René Roy (born November 4, 1952) is a Canadian

organic chemist Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

from

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, specializing in

glycobiology Defined in the narrowest sense, glycobiology is the study of the structure, biosynthesis, and biology of saccharides (sugar chains or glycans) that are widely distributed in nature. Sugars or saccharides are essential components of all living thin ...

and

carbohydrate chemistry A carbohydrate () is a biomolecule composed of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O) atoms. The typical hydrogen-to-oxygen atomic ratio is 2:1, analogous to that of water, and is represented by the empirical formula (where ''m'' and ''n'' ma ...

. He is professor emeritus, Department of chemistry, at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and associate professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) – Institut Armand-Frappier (IAF). He is the founder and former director of PharmaQAM, a biopharmaceutical research center based at UQAM, focusing on the discovery of new bioactive molecules, their mechanism of action and the vectorization of drugs. He is a pioneer in the development of

synthetic Synthetic may refer to: Science * Synthetic biology * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic elements, chemical elements that are not naturally found on Earth and therefore have to be created in ...

glycoconjugate vaccines both for human and veterinary health, having co-developed the first and sole marketed semi-synthetic vaccine for human use, preventing bacterial

meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, intense headache, vomiting and neck stiffness and occasion ...

and

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

in developing countries.

Education

René Roy completed his Ph.D. in

from

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (; UdeM; ) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on M ...

in 1980, with Stephen Hanessian, developing synthetic methodologies and the syntheses of natural compounds using carbohydrate precursors (''Chiron'' approach).

Career

Immediately after his Ph.D, in 1980, René Roy joined the National Research Council (NRC) in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

where he worked as researcher in the Institute for Biological Sciences. Then, in 1985, he began his career as professor in the department of chemistry of the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

where he served until December 2002. In parallel, he held the positions of Associate Director of the Ottawa-Carleton Chemistry Institute from 1993 to 1996, Director from 1996 to 1999, and again Associate Director in 2000. From 2002 to 2004, he was chairman of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry and, in 2005, head of the ACS awards committee. In 2008, he returned to

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

to teach

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

at the

Université du Québec à Montréal The (UQAM; ), is a French language, French-language public university, public research university based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest constituent element of the system. UQAM was founded on April 9, 1969, by the government o ...

. There, he also founded the PharmaQAM biopharmaceutical research center which gathers some 50 professors and 17 institutions with common interests in the molecular aspects of

medicinal chemistry Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry is a scientific discipline at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacy involved with drug design, designing and developing pharmaceutical medication, drugs. Medicinal chemistry involves the identification, ...

and

drug discovery In the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered. Historically, drugs were discovered by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or ...

working on new bioactive molecules, their mechanism of action and the way they are vectorized ''in vivo''. He served as director of PharmaQAM until December 2017. During his career, René Roy has co-developed meningitis vaccines, for humans and animals, that led to commercial success. One of them, targeting the ''

Haemophilus influenzae ''Haemophilus influenzae'' (formerly called Pfeiffer's bacillus or ''Bacillus influenzae'') is a Gram-negative, Motility, non-motile, Coccobacillus, coccobacillary, facultative anaerobic organism, facultatively anaerobic, Capnophile, capnophili ...

b'' (HIB) bacteria, has been designed jointly with the Cuban researcher Vincente Verez Bencomo to prevent lethal meningitis and pneumonia in developing countries. It is the first human semi-synthetic glycoconjugate vaccine approved and remains the only one. In use since 2004, more than 34 million doses have been distributed to children in several countries including Vietnam, Syria, Brazil, Venezuela and Angola, eradicating the infectious disease in Cuba. Rene Roy is a cofounder of Glycovax Pharma, a biotech company operating in

, developing glycochemistry-based treatments against cancer and other disease with unmet medical needs.

Research

Research interests

René Roy uses

to develop neoglycoconjugates and

polymers A polymer () is a substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, b ...

to treat disease related to

glycoproteins Glycoproteins are proteins which contain oligosaccharide (sugar) chains covalently attached to amino acid side-chains. The carbohydrate is attached to the protein in a cotranslational or posttranslational modification. This process is known a ...

such as bacterial infections and cancers. His synthesis of new glycan structures, among which

glycopolymer Glycopolymer is a synthetic polymer with pendant carbohydrates. Glycopolymers play an important role in many biological recognition events such as cell–cell adhesion, the development of new tissues and the infectious behavior of virus and bacteri ...

s, glycodendrimers, and glycodendrimersomes (terms that he first developed) enabled progress in the area of multivalent molecular recognition mechanisms. He is known for his work on semi-synthetic glycoconjugate vaccines. He has designed a

breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...

vaccine prototype. René Roy has authored more than 370 scientific articles and 2 books on vaccines and glycomimetics. He has 5 patents to his credit, of which two ended in commercial products

Honors and awards

* Hoffman-La Roche Award from the

Canadian Society for Chemistry The Chemical Institute of Canada is a Canadian professional umbrella organization for researchers and professionals in the field of chemistry. It was founded in 1921 as the Canadian Institute of Chemistry until it merged with other groups in 1945 ...

(1997) * Ottawa Life Sciences Council Achievement Award (2001) *

Rotary International Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. The self-declared mission of Rotary, as stated on its website, is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and p ...

Paul Harris Fellowship (2001) *

National Research Council of Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; ) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research and development. It is the largest federal research and development organization in Canada. Th ...

Royalty Sharing Award (2001) * Melville L. Wolfrom Award from the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry (2003) * Gold Medal from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) (2005) *

Tech Museum Award The Tech Awards (expanded in 2016 to The Tech for Global Good) is a program of The Tech Interactive (previously The Tech Museum of Innovation) wherein innovators from any country are recognized for technological contributions which benefit the g ...

– Technology Benefiting Humanity the Hib Vaccine team (2005) * Probst Memorial Lecturer – Southern Illinois University (2006) * Award of Excellence in research from the Foundation of Stars - Montreal Children’s Hospital (2008) * Médaille (medal) de l’ Université du Québec À Montréal (UQAM) (2009) *

Léo-Pariseau Prize The Léo-Pariseau Prize is a Québécois prize which is awarded annually to a distinguished individual working in the field of biological or health sciences. The prize is awarded by the Association francophone pour le savoir ( Acfas), and is name ...

of the

Association francophone pour le savoir Acfas (previously: Association francophone pour le savoir from 2001 to May 2019 and before, Association canadienne-française pour l'avancement des sciences from 1923 to 2001 "ACFAS" or "Acfas") is the principal French-language learned society in ...

(2010) * "Prix Cercle d’Excellence” of the

Université du Québec The Université du Québec () is a system of ten provincially-run public universities in Quebec, Canada. Its headquarters are in Quebec City. The university coordinates 1400 programs for over 100,000 students. The government of Quebec founded ...

(2011) *

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

in Medicinal Chemistry (2004-2017)

References

External links

PharmaQAM Research Centre

Glycodendrimer definition
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, Rene 1952 births Academic staff of the Université du Québec à Montréal Université de Montréal alumni Canadian organic chemists Academic staff of the University of Ottawa People from Sherbrooke Glycobiologists Canada Research Chairs 20th-century Canadian chemists 21st-century Canadian chemists Living people