Dr. Jacques Simard

A Boon for Breast Cancer Prevention

Each year, millions of lives around the world are touched by breast cancer. Despite breakthroughs in recent years in the areas of prevention and treatment, breast cancer still affects one out of nine Canadian women at some point in their lives.

Considering the growing demand of women — often asymptomatic and having a family history of breast or ovarian cancer — for access to predictive genetic testing, the work of Dr. Jacques R. Simard has emerged as pivotal in helping physicians better target cancer-screening tests and help at-risk women make informed choices regarding prevention and treatment.

In the mid 1990’s, Dr. Simard's interdisciplinary and collaborative research contributed to the discovery of BRCA1 and BRCA2, two high-penetrance breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility genes. These genes have important roles in the maintenance of genomic stability by facilitating repair of double-strand breaks and mutations in these genes explain approximately 15-20% of the excess familial risk of breast cancer. Dr. Simard is author on almost 300 refereed publications. In acknowledgment of his outstanding contribution to the field of hormone sensitive cancers, he received the Richard E. Weitzman Memorial Award, the most prestigious recognition for a scientist younger than 40, from the Endocrine Society, the world's oldest, largest, and most active organization devoted to research on hormones and the clinical practice of endocrinology.

Not one to rest on his laurels, in 2001 Dr. Simard founded the Interdisciplinary Health Research International Team on Breast Cancer susceptibility (INHERIT BRCAs), recently renewed as the CIHR Team in Familial Risks of Breast Cancer. This diverse team, consisting of 25 scientists and clinicians from Québec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, USA, UK and France, studies breast cancer from a highly interdisciplinary perspective, thereby rapidly accelerating applications of their discoveries to women in need. Indeed, the team received a Mérites du CQLC 2003 from the Conseil Québecois de Lutte Contre le Cancer, an agency of the Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux du Québec.

The interdisciplinary work of Dr. Jacques R. Simard, Canada Research Chair in Oncogenetics, aims at identifying novel loci associated with breast cancer risk and determine how such a risk may be modified by interactions with other genes and environmental and lifestyle factors, in order to further develop risk prediction models by improving their accuracy and predictive capacity for this complex disease. His work is also centered on the communication of genetic risk information to patients, families and health professionals to improve the health and clinical management of at-risk individuals.

Director and founder of the Oncogenetics axis of the Applied Medical Genetics Network of the FRSQ, Dr. Simard has played a key role in the strategic development of health research as member of the Medical Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance Management Committee, the Institute Advisory Board of the CIHR Gender and Health Institute.

He is also currently member of the Board of Directors of Genome Canada and member of the Ministerial Science Advisory Board of Health Canada and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

For further information, please contact Dr. Jacques Simard using the Email contact form or by phone at 418 654-2264