National and international invited speakers
Pr. Fédéric Pouliot
Title of presentation : Static and dynamic molecular imaging to optimize prostate cancer patient’s management: tracking the several cancers in each patient.
Short biography : Dr. Pouliot is a urologist-oncologist at CHU de Québec, Canada. He holds a “FRQS Chevronné” clinical-scientist title and an associate professor position at Laval University’s Surgery Department. He obtained a Ph.D. in molecular biology and physiology endocrinology at Laval University and a post-doc in molecular imaging and urologic oncology at UCLA, Los Angeles. Dr Pouliot collaborates with Canadian and international investigators to improve prostate cancer management by molecular imaging and radioligand therapy. His group of collaborators pioneered prostate cancer molecular imaging in Canada using Choline, DOTATATE, FDG and PSMA PET-imaging. He is involved in several prostate cancer molecular imaging or radioligand clinical trials either as a steering committee member and/or as a principal investigator. He is also a full member of the CCTG genitourinary clinical trial development group executive committee and the U.S. NCI Prostate Cancer Task Force committee.
Learning objectives :
• Understand the challenges related to precision medicine in oncology.
• Understand the notion of intracellular, intercellular, intrapatient, intermetastatic and interpatient heterogeneity.
• Understand the principles of molecular imaging by positron emission tomography and bioluminescence microscopy
• Understand new cancer therapies such as radioligand therapy.
Pr. John Ronald
Pr. John Ronald earned his B.Sc. in Physiology from the University of Western Ontario in 2000, followed by an M.Sc. in Anatomy and Cell Biology in 2003, and a Ph.D. in Medical Biophysics in 2008 from the same institution. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Radiology at Stanford University from 2009 to 2015. Throughout his career, he has received several prestigious awards, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009-2012) and the Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal (2009).
His research focuses on developing novel molecular and cellular imaging technologies to meet the needs of precision medicine. His work is organized around the following objectives:
• Developing technologies that allow for sensitive and accurate detection of cancer in its early stages, improving patient outcomes.
• Innovating tools to track the effectiveness of advanced gene- and cell-based therapies for cancer and other diseases over time.
• Creating disease-specific activatable expression systems that integrate with both biofluid-based and multimodality imaging techniques.
This work bridges molecular and cell biology, imaging sciences, and nanomedicine, using a multidisciplinary approach to tackle some of the most complex biomedical challenges of today.
Pr. Jean-François Adam
Pr Jean-Francois Adam holds an Engineering degree in Electrical and Electronics from the Institut polytechnique de Grenoble (1996-1999), followed by a Master’s degree in Biomedical/Medical Engineering from Université Grenoble Alpes (1999-2000). He went on to earn a PhD in Health/Medical Physics from Université Grenoble Alpes (2000-2003) and he later completed a Medical Nuclear Physics Residency Program at INSTN, becoming a Certified Medical Physicist (2004-2005). In 2006, Pr Jean-François Adam became an Associate Professor at Université Grenoble Alpes, a position he holds to this day.
Additional key points about his expertise :
• 20 years of experience in medical physics, focusing on imaging and radiation therapy.
• Leader of the medical physics master’s program at Université Grenoble Alpes since 2012.
• Research projects focus on synchrotron radiation imaging and therapy in medical physics.
• Expertise in theoretical and experimental x-ray physics for biomedical applications, particularly in dosimetry and imaging.
•Director of the Precision Oncology summer school at the European Scientific Institute in Archamps, Switzerland (2021-2024)
Professors of the immunotherapy session
Pre Lee-Hwa Tai
Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences FMSS Dep. immunology and cell biology
Title of presentation: Precision viro-immunotherapy for hard-to-treat cancers
Brief description of the presentation: I will introduce the foundational concepts of oncolytic virotherapy, a promising cancer treatment that leverages beneficial viruses to selectively infect and destroy tumor cells. We will explore the various mechanisms through which oncolytic viruses exert their therapeutic effects, including direct oncolysis, immune activation, and their potential as delivery vehicles for anti-cancer agents. The presentation will also touch on the future directions of this innovative approach, as well as the current limitations that need to be addressed to unlock its full potential."
