Christiane Auray

Christiane Auray-Blais (born March 5, 1950) is a Canadian biochemist and distinguished professor specializing in preventive genetic medicine and mass spectrometry. She is known for her work in neonatal screening of inherited metabolic diseases using urine specimen as a non-invasive biological matrix for the early identification of newborns with rare treatable diseases. Currently, she serves as a professor in the Medical Genetics Division within the Department of Pediatrics at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Université de Sherbrooke.

Education
She studied at the Faculty of Science at the Université de Sherbrooke, where she earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry-physiology (B.Sc.) in 1972.

She later obtained a master's degree in Health Law (LL.M.) from the Faculty of Law at the Université de Sherbrooke in 1998.

She earned a Ph.D. in radiobiology from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the Université de Sherbrooke in 2007.

Following her doctoral studies, she pursued postdoctoral research at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina under the guidance of David S. Millington in 2008.

Career
Since May 1, 1972, she took on the role of biochemist-in-charge for the Provincial Neonatal Urine Screening Program for Hereditary Metabolic Diseases in Sherbrooke, Quebec, collaborating with Bernard Lemieux and Dennis Shapcott, she played a role in developing and validating the methodology to screen newborns in Quebec for inborn errors of metabolism in urine as part of the Quebec Network of Genetic Medicine.

Currently, she serves as a full professor in the Medical Genetics Division within the Department of Pediatrics at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Université de Sherbrooke.

Auray-Blais has established collaborative partnerships to advance mass spectrometry in the clinical field in Sherbrooke, these partnerships have facilitated research into biomarkers for various diseases, including lysosomal diseases, Parkinson's disease, autism, asthma, cystic fibrosis, and vitamin B12 deficiency in the elderly, as well as several inborn errors of metabolism in newborns.

Auray-Blais is the Scientific Director of the Waters-CHUS Expertise Centre in Clinical Mass Spectrometry and Director of the Waters Innovation Centre in Sherbrooke. Additionally, she is a researcher at the Clinical Research Centre-CHUS in Sherbrooke, focusing on the mother-child axis.

Her research has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, including Science, Nature Communications, Analytical Chemistry, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation.