would like to highlight some of the scientists who trained with us, forged their own paths and had the boldness to succeed over the past decade.

Cancer 

Meriem Messaoudene, a former postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Bertrand Routy’s team, is now a research associate. In 2022, she demonstrated for the first time on mice that castalagin, a molecule derived from the Brazilian camu-camu berry, acts as a prebiotic, changes the intestinal microbiome and improves the response to immunotherapy. Even for cancers resistant to immunotherapy.

Nicolas Malaquin followed an identical path in Francis Rodier’s team. Among other things, he discovered a new function performed by DNA repair proteins in reducing the inflammatory response in aging cells. These so-called senescent cells accumulate with age.

Cardiometabolics

Did you know that Khalil Bouyakdan, responsible for the CRCHUM’s metabolic phenotyping platform since 2018, did his doctorate degree on metabolism and the hypothalamus in Thierry Alquier’s laboratory, a researcher and manager of the Cardiometabolic research theme. He is currently in charge of the small animal phenotyping and imaging platform.

In the same research theme, Chantal Bémeur, a former postdoctoral fellow in Roger Butterworth’s team, became a regular researcher in 2018.

Neuroscience

Two regular researchers since 2020 first came to CRCHUM as postdoctoral fellows: Éric Samarut, joined Pierre Drapeau’s team in 2014, and Élie Bou Assi, supervised by Dr. Dang Khoa Nguyen between 2017 and 2018.

Éric is exploring a new field of research through the zebra fish: the functional genomics of rare neurological and metabolic disorders. Élie is continuing his work on detecting and predicting epileptic seizures.

Luis Alarcon Martinez, a postdoctoral fellow in Adriana Di Polo’s laboratory from 2015 to 2021, is now a principal researcher at the Centre for Eye Research Australia in Melbourne. He is studying blood distribution in the retina to help prevent or treat retinal neurodegenerative diseases such as glaucoma.

Laura Hamilton, a former postdoctoral fellow in Karl Fernandes’ laboratory, has been a research associate since 2022 in Martine Tétreault’s team. Among other things, she contributes to the study of molecular mechanisms in neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases.

Imaging and engineering

Before becoming Canada Research Chair in emerging applications of spectral computed tomography, Hugo Bouchard, a regular researcher since 2017, started out on Gilles Beaudoin’s team at CHUM.

A doctoral student from 2014 to 2018 on Frédéric Leblond’s team, in 2017 engineer Joannie Desroches developed an optical biopsy needle capable of immediately detecting brain cancer tissue with high diagnostic accuracy.

This technology won the 2017 Discovery of the Year public award from Québec Science. Today, Joannie works as a biomedical engineer in the private sector.

Immunopathology

Within the research theme, two former postdoctoral fellows have independently begun their own research works: Dr. Jean-Maxime Côté, since 2023 (postdoctoral fellowship under the supervision of Dr. Jean-François Cailhier from 2019 to 2021), and Dr. Sabrina Anh-Tu Hoa, since March 2019 (postdoctoral supervision by Dr. Jean-Luc Sénécal until 2019). The latter identifies risk factors for the progression of pulmonary fibrosis associated with scleroderma and evaluates the role of treatments to prevent early phases of the disease.

Health Innovation and Evaluation Hub

After postdoctoral studies under the supervision of Marie-Pierre Sylvestre from 2017 to 2019, Isabelle Doré became a regular researcher this same year. In 2023, her team and Fondation Virage won an award from the Quebec Oncology Program for the iACTIF pre-adaptation program for people diagnosed with cancer and awaiting surgery.

Vikki Ho, a regular researcher in the research theme since 2016, has held the CIHR Chair in Sex and Gender Science in Cancer since 2020. Before that, she was a postdoctoral fellow in Marc Prentki’s team.

Dr. Marc Jolicoeur (postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Marie-José Miron’s team at CHUM), and Gabrielle Pagé (postdoctoral supervision by Manon Choinière until 2017) have proceeded from postdoctoral fellowship to regular researcher status in 2021 and 2018 respectively.