Full professor
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Faculty of Medicine

Dr. Éric Boilard, Ph.D., is a Full Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval, and a researcher at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval Research Centre. He is also the co-founder and co-director of the ARThrite Research Centre (Arthritis-Research-Treatment) at Université Laval, Director of the Cytometry Platform at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval Research Centre, and a consulting member of the International Systemic Lupus Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) group.

He obtained his doctorate in Microbiology and Immunology at Université Laval (2003) and pursued postdoctoral training at the Université de Nice-Sophia-Antipolis (2003-2006) and at Harvard University at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (2006-2010). It was during his studies at Harvard that Dr. Boilard shed light on the role of platelets in rheumatoid arthritis (Boilard et al. Science 2010).

His work aims to better understand the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, notably rheumatic diseases, and to improve the development of new therapies through the identification of biomarkers. He examines how platelets and the cells that produce them, called megakaryocytes, contribute to the inflammatory responses present in rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and cases of overwhelming inflammatory responses during microbial infections. For his work, he also considers the extracellular vesicles produced by these cells using advanced technologies. He conducts his research in clinical settings through the valuable involvement of patients and with the help of mouse models of disease.

He is a renowned scientist and international lecturer recognized by his peers. He has won the Radio-Canada prize for the greatest medical discovery of the year on several occasions and the Radio-Canada and Le Soleil prize for Scientist of the Year. He is the recipient of the André Dupont Prize, awarded to the most prolific young Quebec researcher in clinical research, and the Cozzarelli Prize, awarded by the National Academy of Sciences (United States), in recognition of the excellence and originality of his work.