Dr. Jacques L. Michaud completed his training in pediatrics and medical genetics at Université de Montréal and University of Toronto. He subsequently pursued his research training in genetics, first at the Collège de France in Paris, then at the Carnegie Institution of Washington/Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He began his career as an independent researcher and clinician at CHU Sainte-Justine in 1999.
His clinical and research activities focus on the genetic basis of neuro-developmental disorders. More specifically, his laboratory uses genomic approaches to identify genes involved in intellectual disability and epilepsy. His team has discovered some 15 genes associated with these disorders and demonstrated that spontaneous mutations – those not inherited from parents – are a major cause of intellectual disability.
As Scientific Director of the CHU Sainte-Justine and Génome Québec Integrated Clinical Genomics Centre in Pediatrics, Dr. Michaud also works on validating and integrating genomic tests that can be used in a clinical setting to better understand rare diseases.
Dr. Michaud is Chief of Division of Medical Genetics at CHU Sainte-Justine and Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at the Faculty of Medicine of Université de Montréal. He also holds the Jeanne and Jean-Louis Lévesque Research Chair on the genetic basis of brain diseases and the Jonathan Bouchard Research Chair on intellectual disability. He has been a national scientist of the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé.