Prof. Steve Lacroix PhD

Steve Lacroix is Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Université Laval and Director of the Neurosciences Axis at the CHU de Québec Research Center (Canada). He received his Ph.D. from Université Laval in 1998. He was trained as a postdoc at the University of California, San Diego, in the field of spinal cord regeneration (1998-2001). From 2001 to 2003, he completed a second postdoc in neuroimmunology at McGill University, Montréal. Dr. Lacroix teaches and conducts research in the fields of neuroimmunology and regenerative medicine. His recent research has focused on the identification of the endogenous signals initiating neuroinflammation and the role of immune cells in neural damage and repair in the context of spinal cord and peripheral nerve injury and multiple sclerosis. With over 20 years of research in neuroimmune diseases, he has published more than 70 papers with over 7000 citations, many of which are published in the leading journals of neurosciences and immunology.

Five most important publications:

1. Mailhot B, Christin M, Tessandier N, Sotoudeh C, Bretheau F, Turmel R, Pellerin È, Wang F, Bories C, Joly-Beauparlant C, De Koninck Y, Droit A, Cicchetti F, Scherrer G, Boilard E, Sharif-Naeini R, Lacroix S. Neuronal interleukin-1 receptors mediate pain in chronic inflammatory diseases. The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 217 (2020): e20191430. doi: 10.1084/jem.20191430.
2. Bellver-Landete V, Bretheau F, Mailhot B, Vallières N, Lessard M, Janelle M-E, Vernoux N, Tremblay M-È, Fuehrmann T, Shoichet M, Lacroix S. Microglia are an essential component of the neuroprotective scar that forms after spinal cord injury. Nature Communications, 10 (2019): 518.
3. Paré A, Mailhot B, Lévesque SA, Juzwik C, Ignatius Arokia Doss PM, Lécuyer M-A, Prat A, Rangachari M, Fournier A, Lacroix S. IL-1β enables CNS access to CCR2^hi monocytes and the generation of pathogenic cells through GM-CSF released by CNS endothelial cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 115 (2018): E1194-E1203.
4. Lévesque SA, Paré A, Mailhot B, Bellver-Landete V, Kébir H, Lécuyer M-A, Alvarez JI, Prat A, de Rivero Vaccari JP, Keane RW, Lacroix S. Myeloid cell transmigration across the CNS vasculature triggers IL-1β-driven neuroinflammation during autoimmune encephalomyelitis in mice. The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 213 (2016), 929-49.
5. Bastien D, Bellver V, Lessard M, Vallières N, Champagne M, Takashima A, Tremblay M-È, Doyon Y, Lacroix S. IL-1α gene deletion protects oligodendrocytes after spinal cord injury through upregulation of the survival factor Tox3. The Journal of Neuroscience, 35 (2015), 10715-30.