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A researcher at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre studies the link between genetics and cardiovascular disease.

In the 1980s, when Jacques Genest was starting out in the Faculty of Medicine, cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of death among Canadians. Dr. Genest and his team built on advances in molecular genetics to discover multiple genes that predispose people to early cardiovascular disease and tested many drugs to fight them. At the McConnell Centre for Innovative Medicine of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, Dr. Genest continues to study familial hypercholesterolemia using genetic screening to identify other family members at risk of this asymptomatic disease and give them medical treatments to mitigate the danger.

READ: Research institute puts Canada at the forefront of health care