Associate professor
Department of Surgery
Faculty of Medicine

Dr. Paul Toren is a clinician-researcher in urology and an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of Université Laval. He completed his residency in urology at the University of Toronto and pursued a specialization in uro-oncology at the University Health Network and Sunnybrook Health Sciences in Toronto. Subsequently, he completed a two-year research fellowship at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. Concurrently, he earned a PhD in the Experimental Medicine program at the University of British Columbia. He is currently a recipient of a career award from the Senior Clinician-Researcher program of the Fonds de recherche du Québec — Santé (FRQS). In 2022, he received the American Urological Association’s “Young Urologist of the Year” award.

Since 2015, he has been working as a clinician-researcher at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval. His team’s research focuses on hormonal and immunological aspects of urological cancers, supported by an FRQS clinician-researcher grant. In his laboratory, his team works on understanding the role of sex steroids in prostate and bladder tumors. His team is currently conducting a clinical trial to study how an androgen blocker could reduce recurrence rates in patients with bladder cancer. His team also studies the immunological aspects of these tumors to identify immunological biomarkers to personalize treatments offered to patients. Their investigations involve immunological and molecular analyses of urological tumors using laboratory models, as well as patient samples. The objectives of this team are to bring their new discoveries to the clinic to improve patient care. To achieve this, Dr. Toren collaborates with basic researchers and other clinicians at the local, provincial, and national levels.