Thérèse Leroux

Thérèse Leroux is currently a senior professor and researcher at the Public Policy Research Centre at the University of Montreal, where she has been since 2000. From 2001 to 2003, she was the director of the Ethics Office at the Canadian Health Research Institutes. In 2003, she was a Special Advisor to the Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) on an important file: the National Initiative on the appropriate use of placebos in clinical trials in Canada.

In addition to her studies in law, Ms. Leroux completed a bachelor’s degree in biology and a certificate in human relation psychology from the University of Sherbrooke; she holds a PhD in medical biochemistry from the University of Laval. She is a member of the ‘Ordre des chimistes du Québec’ (OCQ) and of the Barreau du Québec.

Striving towards research devoted to biomedical innovations and research community, Ms. Leroux is highly interested in the legal and ethical aspects of new drug experimentation on humans, in organ transplantation (allograft and xenotransplantation), in zoonoses and public health, in protecting the public from biotechnology products, and in the safeguarding of biodiversity. Her current research focuses on public health examined through various perspectives: the conceptualization and the appropriation of new technologies such as genomics; the control framework of zoonoses; and the State’s authorities and duties regarding scientific uncertainty with respect to the environment and public health.

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