Catherine Jumarie

Catherine Jumarie serves as a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), where she leads research on heavy metal toxicology and environmental health impacts. Her work addresses critical pathways of industrial pollutant exposure through food chains and respiratory systems, with active supervision of doctoral and master's students in biological sciences.

Her research program investigates three interconnected domains: (1) Metal absorption mechanics across intestinal/pulmonary epithelia, analyzing how chemical speciation and metal interactions (e.g., cadmium-zinc antagonism) affect barrier permeability; (2) Sublethal toxicity mechanisms where metals disrupt cellular signaling, gene expression, and adaptive responses like stress protein production; (3) Collaborative biomarker development for environmental metal exposure monitoring. This work employs advanced cell culture models and subcellular fractionation techniques to uncover fundamental toxicological processes.

Professor Jumarie supervises graduate theses within UQAM's high-grant-success department, contributing to nationally recognized research clusters in environmental health and toxicology. Her findings directly inform public health risk assessments for heavy metal contamination, particularly regarding nutrient malabsorption syndromes and chronic exposure effects. The department's dynamic research environment provides robust infrastructure for her epithelial transport studies and cellular mechanism investigations.