Short biography: Lee-Hwa Tai is Director of the Cancer Axis at the Centre de Recherche du CHUS and an Associate Professor at the Department of Immunology and Cellular Biology of Université de Sherbrooke. She obtained her doctorate in molecular immunology from McGill University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer immunology at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. She heads a translational research lab, where she and her team focus on better understanding the immunological pathways that regulate metastatic cancer and on developing new viro-immunotherapies.
Learning objectives:
• Understand the basic principles of using natural or engineered viruses to target cancer cells.
• Understand the multimodal way oncolytic viruses initiate cancer cell killing.
• Appreciate the role of oncolytic viruses in combination with or as primers of other cancer treatments.
• Discuss the future of oncolytic viruses and other intralesional immunotherapies to target solid tumors.
Pr Taha Azad
Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences FMSS Dep. of microbiology and infectious disease
Title of presentation: "Lighting the Way: Innovative Biosensors in the Fight Against Cancer"
Brief description of the presentation: This presentation will explore groundbreaking techniques in cancer research, focusing on the development of luciferase-based biosensors. These innovative tools allow scientists to monitor cancer progression in real-time, providing valuable insights that can lead to more effective treatments.
Short Biography: Taha Azad is a researcher dedicated to developing novel cancer therapeutics. His work focuses on creating luciferase-based biosensors to study cancer progression, aiming to pave the way for more precise and effective treatments.
Learning Objectives: By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
• Understand the basic principles of luciferase-based biosensors.
• Recognize how these biosensors can be applied to study cancer progression.
• Appreciate the role of innovative technologies in advancing cancer research.
• Discuss the potential impact of these technologies on future cancer treatments.
Pre Maryline Labrie
Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences FMSS Dep. immunology and cell biology
Title of presentation: Characterizing the tumor immune microenvironment using cyclic immunofluorescence
Research subject: Development of targeted therapies against ovarian cancer
Short biography: Pre Labrie has been an assistant professor in the department of immunology and cellular biology at the University of Sherbrooke since 2021. Her work focuses on the study of the therapeutic vulnerabilities of ovarian cancer. His laboratory studies in particular the adaptive responses to cyclical therapies and immunotherapy in order to develop more effective combinations of therapies. Their approach includes multi-omics analyzes on longitudinal samples from patients with ovarian cancer and the development of new syngeneic mouse models that make it possible to study the mechanisms involved in tumor progression and treatment resistance.
Professors of the molecular imaging session
Pr Martin Lepage
Department Director, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences FMSS Dep. nuclear medicine and radiobiology
Presentation Title: MRI, Cancer, and You
Short Biography: Martin Lepage is the head of the Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences Department at the University of Sherbrooke and co-director of the Quebec Bioimaging Network. Since 2004, he has been developing imaging agents for MRI and optical imaging in Sherbrooke, mainly for cancer research.
Learnings Objectives: To understand how imaging, particularly MRI, fits into cancer research and patient care. To envision how the role of imaging might evolve in the coming decades.
Pr Ayman Oweida
Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences FMSS Dep. nuclear medicine and radiobiology
Research Topic: Cancer Diagnosis and Detection, Head and Neck Cancer, Lung Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Radiotherapy
Research Disciplines:
Biology and Related Sciences, Oncology
Research Interests: Professor Oweida's work aims to improve understanding of the effect of radiation on the tumor microenvironment and to develop strategies to mitigate the negative effects of radiation on tumor progression and the appearance of metastases. In particular, his work focuses on the study of head and neck cancers through the use of techniques in radiation biology, cancer biology, immunology and medical imaging. In parallel with his work on the over-expression of Tim-3 in T cells as a mechanism of resistance to radiotherapy, and the use of anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy, Professor Oweida focuses on the characterization of the mechanisms of radio-resistance and immune evasion in the context of cancer and the identification of biomarkers of resistance and response to radiation treatments.
