Matthew P. Hardy Young Andrologist Award

Clémence Belleannée, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproduction at Université Laval, and has been a researcher at the CHU de Quebec Research Center, Canada since 2014. She received the Matthew P. Hardy Young Andrologist Award in 2021 from the American Society of Andrology. After obtaining her Ph.D in France in 2007, Dr. Belleannée completed two post-doctoral fellowships, one at the Université Laval and the other at Harvard Medical School, where she received the Epithelial Transport Group Young Investigator Award. As an independent investigator, her research is centered on the study of key intercellular interplays that are essential to epididymal functions and sperm maturation, two processes whose impairment triggers male infertility. Her ultimate goal is to gain further knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms that sustain proper sperm maturation and to identify key targets for the development of diagnostic tools and non-hormonal male contraceptives. Specifically, Dr. Belleannée’s research program, funded by the Canadian and Quebec agencies NSERC and FRQS, was the first to demonstrate that extracellular vesicles secreted by the epididymis carry microRNAs, and thus serve as vectors of communication between somatic cells (Belleannée et al. PloS One 2012; Belleannée et al. Biol. Reprod. 2013; Belleannée et al. Hum. Reprod. 2013; Belleannée, Andrology, 2015; Jerczynski et al., PLoSOne, 2016). The source of these epididymal vesicles, called epididymosomes, their degree of heterogeneity, and their level of selectivity towards recipient cells remain uncharacterized, and her laboratory has developed new research models to answer these key questions. Her groundbreaking findings initiated a new line of research now being exploited by several laboratories around the world. More recently, her research group was the first to reveal that primary cilia are mechanical-sensory organelles that make direct contact with the lumen of the epididymis at the prepubertal stage. These recent discoveries (Bernet et al. Human Reproduction, 2018; Girardet et al. Andrology, 2019; Girardet et al. FASEB J, 2020) open up new avenues for understanding the mechanisms by which epithelial cells contribute to the maturation of spermatozoa in the epididymis. Despite being in the early stages of her career, Dr. Belleannée secured major operating grants from federal and provincial Canadian organizations, was awarded a salary grant, and has published her work in respected peer-reviewed journals. Since 2018, she has lectured at the Frontiers in Reproduction course held at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, and in 2020, she was appointed co-Director of the Centre for Research in Reproduction, Development and Intergenerational Health (CRDSI) – Université Laval, Quebec, Canada.

In recognition of her exceptional clinical and research achievements in the field of Andrology in a budding career, and her service to the society, the American Society of Andrology is pleased to present the Matthew P. Hardy Young Andrologist Award to Dr. Clémence Belleannée.