Researcher at the CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM), co-director of the CHUM Microbiome Centre and Associate Clinical Professor at the Université de Montréal, Bertrand Routy is receiving the BIAL Prize in Biomedicine for his research on the role of the gut microbiome in the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy.

The award-winning article, titled “Gut microbiome influences efficacy of PD-1–based immunotherapy against epithelial tumors”, was published in Science in 2018. Bertrand Routy began working on this project while he was a doctoral candidate under the supervision of Professor Laurence Zitvogel at the Gustave Roussy Institute in Paris (France). Today, this research represents a major advancement in cancer treatment, and the researcher is considered an international leader in the field of microbiome. “It is an extraordinary recognition for our work, which may have seemed surprising at first but is now changing patients’ lives,” said Bertrand Routy.

Bertrand Routy will receive the BIAL Prize in Biomedicine during an official ceremony on February 24 at the University of Porto in Portugal.

About the BIAL Prize in Biomedecine

Created in 2018 by the BIAL Foundation, the BIAL Prize in Biomedicine rewards the most impactful discoveries of the past decade in the field of biomedicine. Only works nominated by members of the Jury, by Board members of the Foundation, or by Scientific Societies may be considered.