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
NEWS
Dec 2023: CONGRATULATIONS to Marilyse for being awarded Excellence Scholarship of department of biochemistry and molecular medicine and FESP from University of Montreal.
Dec. 2023: Our Acute Myeloid Leukemia single-cell classifier is now available on GitHub.
June 2023: CONGRATULATIONS to Maylis for being awarded a Master's Excellence Scholarship from CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation!
May 2023: CONGRATULATIONS to Rui for being awarded a Cole foundation fellowship!
Sept. 2022: The first official paper from the lab is now available here: Blood Adv - NPM1
May 2022: We are hiring! More details at the bottom of this page.
April 2022: CONGRATULATIONS to Banafsheh for being awarded a Cole foundation fellowship!
February 2022: Severine Landais joins the single cell data analysis platform! More details to follow.
April 2021: CONGRATULATIONS to Simon and Michael who each received an IVADO scholarship to pursue research this summer.
September 2020 Vincent-Philippe Lavallée presents at the 10X Genomics
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
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.
Azer Farah
Bioinformatician
Azer pursued a PhD in molecular biology. He joined the lab in January 2020 as part of his master degree of bioinformatics at the Université de Montréal. in January 2022, he got a position as a bioinformatician in the lab. Azer is interested in the study of genetic heterogeneity profiling of AML using bioinformatics tools for new applications in clinical oncology.
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.
RUI ZHANG
Postdoctoral Fellow
Rui obtained her PhD in 2022 from McGill University. Her background is molecular biology and cancer genetics. She is also interested in extending her knowledge in next generation sequencing data analysis. When not at work, she loves practicing yoga.
Maylis Heussner
Master Student
Maylis graduated from Polytechnique Montreal in June 2022 with a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering. Strongly interested in bioinformatics, she completed an internship in the Lavallée laboratory during the summer of 2021. Thanks to this experience, she then joined the team in September 2022 as part of a master's degree in bioinformatics at the Université de Montréal. Her research interests include machine learning applied to pediatric cancer classification.
Marilyse Gallant
Master Student
Marilyse obtained her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular medicine, with a concentration on "genetics and human genomics" in 2023. She is currently doing her master's degree in biochemistry in the lab to pursue her interest in cancer genetics. In her free time, she can be found at the movies or trying a new restaurant.
Ariane Aymerich
Research Intern
Ariane is a paediatric resident in Paris. Very interested by paediatric oncology she decided to do a master’s in “Molecular, Cellular, and Functional Biology of Hematopoiesis”. She joined the lab in January 2024 for her master’s internship and has a keen interest for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Outside of work you will find her exploring Montréal's coffee shops and ice skating scenes.
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Université de Montréal
Researcher, CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center
Hematologist, CHU Sainte-Justine
Alumni
Anissa Djedid - Bioinformatician
Michael Vladovsky - Medical Student
Simon Del Testa - Medical Student
Ève Blanchard - Undergraduate Student in Biotechnology
Thérèse-Marie Poinsignon - Master students in Biomedical Science
Nehme Hachem - Postdoctoral Fellow
Etienne Plante - Intern
Edith Sepulchre - Postdoctoral Fellow
We are HIRING
We are looking for students at all levels (M.Sc, PhD and postdoc) to tackle single cell related research projects. One is more computational oriented, the other, more molecular biology oriented. Please contact us if either of these research project interest you or if you already have a research project in mind.