Donald Poirier
CHU de Quebec-Research center and University Laval, Canada
Biography
Professor Donald Poirier received his training in chemistry (B.Sc., 1977-1980) and organic chemistry (PhD, 1980-1985) at Université Laval (Québec City, Canada). He subsequently specialized in medicinal chemistry (Post-doctoral training at CHUL - Research Center, 1986-1990) and more recently in solid phase synthesis of small molecules of therapeutic interest. He is especially interested in the development of inhibitors of steroidogenic enzymes (17b-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases (types 1, 2, 3, 7, 10 and 12) and steroid sulfatase) and antitumor agents for the treatment of different cancers (breast, prostate, ovary, leukemia). In addition to the synthesis of small molecules by classical chemistry, he succeeded by developing solid-phase synthesis of C18-steroid (estrane), C19-steroid (androstane) and C21-steroid (pregnane) derivatives that enabled the generation of model libraries of targeted therapeutic compounds. Thus, he developed a new sulfamate linker for solid-phase synthesis that produces two classes (phenol and sulfamate) of relevant steroidal or nonsteroidal compounds according to the conditions of cleavage. He also developed a diethylsilylacetylene linker to generate libraries of acetylenic tertiary alcohols, which are well known to be biologically more stable than their corresponding secondary alcohols.
He is also interested to additional aspects of organic chemistry (synthesis, new methodologies, NMR analysis, etc.) and medicinal chemistry (structure-activity relationships, molecular modelisation, biological assays, etc.). He is professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine (Faculty of Medicine, Université Laval, Québec City, Canada) since July 1991, researcher at CHU de Québec - Research Center (Québec City) since 1991 and director of the Organic Synthesis Service (CHU de Québec) since 2008. Professor Poirier is member of professional organizations such as ACS, CIC, OCQ, ACFAS and CRCQ. He published 202 papers and 8 patents. He was also author or co-authors of 414 presentations (invited speaker, oral and poster presentations).
Abstract
Abstract : A new family of aminosteroid derivatives to treat refractory cancers
