Donald PoirierPh.D.

Dr. Donald Poirier has been a professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine (Faculty of Medicine, Laval University, Québec, Qc) since July 1991 as well as a researcher at the CHU de Québec – Research Center (Québec, Qc). Since 2008, he has also been Director of the Organic Synthesis Service and Co-Director of the Analytical and Medicinal Chemistry Platform.

Professor Poirier received his basic training in organic chemistry (PhD from Laval University, 1980-1985) and subsequently specialized in medicinal chemistry and endocrinology (Postdoctoral studies at the CHUL-Research Center, 1986-1990, CRM fellowship) and more recently in solid phase synthesis of small molecules of therapeutic interest such as steroid derivatives. He is especially interested in the development of steroidogenic enzyme (17b-HSDs, steroid sulfatase, CYP1B1) inhibitors and antitumor agents for the treatment of different cancers (breast, prostate, ovary, pancreatic, and leukemia). As examples, he developed the first non-estrogenic irreversible steroidal inhibitor of 17β-HSD1 for the treatment of breast cancer and endometriosis. He also developed a family of aminosteroid derivatives that inhibited tumor growth in mice for different cancers (breast, ovary, pancreatic, and leukemia).

In addition to the synthesis of small molecules by classical chemistry, he succeeded by developing solid-phase syntheses of C18-steroid (estrane) derivatives as well as C19-steroid (androstane) derivatives that enabled the generation of model libraries of targeted therapeutic compounds. Thus, he developed a diethylsilylacetylenic linker that produces more stable compounds and a sulfamate linker that produces two classes (phenol and sulfamate) of relevant steroidal or nonsteroidal compounds according to cleavage conditions. He is also interested in additional aspects of organic chemistry (synthesis, new methodologies, NMR analysis, etc.) and medicinal chemistry (SAR, molecular modeling, biological assays, etc.). A particularity of his research group is that he is interested in several stages of the development of a new drug: conception, chemical synthesis, in vitro biological tests (enzymatic assays, cell proliferation, etc.) and in vivo (estrogenic activities and androgenic in female and male mice, plasma concentration, metabolic stability, xenografts of cancer cells, etc.).

Professor Poirier has published 220 scientific publications and is the holder of 11 patents and patent applications. He has also been involved in more than 450 oral and poster presentations, as well as conferences as invited speaker.