Title:
Assistant Professor

Institute:
Laval University

Department:
Molecular Medicine

Province:
Quebec

Training:
Postdoctoral fellow, McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre, Montréal, Québec, Canada
PhD, Nutrition, Laval University, Québec, Québec, Canada
MSc, Kinesiology, Laval University, Québec, Québec, Canada
BSc, Science of physical activity, Moncton University, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada

Research interests:
genomics, human genetics, lung cancer

Recognitions and awards:
New investigator award from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada

Career highlights:
Elucidating the molecular signature of smoking in human lung tissues; Developing a low-cost alternative to conduct genome-wide association studies (GWAS); Identifying susceptibility genes of cardio-respiratory diseases

Research Projects

Project title:
Gene-smoking interaction in lung cancer

Funding period:
2011-2013

Program:
Operating Grants (environment-cancer)

Summary:
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Cigarette smoke is the dominant environmental cause of lung cancer, but only a fraction of smokers develops the disease. A genetic predisposition to the toxic effect of smoking that in turn leads to lung cancer is thus persuasive. The current study aims at identifying genes interacting with smoking to cause lung cancer. To achieve this goal, a large collection of human lung tissues taken from patients undergoing lung cancer surgery will be studied. Dr. Bossé and colleagues have recently studied the impact of smoking on human lung tissues. They identified major changes in the lungs of smokers compared to never-smokers. They also studied the lung recovery caused by smoking cessation in former-smokers. From this work, they understand much better (at the molecular level) the impact of smoking in the lung. The goal of the current project is now to leverage this information in order to identify smokers that are more susceptible to the harmful molecular alterations in the lung caused by tobacco. Modern genomic technologies will be used to identify genetic markers (i.e. inherited variation in the DNA) that interact with smoking to enhance or reduce the molecular impact of smoking in the lung. This basic knowledge is crucial to understand why some smokers are more susceptible to develop lung cancer, while others are resistant to the toxic effect of smoking. This knowledge is also critical to identify the causal molecular alterations leading to lung cancer and to develop improved strategies for diagnosis, prevention and therapeutic intervention.