François A. AugerM.D., FRCP(C), CQ, FCAHS

In addition to being the director of the Centre de recherche en Organogenèse Expérimentale/LOEX de l’Université Laval intégré au CHU de Québec, Dr. Auger is also a member of the Laval University Research Commission, and full professor in the department of surgery. In 1985, he founded the Burn Lab, which rapidly became the Experimental Organogenesis Laboratory (Laboratoire d’Organogénèse Expérimentale or LOEX), working on various technologies to develop skin substitutes. In response to the needs of treating surgeons, the LOEX continued to produce autologous skin substitutes via tissue engineering for burn victims from Montreal, Quebec and outside the province. The lab has thus generated over 200 scientific publications.

Dr. Auger’s remarkable achievements have led him receive the distinction of Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Québec in 2003 for the development of exceptional expertise in tissue engineering. He was received as a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences as well as for l’Académie des Grands Québécois of the Quebec Chamber of Commerce. He received the Gloire de l’Escolle Medal, a distinction given to an honorable graduate of Laval University having distinguished himself in his profession. Dr. Auger also received the medal of excellence from the Collège des médecins du Québec.

Area of research

• Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Research thematic

• In vitro biological applications of reconstructed tissue-engineering substitutes: physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, toxicology.
• In vivo preclinical and clinical applications of tissue substitutes in the form of tissue constructions and cell therapy.
• Reconstructed substitutes produced by tissue engineering for skin, small blood vessels, the cornea and bone tissue.

Research interests

• Reconstruction of human tissue, wound healing, stem cells, cellular and molecular biology.
• Skin, bone, vascular and corneal substitutes produced through tissue engineering.
• Transplantation.

Translational research

Although interested by the work done by LOEX, Dr. Auger’s scientific projects are specifically linked to tissue engineering for skin, corneal, vascular (small blood vessels), bone and heart valves. Dr. Auger works in a 55,000 sq. ft. infrastructure with tissue engineering and regenerative medicine cleanrooms, to continue to improve on the technology of reconstructed skin tissue. He is involved in a clinical trial using bilamellar skin substitutes to treat burn victims.

Micro blood vessel, lymphatics, and melanoma modelling

Dr. Auger’s discoveries on the formation of capillary blood networks allow us to now reconstruct tissues in the lab that are biologically more representative of native tissue. A discovery was recently the subject of two publications in Biomaterials and Nature Protocols, i.e. achieving lymphatic capillary networks in reconstructed tissue. Whether to improve our understanding of fundamental physiological mechanisms, or to work as a study model for complex pathologies such as melanoma, this discovery opens some new and original research options and puts the team in a positive position where they can use research tools that are more representative than the well-known in vitro models, while also being more simple, affordable, and ethically accepted than animal study models.