Jean Davignon

Jean Davignon holds a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree and specializes in internal medicine and clinical research. He studied at the Université de Montréal, McGill University, the University of Minnesota and Rockefeller University in New York.

Jean Davignon has been the Director of the Hyperlipidemia and Atherosclerosis Research Unit at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) for 41 years. In 1967, he founded the Nutrition, Metabolism and Atherosclerosis Clinic, a clinic dedicated to research on hyperlipidemia, which includes various types of dysfunction resulting in a high concentration of fats in the blood. Today, it receives about 8,000 patient visits annually.

Clinician, professor, author and lecturer, Jean Davignon taught medicine and nutrition at the Université de Montréal and McGill University, and practiced medicine at the Center hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM). Over the course of his career, he has trained 45 masters or graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He has authored about 10 books and some 400 scientific articles. He has also contributed to nearly 65 book chapters and delivered more than 300 lectures nationally and internationally.

Jean Davignon’s visionary spirit has helped many scientific and social organizations, continuously promoting cardiovascular health. He is a founding member of the Société québécoise de lipidologie, de nutrition et de métabolisme. He is also a fellow of the American College of Nutrition and the Council of Arteriosclerosis of the American Heart Association. In 1994, he organized and presided over the X^th International Symposium on Atherosclerosis held at the Palais des congrès de Montréal.

Jean Davignon is the recipient of several awards and honours, including the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Prix Cœur Québec Or, the Canadian Medical Association’s Frederick Newton Gisborne Starr Medal, the Association des médecins de langue française du Canada’s Prix de l’œuvre scientifique, the Prix du Québec Wilder-Penfield and the Grande Médaille d’Or du Centenaire from the Institut Pasteur of Lille. The Université Paul Sabatier de Toulouse awarded him a doctorate Honoris Causa. He was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995 and Grand Officier de l’Ordre national du Québec in 2006.