Immunology in Montreal
Professor Sylvie Lesage, Research Director at the Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont in Montreal whose career has spanned Canada and Australia researching immunogenetics and autoimmune disease, talks with Professor Adrian Liston about Immunology, intercultural academic experiences and opportunities in Montreal and its neighbors.
Abstract
Immunology is an international endeavor with many well-known scientific powerhouses spanning from the United States to the UK and across Europe, yet with rapidly emerging knowledge economies and expanding global scientific collaborations and communities, new immunology frontiers are coming to the forefront. Professor Sylvie Lesage (Figure 1), Research Director at the Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont in Montreal whose career has spanned Canada and Australia researching immunogenetics and autoimmune disease, talks with Professor Adrian Liston about Immunology, intercultural academic experiences and opportunities in Montreal and its neighbors. Liston: Following your PhD in Montreal, you had a successful postdoc in Canberra, Australia, before returning to your home city. With a research career built around Montreal, can you tell us about the immunology research landscape, both academic and industry based, around Montreal? Lesage: Montreal hosts four major universities (Figure 2), of which McGill University and Universit e de Montr eal have graduate and postgraduate programs in immunology. McGill University is an English-speaking program, while Universit e de Montr eal is a Frenchspeaking university but offers the PhD program in Immunology in both French and English. The Universit e Laval, based in Qu ebec city, also has an affiliated research center called Centre Armand-Frappier Sant e Biotechnologie, just North of Montreal, with graduate and postgraduate programs in immunology. Both McGill University and the Universit e de Montr eal have many affiliated research centers. Traveling from west to east on the island, we come across more than a dozen research centers where immunology is one of the major research disciplines. In addition to its on-campus research activities in fundamental immunology and complex trait immunogenetics, research in immunology at McGill University extends out to six additional affiliated research centers, namely, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center (RI-MUHC; specializes in infectious diseases and cancer immunology), Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI; autoimmunity, primarily multiple sclerosis), Montreal Children’s Hospital (autoimmunity and genetic diseases), Lady Davis Institute (LDI; cancer immunology and regenerative medicine), Goodman Cancer Center (cancer immunology), Meakins-Christie Laboratories (allergy, asthma and other lung immunopathologies). The Universit e de Montr eal also has five affiliated centers with active poles in immunology in addition to its on-campus activities. The Institut de recherche en immunologie et canc erologie (IRIC) has many investigators working in hematology and cancer immunology. It holds an exceptional unit facilitating drug discovery by synthesizing small molecules with high therapeutic potential. The immunologists working at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montr eal (IRCM), located in the heart of Montreal, are active in various aspects of both fundamental and translational immunology. The Centre de recherche du centre hospitalier de l’Universit e de Montr eal (CR-CHUM) specializes in immunovirology, including hepatitis C virus, HIV and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. They have developed remarkable biobanks to access patient samples, allowing to perform fundamental, translational and clinical research. The Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier