In my current post-doctoral position at the CHU Sainte-Justine and Université de Montréal, in the team of Pr. Valérie Marcil, I explore the link between intestinal microbiota, cardiometabolic disorders and nutrition in children with acute lymphoblastic Leukaemia. More specifically I investigate the impact of chemotherapy on dysbiosis in a clinical project involving a multidisciplinary team of clinical doctors, nurses, researchers and clinical nutritionists working on the VIE project and the DFCI clinical trial. I also explore the link between nutrition, inflammation and premature aging in survivors of cancers from the PETALE cohort, an endeavour for which I joined in the development of data-mining tools such as relational concept analysis and peekaboo.ai.
Previously, I have completed a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology at Université Laval, specialising in the fields of gastrointestinal disorders, inflammation and molecular regulators of health and disease, including microRNAs. During this time, I explored how molecular modulators, and their natural packaging, present in common foods could resist processing and digestion and impact inflammatory disorders such acute colitis. Along the way, I put my expertise in play in many projects involving molecular modulators in malnutrition , arthritis and during Ebola or HIV infections. Looking outside of the box, I also helped discovering new vesicles and very small non-coding RNAs, called DodecaRNAs (doRNAs). Highly abundant across various species and in food, these might have important functions in health and disease. To explore their functions, I proposed and assisted in setting the unique method to detect doRNAs in biological samples.
In my earlier years as a junior scientist in France, at Université de Caen Normandie, I worked on sensitising resistant bone and ovarian cancers to chemotherapy through RNA interference.
Research partners & funding organizations
I am grateful to my teams, mentors, sponsors, patients, and their families, as well as the research partners and funding organizations, without whom none of the research, publications, and discoveries I have made would have been possible. Their support and engagement have been invaluable, and I extend my sincerest gratitude to all.