Pre Brigitte Guérin
Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences FMSS Dep. nuclear medicine and radiobiology
Research Topic: Chemical synthesis and catalysis, Organic molecules and biomolecules, Cancer diagnosis and detection, Breast cancer, Prostate cancer
Research Disciplines: Nuclear medicine, Chemistry
Research Interests: New diagnostic tools can improve the clinical monitoring of patients with cancer. Positron emission tomography (PET) is a powerful imaging technique that tracks the distribution of tiny concentrations of labeled compounds used to detect cancers. My research interests focus on the design, synthesis and preclinical validation of peptide radiotracers targeting biomarkers overexpressed in various cancers for PET imaging. More specifically, I am interested in the development of ultra-rapid radiosynthesis methods allowing the efficient incorporation of 18F or other positron-emitting radiometals such as 64Cu, 89Zr and 68Ga into peptide derivatives. The latter approach involves the development of chelators that could accelerate peptide labeling under very mild conditions and provide high complexation stability in vivo.
Professors of the omics and oncology session
Pre Marie Brunet
Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences FMSS Department of Pediatrics
Research Topic: Bioinformatics, Genes, Genomics, Neurodegenerative diseases, Proteins, Proteomics
Research Disciplines: Biochemistry, Cellular biology, Molecular biology, Genetics, Veterinary medicine, Pharmacology, Statistics
Research Interests: Development of analytical methods and models to better explore and understand genotype-phenotype relationships, particularly in the context of rare diseases and pediatric cancers.
Pr Etienne Audet-Walsh
Associate Professor Department of Molecular Medicine Faculty of Medicine, Laval University
Title of presentation: Using “omics” in precision oncologY
Brief description of the presentation: I will introduce the different types of “omics” technologies that can be used in cancer research and precision oncology. I will discuss their advantages and disadvantages, the questions that each of these techniques can answer, and their potential impact on precision oncology.
Short biography: During his PhD in pharmacy at Université Laval, Étienne Audet-Walsh studied the link between steroid hormones and hormone-sensitive cancers such as prostate and endometrial cancers. He then performed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University, during which he studied the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation by members of the nuclear receptor family, using transcriptomic, cistromic and metabolomic analyses in different in vitro and in vivo models, with a particular interest in the regulation of cellular metabolism. Since 2017, he has been a professor at Université Laval and studies how tumour cells reprogram their cellular metabolism to support their aberrant proliferation. Ultimately, he wishes to develop new anti-metabolic approaches as innovative therapies against cancers.
Learning objectives:
• Acquire the basic knowledge to fully understand the different “omics” approaches
• Understand in which context(s) these techniques can be used and which scientific questions they can help answer.
Pr Mathieu Quesnel-Vallières
Professeur au département d'immunologie et de biologie cellulaire, FMSS, Université de Sherbrooke
Titre de la présentation : La transcriptomique pour la classification et le traitement du cancer
Objectifs de la présentation : Comprendre le type de questions auxquelles les données de transcriptomique peuvent répondre
Courte Biographie : Mathieu a effectué une maîtrise en travaillant sur l'évolution de virus à ARN dans le laboratoire du Dr Hugo Soudeyns au CHU Sainte-Justine, puis un doctorat en régulation de l'épissage alternatif de l'ARN dans les laboratoires des Drs Benjamin Blencowe et Sabine Cordes à l'Université de Toronto. Pendant son stage postdoctoral, il a utilisé de larges banques de données de séquençage de l'ARN pour développer des outils bioinformatiques pouvant identifier des cibles d'immunothérapie dans le cancer sous le mentorat de Drs Kristen Lynch et Yoseph Barash à l'Université de Pennsylvanie. Son laboratoire poursuit sur cette voie pour perfectionner l'identification de cibles thérapeutiques du cancer par analyses transcriptomiques et valider le potentiel de candidats en laboratoire.
