At present, we are facing an aging population living with or susceptible to developing numerous chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, vascular disorders, liver steatosis, osteoporosis, chronic kidney disease, endocrine diseases like thyroid disorders, metabolic diseases like obesity or biliary cholangitis, as well as hormone-sensitive cancers (e.g., breast cancer, prostate cancer), etc.
The research work of the endocrinology and nephrology program aligns harmoniously with the clinical and societal needs of patients and their caregivers while being integrated into the supraregional organization of the CHU de Québec-Université Laval. Serving over 2 million individuals, the CHU de Québec-Université Laval is a tertiary reference center offering cutting-edge services through specialized clinics in endocrinology, metabolism, lipidology, hypertension, kidney diseases, dialysis, and kidney transplantation for the entire eastern part of the province.
These multidisciplinary clinics play a key role in the establishment of clinical studies and research work conducted within the program, thanks to the multiple patient cohorts and biobanks.
The endocrinology and nephrology program consists of passionate clinician-researchers and fundamental researchers whose talents cover many facets of health and life sciences. They work in various fields including, but not limited to, lipidology, endocrinology, diabetology, nutrition, nutrigenomics, metabolomics, nephrology, dialysis, kidney transplantation, oncology, rheumatology, cellular and molecular biology, genetics and genomics, medicinal chemistry, pharmacogenomics, proteomics, digital biology, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, and personalized health care technologies.
The research teams of this program also benefit from an exceptional working environment in terms of infrastructure and human resources, between the modern research facilities of the Centre hospitalier de l’Université Laval (CHUL), the specialized nephrology laboratories at the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec (HDQ), and soon, the new collaborative workspaces at the Centre de recherche en oncologie et néphrologie of the Nouveau Complexe Hospitalier (NCH).
Finally, the members of the endocrinology and nephrology program are keen to disseminate the results of their research to the global scientific community, the Canadian population, and Quebec’s health service users and providers through events at the Musée de la civilisation, during the kidney walk, and through training activities offered as part of the scientific meetings of the Cardiometabolic Health, Diabetes, and Obesity Research Network (CMDO), the Quebec Society of Lipidology, Nutrition, and Metabolism (SQLNM), the Quebec Society of Nephrology (SQN), and the Quebec Society of Hypertension (SQHA), among other examples.
