Biography

Roland Savard comes from a family of eight children from a modest socio-economic background in the Quebec City region, where his father worked as a printer. Family values mainly focused on academic success and commitment to sport. His academic and athletic successes naturally led him to university studies in the field of physical activity.

He began his bachelor’s degree in human kinetics at Laval University in 1975, then continued with a master's degree in population genetics under the supervision of Professor Claude Bouchard in 1978. With his perseverance and success in his master's degree, he continued towards a PhD in exercise physiology with a focus on lipid metabolism, again under the supervision of Dr. Claude Bouchard, obtaining his PhD in 1984.

In the summer of 1983, he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship and continued his research at the prestigious Vassar College in New York, USA, where he carried out numerous studies on lipid metabolism during pregnancy and breastfeeding, resulting in several scientific publications.

At the end of his postdoctoral fellowship in 1986, he was awarded an Emeritus Scholarship from the Canadian Government (NSERC) to continue his research activities at the Department of Physical Education of the University of Montreal, focusing on lipid metabolism during pregnancy. In 1988, he joined the Department of Biological Sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal as a regular professor. His research has focused on the mechanisms responsible for lipid utilization during pregnancy and exercise, including the regulation of lipolytic activity by the beta and alpha2 adrenergic pathways, the anti-lipolytic pathway of prostaglandins E2 and neuropeptide Y, as well as adipocyte lipogenesis by adipose tissue lipoprotein lipase activity. These scientific activities have led to the supervision of many master's and doctoral students, as well as the publication of articles in renowned journals.

In the early 2000s, Roland led a research project on the regulation of human lipolytic activity through the modification of adipocyte membrane potentials. This study identified the membrane ionic mechanisms involved in the regulation of adipocyte lipolysis. In 2011, he spent a year in Paris to delve deeper into these mechanisms via voltage-dependent K+ channels, which resulted in the publication of a scientific paper on this topic.

He retired in 2018 but continues to conduct research in collaboration with researchers at the Université du Québec à Montréal and Université Laval.

His curriculum vitae, full biography and scientific publications are available upon request.

Roland Savard