1st prize: Jean-Luc Simard, CRCHU de Québec – Université Laval
In his 27 years as a research professional at the Infectious Disease Research Centre (IDRC) at CHU de Québec-Université Laval, Jean-Luc Simard has built on his organization skills and initiative and shared his passion for science through many achievements, including the expansion of the centre’s DNA sequencing and synthesis service and management of the quality system (over 400 mon procedures and protocols and 1 000 laboratory notebooks totalling over 200 000 pages of experimental results and intellectual property). His work to compare and analyze bacterial genomes led to a number of patents and inventions and the development of tests to diagnose bacterial infection, as well as public-private partnership initiatives valued at over $50M in research grants and contracts and the commercialization of results by organizations that invested over $800M and created over 400 jobs in Québec.
Jean-Luc has helped train over 125 employees and graduate students. He oversees the FRQS-funded Chercheur-e d’un jour program, which, in the past 20 years, has enabled over 4 000 high school students to join a research laboratory for a day and is a volunteer for Expo-sciences, Jeunes explorateurs d’un jour and Innovateurs à l’école.