Dear Friends,
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the 7th Scientific Meeting of the Centre de Recherche en Rhumatologie et Immunologie.

This academic activity reunites all the members of the CRRI as well as associate members and guests, and represents a unique opportunity to exchange and discuss about the activities of our Center.

We are proud to acknowledge the quality of the research performed in our Center by MSc and PhD students by awarding to the student who gave the best oral presentation the Prix d'excellence Éric Krump, as well as prizes for the best poster presentations.
We are grateful to the organizers Fawzi Aoudjit, Patrick Provost and Jean Sévigny, to Pierrette Côté and Louise Deschênes, to Alain Tremblay, Patricia Landry and Marc Boisvert, and to Sébastien Lévesque for the projector and technical assistance, as well as to the sponsors.

Please enjoy the meeting, thanking you in advance to make it a success.

Sylvain Bourgoin
Director, CRRI

Eric Krump passed away unexpectedly on September 16, 1999 in Boston at the age of 32. After obtaining his degree in Biochemistry at Université Laval (B.Sc., 1989), Eric completed his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology in 1995 at the CRRI under the supervision of Dr. Pierre Borgeat.

In his memory, the Prix d'excellence Éric Krump-CRRI was created. This prize is awarded to a M.Sc. or Ph.D. student for the excellence of his/her presentation at the annual CRRI scientific meeting.

Having contributed or contributing financially to this prize are Eric's colleagues in Toronto and Boston, the Krump family, the CRRI and the Fondation de l'Université Laval (Fonds de recherche sur l'arthrite et les maladies rhumatismales).

AWARDEES
2003 Martin Savard
2004 Marie-Ève Janelle
2005 Louis Marois
2006 Guillaume Morissette
2007 Oana Popa-Nita
2008 Julie Lefebvre / Marjorie P. Perron (ex aequo)

We wish to congratulate the following graduate students of the CRRI who received a presentation award at the CRRI 2006 scientific meeting:

Oral presentations

Prix d'excellence Éric Krump: Julie Lefebvre (Laboratory of Dr. Pierre Borgeat) / Marjorie P. Perron (Laboratory of Dr. Patrick Provost) (ex aequo)
2^nd Prize: Alexandra A. Lambert (Laboratories of Drs Caroline Gilbert and Michel J. Tremblay)
3^rd Prize: Mohammed Amine El Azreq (Laboratory of Dr. Sylvain Bourgoin)

Poster presentations

Category: PhD
1^st Prize: Lionel Loubaki (Laboratory of Dr. Jamila Chakir)
2^nd Prize: Arpita Chakravarti (Laboratory of Dr. Patrice Poubelle)
3^rd Prize: Fethia Ben Yebdri (Laboratory of Dr. Jean Sévigny)

Category: MSc
1^st Prize: Sophie Proulx (Laboratory of Dr. Paul Naccache)

The Centre de Recherche en Rhumatologie & Immunologie
acknowledges the contribution of the following sponsors: