Dr. Jacques P. Brown

2017 Distinguished Investigator Award

Jacques graduated from medical school and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Université Laval in Quebec City and his fellowship in rheumatology at Université de Sherbrooke before heading to Lyon, France to undertake a post-doctoral training in metabolic bone diseases.  It is in Sherbrooke and in Lyon that he learned the clinical and research skills that became the pillars of a very successful research career.

As a young academic Rheumatologist, Jacques’ motivation and impressive work capacity allowed him to build a unique internationally-recognized expertise in bone metabolic disorders.  He established the Groupe de recherche en rhumatologie et maladies osseuses that became the catalyst for a productive research program that combined innovative laboratory-based research, clinical trials and large cohort studies.

He has been co-principal investigator on the Canadian Multicenter Osteoporosis Study (CaMos) and he has further contributed to post-menopausal osteoporosis knowledge through his work Recognizing Osteoporosis and its Consequences in Québec in which a cohort of more than 3,000 women were studied for osteoporosis and fractures.

Through the characterization of French-Canadian families with Paget’s disease of bone, he first contributed to the discovery of the SQSTM1 gene mutations linked to this disease, work that has opened up a whole new avenue for research on Paget’s disease.

Jacques has published more than 200 scientific articles in several high-impact journals, such as The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA.  He has received several distinctions to highlight his outstanding career, including two John G. Haddad Jr. Research Awards from the Paget’s Foundation and the Lindy-Fraser Memorial Award from Osteoporosis Canada for his work on clinical practice guidelines of osteoporosis.  More recently, he has been knighted to the Ordre National du Québec in 2009 and he has received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award to honour his significant contributions and achievements.