Judes Poirier of Neuropsychopharmacology (CCNP). He was more recently awarded the Jonas Salk Award (1999) in honor of Dr. Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, the AstraZeneca/ASC/RxDx Award (2001) and the CSCC Award (2001) for his seminal work in the field of Alzheimer’s disease. In the summer of 2004, he was nominated to the rank of Knight of the National Order of Quebec by the Premier of Quebec. He received in the fall of 2009 a Doctorate Honoris Causa in Medicine in regard to his pioneering work in the field of Alzheimer’s research from this oldest School of Medicine in the
Jonas Salk of my first year of medical school, I received an opportunity to spend a year in research and teaching in biochemistry, which I did. And at the end of that year, I was told that I could, if I wished, switch and get a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but my preference was to stay with medicine. And, I believe that this is all linked to my original ambition, or desire, which was to be of some help to humankind, so to speak, in a larger sense than just on a one-to-one basis." Concerning his last year of medical school Salk says: