INRS Creates a New Chair in Nanobiophotonics

QUEBEC CITY, Jan. 14, 2025 /CNW/ - The Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) is pleased to announce the creation of the Chair in Nanobiophotonics funded entirely by the INRS Foundation, which will contribute $100,000 per year for five years.

INRS professors Marc A. Gauthier and Jonathan Perreault are co-directing this new chair, furthering their long-standing collaboration. "Though my lab is already established at the Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre (EMT), I recently moved to join Professor Perreault at the INRS Laval campus, where the Armand-Frappier Santé Biotechnologie Research Centre (AFSB) is located, to optimize cooperation for the Chair. You know, people assume that it's easy for, say, a physicist and a clinician to communicate, but it's not! It's important to be in the lab together, interact, explore possibilities together… The Chair's research projects encourage this kind of interdisciplinarity, which is really rich in opportunities and discoveries."

In the interest of further expanding the possibilities, the co-chairholders brought fellow INRS professors Jinyang Liang and Maya Saleh on to collaborate as associate researchers.

This kind of interdisciplinarity is very much in line with the core value of collaboration that guides INRS's activities. The Executive Director of the INRS Foundation, Élise Comtois, adds: "The Foundation is using an endowment fund to set up the Chair in Nanobiophotonics to encourage the INRS centres' integration and joint efforts, among other things. Combining expertise fuels enthusiasm and maximizes the benefits for the public."

The INRS Chair in Nanobiophotonics' potential impact is unprecedented, particularly when it comes to cancer detection and treatment. Involving pharmaceutical chemistry, molecular biology, immuno-oncology, ultrafast imaging, and biophotonics, the Chair's work focuses on aptamers (short fragments of DNA) as responsive recognition agents, exploring the possibility of designing more efficient tools for analyzing human tissue samples. Professor Perreault foresees significant benefits for the public: "In concrete terms, this could lead to significant advances in precision medicine and more effective diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in immuno-oncology, among other medical applications."

The Chair is also a unique learning opportunity for graduate students. "The issues facing Quebec's society are complex and call for multifaceted solutions. The Chair is another driver of interdisciplinarity, which is vital for training a new generation of scientists capable of meeting the challenges of the future," finishes Ms. Comtois.

About INRS

INRS is an academic institution dedicated exclusively to graduate research and training in strategic sectors in Quebec. For the past 55 years, it has actively contributed to Quebec's economic, social, and cultural development. INRS is first in Canada in research intensity. It is made up of four interdisciplinary research and training centres located in Quebec City, Montreal, Laval, and Varennes, which focus their efforts on strategic sectors: water, earth, and environment (Eau Terre Environnement Research Centre); energy, materials, and telecommunications (Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre); urbanization, culture, and society (Urbanisation Culture Société Research Centre); and health and biotechnology (Armand-Frappier Santé Biotechnologie Research Centre). The INRS community includes over 1,500 students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty and staff members.  

About the INRS Foundation

Launched in 2020, the INRS Foundation boosts the growth of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). It plays an active role in promoting the impacts of the entire INRS, engages the business and philanthropic communities in its mission and projects, and supports the work of its scientific, student and alumni community. Managing an endowment of over ten million dollars, having raised over one million dollars to date, and leading a network of over 4,000 alumni, the Foundation is a welcoming, agile and audacious gateway for all donors and partners who aspire to change the world through research.

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