1. Mona Nemer was formerly a professor of pharmacology at the University of Montreal and the Director of the Cardiac Development Research Unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montreal where she held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Cell Differentiation.
Mona Nemer is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine, and served as Vice-President, Research at the University of Ottawa from 2006 to 2017.
Mona Nemer was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1957 where she found her passion for chemistry.
Mona Nemer left Lebanon during the civil war and moved to Kansas where she obtained a bachelor's degree in 1977, majoring in chemistry with minors in French and mathematics at Wichita State University.
Mona Nemer went on to complete a PhD in bio-organic chemistry from McGill University in 1982 under the supervision of Kelvin Ogilvie.
Mona Nemer is best known for isolating genes that regulate ventricular hypertrophy which manifests itself in an increase volume of the heart and a thickening of the myocardial wall.
Mona Nemer's work has contributed to the development of diagnostic tests for heart failure and the genetics of cardiac birth defects.
Mona Nemer has published over 150 scientific research articles to date, with over 10,000 citations and an h-index of 63.
Mona Nemer has trained over 100 students from Canada and other countries.
Mona Nemer served as Vice-President, Research at the University of Ottawa from 2006 to 2017, and served as the Director of the Cardiac Development Research Unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montreal.
Mona Nemer founded the University of Ottawa's annual greeting card design competition.
On Tuesday, Sept 26,2017, following a selection process, Mona Nemer was appointed as Canada's new Chief Science Advisor for a three-year appointment.
Mona Nemer is responsible for providing guidelines for to ensure that government science is publicly accessible, that scientists can speak freely about their work as well as for promoting Canadian science both nationally and internationally.
On July 30,2018, Mona Nemer's office published the Model Policy on Scientific Integrity in order to safeguard through collective agreements government scientists' right to speak.
Mona Nemer's office has established an Independent Expert Panel on Aquaculture Science, chaired by Nemer, to provide appropriate scientific evidence in policy decisions related to aquaculture and impacts on the marine environment.
On 27 March 2020, Mona Nemer told the host of CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks that the country needs randomly to test at least one per cent of the population to determine whether COVID-19 is as lethal as the population is led to believe.
Mona Nemer's "observations are right at the centre of a global clash of scientists over COVID-19 data and estimates of the seriousness of the pandemic," says Terence Corcoran, a writer at the National Post.