News
Marie-Josée Coutu appointed honorary member of IRIC’s Board of Directors
Published on February 17, 2020
IRIC is pleased to announce the appointment of Mrs. Marie-Josée Coutu as an honorary member of its Board of Directors. The appointment underscores Mrs. Coutu’s unwavering commitment, exceptional support to the cause and longstanding contribution to the success of IRIC’s activities. It is the first acknowledgement of its kind bestowed by the Institute. Mrs. Coutu’s last mandate as an IRIC Board member ended in December of 2019.
As President of the Marcelle and Jean Coutu Foundation, loyal IRIC donor, and member of its Board, Mrs. Coutu has been working for over 10 years on providing visibility to cancer research being carried out by the Institute’s research teams. Over the course of her various mandates, she has put her innovative ideas and vision to good use and they have greatly contributed to IRIC’s growth and to pushing our boundaries in the pursuit of our threefold mission.
As a result of its generosity, the Foundation has inspired dozens of donors to follow suit by encouraging major donations, and has also worked on securing many grants for IRIC. The Institute has been able to benefit from the Foundation’s visibility in the business community, notably for the first edition of the Audacious benefit event and the broadening of its pool of donors.
Along with supporting forward-thinking research projects, such as Marc Therrien’s work involving the RAS cell signaling pathway, the Foundation’s contributions also include having recruited Delphine Bouilly. Trained as a physicist, she works closely with Brian Wilhelm on detecting biomarkers specific to a subgroup of patients suffering from acute myeloid leukemia. We should also point out that a major donation made by the Foundation led to acquiring mass spectrometry equipment, a vital tool for identifying tumor-specific antigens, a key element of the collaboration between Sébastien Lemieux, Pierre Thibault and Dr. Claude Perreault. Dr. Perreault heads up work aimed at developing a therapeutic cancer vaccine.
