Steve Lacroix

Steve Lacroix is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Université Laval and the Director of the Neurosciences program at the CHU de Québec–Université Laval Research Center. He received his Ph.D. from Université Laval in 1998. He then trained as a postdoc with Dr. Mark Tuszynski at the University of California–San Diego (1998–2001) and with Dr. Samuel David at McGill University (2001–2003). He now teaches and conducts research in the fields of neuroimmunology and regenerative medicine, areas in which he has directly supervised the work of over 25 graduate students and over 30 undergraduates.

With over 20 years of research funded without interruption and focusing on understanding and targeting neuroimmune interactions in the context of spinal cord injury and disease, he has published more than 75 papers with over 8,400 citations and an h-index of 44, many of which are published in leading neuroscience and immunology journals (Nat Commun, J Clin Invest, J Exp Med, Nat Rev Neurosci, Annu Rev Neurosci, Brain, Ann Neurol, PNAS, J Neurosci). He is the recipient of the 2020 Turnbull-Tator Award, which recognizes outstanding research in the field of spinal cord and/or brain injury research. His recent research has focused on the identification of endogenous signals initiating neuroinflammation and the role of immune cells in neural damage and repair in the context of spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis.

The Lacroix lab has expertise with transgenic mouse models and intravital microscopy techniques to tackle key questions related to the biology of immune and barrier-forming cells, and then applying these insights in preclinical models of spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis.