14th Annual Scientific Meeting

2020 MDRC Annual Scientific Meeting

The 14th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Montreal Diabetes Research Center will be held on January 31st, 2020.

This year we will have the privilege to welcome Dr Kevin D. Hall, who will give the J. Denis McGarry MDRC Lecture and Dr Robert O. Wright, who will give the George Cahill Jr Lecture.

The retreat is supported by generous contributions from:

 

13th Annual Scientific Meeting

2019 MDRC Annual Scientific Meeting.
This year at the 13th Annual Scientific Meeting on February 1st, 2019, we will have the privilege to welcome Dre Nancy Cox, who will give the J. Denis McGary MDRC Lecture and Dre Elizabeth Meyer-Davis will give the George Cahill Lecture. We have a new addition this year, The Martin Rodbell Translational Research Lecture, to be given by Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif.

 

Retreat2016

Over $2.5 million to Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret for research on the artificial pancreas.

Over $2.5 million to Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret for research on the artificial pancreas.

Dr Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret research team at IRCM is receiving a grant of more than $2.5M USD from the U.S. NIH for a clinical study on external artificial pancreas. The goal of the project is to compare glucose control achieved using the single-hormone (insulin only) artificial pancreas, the dual-hormone (insulin and glucagon) artificial pancreas, and the conventional insulin pump to deliver insulin.

Dr Rabasa-Lhoret team is leading the field of artificial pancreas development in Canada, a technology which has the potential to greatly reduce complication risks associated to a poor glucose control in people with type 1 diabetes. Click here for the IRCM news release.

2015 MDRC annual retreat

MDRC annual retreat is scheduled for February 6, 2015. It will be held in the auditorium of the new CHUM research center, 900 St-Denis Street. Dr Philipp Scherer from the Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas is the invited speaker for the “2015 J Denis McGarry Lecture”.

Since last year the MDRC is proud to also present a major Lecture in clinical research, the “George Cahill Lecture”. Our second invited speaker is Dr Ralph DeFronzo from the Health Science Center in San Antonio. Oral and poster presentations by MDRC students and trainees are scheduled, as well as a presentation by Dr Philippe Crine, from Enobia Inc.

Please register as soon as possible through the form available here. Students and post-docs interested in giving an oral or poster presentation must submit their abstract through the same form before January 18, 2014.

The program will be available soon.

The 2015 Annual Retreat is sponsored by Merck, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, Janssen, Boehringer, Sanofi, McGill University Faculty of Medicine, Réseau de Recherche en Santé Cardiométabolique Diabète et Obésité (CMDO), IRCM, Diabète Québec and CRCHUM.

retreat2015

Congratulations to the 2014-2015 Faculté de Médecine de l’Université de Montréal/MDRC Studentships recipients

In recognition of the MDRC success at the Canada Foundation for Innovation competition, the Faculté de Médecine de l’Université de Montréal generously gives us $40,000 in funding for Msc and PhD students. Thanks to this support, 4 studentships of $10,000 are awarded each year.

Here are the 2014-2015 recipients:

  • Elsa Nyam, MSc student, Vincent Poitout lab (CRCHUM). Project title: “L’urée, potentiel médiateur de la dysfonction de la cellule bêta-pancréatique au cours de l’insuffisance rénale chronique”.
  • Nadine Taleb, MSc student, Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret lab (IRCM). Project title: “L’efficacité du pancréas artificiel externe durant l’exercice chez les adultes atteints du diabète du type 1”.
  • Cindy Audiger, PhD student, Sylvie Lesage and Nathalie Labrecque labs (HMR). Project title: “Role des cellules T mémoires dans la pathogenèse du diabète de type 1”.
  • Amélie Germain, MSc student, Mathieu Ferron lab (IRCM). Project title: “Le rôle de Gas6 dans le métabolisme du glucose”.

Visiting Scientist Awards for projects on human islets

The Alberta Diabetes Institute is introducing a competition to offer 2 visiting scientist awards at a maximum of $10,000 each, so that scientists at any level can spend up to 4 months in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada carrying out their own research projects on human islets.

For more details please download this document or visit Dr Patrick MacDonald lab website. Deadline for application is January 31, 2015.

Discovery of a new mechanism to prevent type 2 diabetes in obese individuals

A new study conducted by MDRC member Dr May Faraj, shows that the number of low-density lipoprotein particles carrying bad cholesterol in the blood is an important factor in promoting the risk for type 2 diabetes in obese individuals. Their results are published in the May 2013 issue of the Journal of Lipid Research. This scientific breakthrough may help prevent diabetes by targeting treatments to higher-risk individuals. Click here for more details.

AmorChem venture capital fund invests at MDRC

Two projects of the MDRC researchers Marc Prentki and Nabil Seidah have recently been funded by the venture capital fund AmorChem: more than 1 million and 1.5 million $, respectively. The shareholders of this fund are the Quebec government, Fonds de solidarité FTQ and Merck. The mission of AmorChem is to increase the commercial value of academic research discoveries in Quebec. Click here for an article in La Presse about this news (in French).

AmorChem venture capital fund invests at MDRC

AmorChem venture capital fund invests at MDRC.

Two projects of the MDRC researchers Marc Prentki and Nabil Seidah have recently been funded by the venture capital fund AmorChem: more than 1 million and 1.5 million $, respectively. The shareholders of this fund are the Quebec government, Fonds de solidarité FTQ and Merck. The mission of AmorChem is to increase the commercial value of academic research discoveries in Quebec.

Click here for an article in La Presse about this news (in French).

MDRC success for a CFI competition – Creation of the BIOcMET consortium

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) announced last January 15 the attribution of a 6.5 million $ grant to fund the project entitled “The Montreal Cardiometabolic biomarker and drug discovery consortium (BIOcMET)”. This project is led by Dr Marc Prentki, MDRC director. Among the 10 investigators involved in the project, 8 are MDRC members: Drs Prentki, Poitout, Hamet, Turgeon, Gaudreau (UdM/CRCHUM), Rabasa-Lhoret, Seidah (UdM/IRCM) and Sladek (McGill). The two other researchers are Drs Blanchette (McGill) and Coulombe (UdM/IRCM).

Marc Prentki is the EASD’s 2011 Albert Renold Prize recipient

MDRC Director Marc Prentki has been awarded the 2011 Albert Renold Prize by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) for “outstanding achievements in research on the islets of Langerhans”.

As part of the prize Dr Prentki was invited to give the Albert Renold Lecture at the 2011 EASD annual meeting. The title of his talk was: “Tricycling along the β-cell and its coupling mechanisms for fuel induced insulin secretion”.