Louis Siminovitch

Louis Siminovitch (May 1, 1920 – April 6, 2021) was a Canadian molecular biologist.

He was a pioneer in human genetics, researcher into the genetic basis of muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis, and helped establish Ontario programs exploring genetic roots of cancer.

Siminovitch was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Goldie and Nathan Siminovitch, who were Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe.

He won a scholarship in chemistry to McGill University, earning a doctorate in 1944.

He then studied at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

In 1953 he joined Toronto's Connaught Medical Research Laboratories.

Later he joined the University of Toronto and worked there from 1956 to 1985.

One of his doctoral students was Joyce Taylor-Papadimitriou.

He helped establish the Department of Genetics at the Hospital for Sick Children as geneticist in chief, where he worked from 1970 to 1985.

From 1983 to 1994 he was the founding director of research at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto).

He was the founder and the first Chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, then called Department of Medical Cell Biology.

He was the author or coauthor, at last count, of over 147 scientific papers, reviews, and articles in journals and books.

He married Elinore, a playwright who died in 1995.

They had three daughters.

The annual Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre is named in his and his wife's honour.

Siminovitch died in April 2021 in Ontario at the age of 100.