News
Pierre Thibault, recipient of the 2018 Prix ACFAS Urgel-Archambault
Published on novembre 13, 2018
As part of the 74th Gala of the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS), Pierre Thibault, Principal Investigator at IRIC, received the 2018 Prix ACFAS Urgel-Archambault. The award recognizes the excellence and scope of his work in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science and engineering.
Pierre Thibault is in charge of the Proteomics and Bioanalytical Mass Spectometry research unit at IRIC and is a professor in the Chemistry Department at the Université de Montréal.
Over the course of his career, he has put his expertise in bioanalytical chemistry, mass spectometry and proteomics to good use in a number of multidisciplinary research projects, while also expanding the boundaries of technology in those fields. He collaborates with several of the Institute’s research teams, including those of Dr. Claude Perreault and Sébastien Lemieux, with whom he designed an antigen discovery platform.
The work carried out in his laboratory also translated into developing tools that provide a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in immunity and signalling in cancer cells. He began his career with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) as a protein chemistry investigator. He also led research projects there involving the purification and characterization of molecules from marine organisms. In 2001, he became a director at Caprion Pharmaceuticals, where he worked on developing a protein analysis platform and perfected quantitative proteomics approaches for identifying and profiling low-concentration proteins on the surface of cancer cells.
He then joined the Université de Montréal as a full professor and set up a research program on analytical development in mass spectometry and proteomics.
Sponsored by the Ministère de l’Économie et de l’Innovation, the Prix Urgel-Archambault was created in 1953 in honour of Mr. Urgel Archambault, founding director of Polytechnique Montréal. Each year, the Gala of the ACFAS celebrates research excellence in our society and in the Francophonie, in several disciplines.