LEVERAGING HETEROGENEITY IN ACUTE LEUKEMIAS

RESEARCH FOCUS

Using bulk and single cell genomic approaches, our group aims to understand how recurrent genetic events alter the transcriptome and shape the hierarchy and plasticity of tumor and immune cells in acute leukemia. Ultimately, our goal is to perturb specifically these altered states to reveal context-specific vulnerabilities. We also aim to characterize the evolutionary landscape of mutations that predispose to leukemia in the Québec population. This will in turn help to better understand the underlying cooperative events in these subtypes of leukemia and identify new rationales for targeted therapies.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

THE TRANSCRIPTOMIC LANDSCAPE AND DIRECTED CHEMICAL INTERROGATION OF MLL-REARRANGED ACUTE MYELOID LEUKEMIAS.

Lavallée VP, Baccelli I, Krosl J, Wilhelm B, Barabé F, Gendron P, Boucher G, Lemieux S, Marinier A, Meloche S, Hébert J and Sauvageau G.

Nature Genetics 2015. 47(9), 1030-1037.

NEWS

April 2021: CONGRATULATIONS to Simon and Michael who each received an IVADO scholarship to pursue research this summer.

December 2020: We are hiring! More details at the bottom of this page.

September 2020 Vincent-Philippe Lavallée presents at the 10X Genomics Montreal Single Cell Symposium

August 2020 After receiving a post-doctoral fellowship from the Cole Foundation, Nehme Hachem just received a prestigious IVADO post-doctoral fellowship. Congrats!

June 2020 The Lavallée lab Single-cell platform is now up and running to profile single-cell Omics in cancer and immune tissues! For more information, contact Véronique Lisi or Vincent-Philippe Lavallée

April 2020 The Lavallée lab is awarded a Cole Foundation transition award for the project titled "MAPPING LEUKEMIA PREDISPOSITIONS AND PRELEUKEMIC CLONAL EVOLUTION"

February 2020 The Lavallée lab joins the leucegene multidisciplinary team (leucegene.ca) and the Genome Canada Large-Scale Applied Research Project grant to study cellular heterogeneity in AML patients

PEOPLE

Véronique Lisi

Research Associate - Senior Research Scientist

veronique.lisi.chusj@gmail.com

514-345-4931 x6461

A native Montrealer, Véronique left the Santa Barbara beaches to come back to work in Montréal. After a position at the MUHC, Véronique joined the lab in May 2020. Trained as a computer scientist and a molecular biologist she enjoys learning about and using the possibilities brought forth by technological advances to uncover new biology. In her free time, you will find her scuba diving the St-Lawrence river and the Great Lakes.

Nehme Hachem

Postdoctoral fellow

Nehme obtained his PhD in 2017 from Universite de Montreal and is now completing a research fellowship. Nehme brings an expertise in integrative pharmaco-genomics and computational systems biology, applied to translational cancer research. His current research, supported by a Cole Foundation Fellowship revolves around the understanding of the "omic" landscape of acute myeloid leukemia and to translate research findings to clinical practice.

Banafsheh Khakipoor

Postdoctoral fellow

Banafsheh’s background is in computer science and bioinformatics. She has worked on various projects from software engineering to genomics analysis. Now she is delving into AML research. When not at work, she loves exploring new hobbies and hiking locations.

Sanny Singh Khurdia

Ph.D student

Sanny is a PhD student with the Université de Montréal joined the Lab in September 2021. Sanny is interested in oncology and genomics, and he is currently studying the cellular regulation of Podoplanin in APL.

Azer Farah

Master Student

A dedicated Tunisian based in Montreal, Azer pursued a PhD in molecular biology. As part of his master of bioinformatics at the Université de Montréal, he joined the lab in January 2020. Currently, he is interested in the study of mechanisms regulating the gene activity of cancers by transcriptomic profiling using bioinformatics tools for new applications in clinical oncology.

Séverine Landais

Master Student

Séverine was trained as a molecular biologist and worked several years as a fundamental scientist and in clinical trial implementation applied to translational research in the fiels of hematopoietic stem cell transplant. She has deep interests in the biology of cancer and in learning how to best analyze its complexity through OMIC sciences, such as single cell sequencing. She is currently a student of the Bioinformatics’ Master program at University of Montreal (concentration ‘Statistics and Machine Learning’).

Michael Vladovsky

Intern

Medical Student at Université de Montréal Michael is testing the academic research waters. He is currently working on mutation annotation in a large leukemia cohort.

Simon Del Testa

Intern

Medical Student at Université de Montréal with a bachelor in biochemistry, Simon has a keen interest in everything hematology-oncology related. He's a firm believer that his knowledge in bio-informatics will help him be a better clinician at some point. He is currently working on using Cite-Seq data to assign cellular identity in leukaemia primary samples.