To date, some 1,700 patients treated by hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeons at the CHUM have contributed to this biobank, one of the largest in Canada. Thanks to this resource, many innovative projects, dealing mainly with cancer recognition by the immune system and the use of artificial intelligence to improve the radiological diagnosis of liver cancers, became possible.

The Roger-Des-Groseillers Chair in Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgical Oncology was created in September 2007, thanks to a donation by Yves Des Groseillers, President and CEO of Brault et Martineau, to the Université de Montréal and to the Fondation du Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM).

The Chair’s mission is to support preclinical and clinical research related to the diagnosis and treatment of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancers in order to improve the quality of life and the survival of patients with these cancers.

Biography

Dr. Simon Turcotte received his medical and surgical training and a Master’s in Cancer Immunology at the Université de Montréal between 1996 and 2009. He then pursued postdoctoral training in the United States for four years as a researcher at the National Cancer Institute and in oncological hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Since 2013, he has been an assistant professor of surgery at the Université de Montréal, a surgeon at the CHUM’s Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery and a cancer immunology researcher at the CRCHUM. He has been an FRQ-S clinical research scholar since 2014, the director of the CHUM’s hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer biobanks and the co-director of the Adoptive T-cell Cancer Immunotherapy Program at the CHUM. The Canadian Association of General Surgeons presented him an Innovation Award during the Canadian Surgery Forum in September 2017.

Crédit photo : Alain Décarie