Chromosome motor proteins: folding chromatin back into shape when genomes take a break

Seminar details

When Damien D’Amours began his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge in 1997, he was specifically interested in Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS), a childhood disease that affects DNA repair and checkpoint mechanisms. During his doctoral studies, he investigated the specific cause of this disease, a dysfunction in the activity of the Mre11 complex. His research showed that the nuclear monitoring function of the Mre11 complex is vital for the maintenance of genomic integrity and the inability to perform this function is a likely cause for the high cancer rates in NBS patients.

He then moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston to conduct postdoctoral studies. He was awarded the prestigious Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation (2003-2005) to accomplish this phase of his career. His work led to the discovery of an essential and completely novel genome segregation mechanism acting during cell division. He also found that an intracellular signaling network called FEAR (for Cdc fourteen-early anaphase release) network plays a key role in the separation of chromosomes to daughter cells during mitosis.

After eight years away from Canada, Damien D’Amours returned in 2005 to begin work as a principal investigator and professor at IRIC/Université de Montréal. He received the Canada Research Chair in Cell Cycle Regulation and Genomic Integrity, & a Senior Scholar Award from FRQ-S for this phase of his career. After twelve years in Montréal, Dr. D’Amours was recruited at the University of Ottawa in 2017 where he aims to decipher the molecular pathways responsible for the maintenance of genome integrity in living cells.

Hosted by: Dr. Baptiste Lacoste
 

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