DAMIEN D'AMOURS, Ph.D.
RESEARCH PROJECTS AND WEB SITE
AWARDS & HONOURS
- Canada Research Chair in Cell Cycle Regulation and Genomic Integrity, 2005–
- Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, 2003-2005
TRAINING
- Postdoctoral training, Centre for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), U.S.A., 2002-2005
- Ph.D., University of Cambridge, U.K., 2001
- M.Sc. in cellular and molecular biology, Université Laval, 1997
RESEARCH SUPPORT
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Canadian Cancer Society
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
When Damien D’Amours began his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge in 1997, he was particularly interested in Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS), a disease that affects DNA repair and genome surveillance mechanisms. During his doctoral studies, he chose to investigate the specific cause of this disease, a dysfuntion in the activity of the Mre11 complex in people affected by NBS. His research showed that the nuclear monitoring function of the Mre11 complex is vital for the maintenance of genomic integrity and the inhability to perform this function is a likely cause for the high cancer rates in NBS patients.
Dr. D’Amours did his postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. 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 a new sister chromatid cohesion mechanism essential for genome partition and cell division. He also found that an intracellular signalling network called FEAR (for Cdc14- early anaphase release) network plays a key role in the regulation of the structure and segregation of repetitive regions of chromosomes during mitosis.
After eight years away from Quebec, Dr. D’Amours returned in 2005 to begin work as a principal investigator at IRIC. As he arrived, he received the Canada Research Chair in Cell Cycle Regulation and Genomic Integrity. The goal of his current research is to provide an understanding of the molecular pathways responsible for the maintenance of genome integrity in living cells and to determine the contribution of these processes to the development of human cancers.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
St-Pierre J, Douziech M, Bazile F, Pascariu M, Bonneil E, Sauvé V, Ratsima H, D’Amours D. (2009) Polo kinase regulates mitotic chromosome condensation by hyperactivation of condensin DNA supercoiling activity. Molecular Cell 34: 416-426.
Tomson BN, D'Amours D, Adamson BS, Aragon L, Amon A (2006) Ribosomal DNA transcription-dependent processes interfere with chromosome segregation. Mol Cell Biol 26:6239-6247
D'Amours D, Stegmeier F, Amon A (2004) Cdc14 and condensin control the dissolution of cohesin-independent chromosome linkages at repeated DNA. Cell 117:455-469
D'Amours D, Amon A (2004) At the interface between signaling and executing anaphase--Cdc14 and the FEAR network. Genes Dev 18:2581-2595
Goldberg M, Stucki M, Falck J, D'Amours D, Rahman D, Pappin D, Bartek J, Jackson SP (2003) MDC1 is required for the intra-S-phase DNA damage checkpoint. Nature 421:952-956
D'Amours D and Jackson SP (2002) The Mre11 complex: at the crossroads of dna repair and checkpoint signalling. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 3:317-327
D'Amours D and Jackson SP (2001) The yeast Xrs2 complex functions in S phase checkpoint regulation. Genes Dev 15:2238-2249
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