Doctor Johanne Tremblay is a professor of medicine at the Université de Montréal and a researcher at the CHUM research center, where she has directed the cardiometabolic axis for more than 20 years. She is a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the American Heart Association.
She received her PhD in biomedical sciences from the Université de Montréal in 1982. Supported by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, she did her postdoctoral training at the Clinical Research Institute of Montréal and at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Upon her return to the Université de Montréal in 1984, the Fonds de recherches – Santé du Québec (FRSQ) awarded her a competitive research grant which she renewed for 16 years. Her research has been continuously funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Génome Québec, CQDM and the MEIE. She has been president of the Canadian Hypertension Society, the Société québécoise d’hypertension, and the Club de recherche clinique du Québec. In 1993, she received the Young Investigator Award from the Canadian Hypertension Society. In 1994, she received the same award from the Société québécoise d’hypertension and in 2010, she received the Society’s Recognition Award. She has chaired the program committees of several international conferences, including the two international conferences on personalized medicine held in Montréal in 2016 and 2018.
She has authored or co-authored over 320 scientific publications, including the paper on polygenic risk scores for diabetes complications published in 2021. Her research interests include diabetes, hypertension, genomics and artificial intelligence. She co-founded the company OPTITHERA which aims to introduce polygenic risk scores into the healthcare system.