Donald Poirier, Ph. D.

Dr. Donald Poirier has been a professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Université Laval’s Faculty of Medicine since July 1991. He is a scholarship holder from the Fonds de recherche en Santé du Québec. He also works as a researcher at the CHU de Québec-UL’s research centre. He has also been a director of the Organic Synthesis Service and co-Director of the analytical and medicinal chemistry platform since 2008.

Dr. Poirier has a background in basic chemistry (B.Sc., 1980) and organic chemistry (Ph.D., 1985, FCAC scholarship holder) at Université Laval before specializing in medicinal chemistry and endocrinology (postdoctoral studies at the CHUL Research Centre, 1986–1990, CRM scholarship holder). He is especially interested in the chemical synthesis of steroid derivatives of biological interest such as enzyme inhibitors (17 beta-HSDs, steroid sulphatase, CYP1B1) involved in steroidogenesis and antitumour agents for the treatment of various cancers. His research group has also developed the first non-estrogenic irreversible steroidal inhibitor of 17 beta-HSD1 for the treatment of breast cancer and endometriosis (licenced to Insud Pharma).

In addition to the synthesis of small molecules of biological interest using classical and solid support chemistry, Dr. Donald Poirier is also interested in their nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) characterization, as well as various aspects of medicinal chemistry (structure-activity relationship studies, biological testing, molecular modelling, etc.). A particular feature of his research group is that it covers several stages in the development of a new drug: design, chemical synthesis, in-vitro biological tests (enzymatic assays, cell proliferation, etc.) and in-vivobiological tests (biological activities in mice, plasma concentration, metabolic stability, human cancer cell xenografts, etc.).

Dr. Poirier is an editor of the Steroids journal and sits on the editorial board of three journals: the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Current Enzyme Inhibition, and Current Organic Synthesis. He has published 270 scientific papers, holds 14 patents or patent applications, has contributed to over 500 oral presentations and posters, and has been invited to give lectures. As a professor, Dr. Poirier has helped train 38 B.Sc., 30 M.Sc., 10 Ph.D., and 5 post-doctoral fellows. He has also served as an evaluator with various granting agencies: the CIHR, Mitacs, the FRQNT, the CFI, the NSERC, the CSC, JIF-UK, the AOCS-USA and the GACR-Czech.

Dr. Donald Poirier is a member of the Ordre des chimistes du Québec (OCQ), the Canadian Society of Chemistry (CSC), and the American Chemical Society (ACS).