STAGE ISSS: Mathieu Lupien

Join us for the next instalment of the STAGE International Speaker Seminar Series (ISSS) with

Mathieu Lupien

Scientist, Ontario Cancer Institute
Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Biophysics,
University of Toronto
Investigator, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research

Talk Title:

Epigenomics reveal the function of genetic risk-variants in cancer

Abstract:

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified thousands of SNPs that are associated with human traits and diseases. But, because the vast majority of these SNPs are located in non-coding regions of the genome, the mechanisms by which they promote disease risk have remained elusive. Employing a new methodology that combines cistromics, epigenomics and genotype imputation, we annotate the noncoding regions of the genome in breast cancer cells and systematically identify the functional nature of SNPs associated with breast cancer risk. Our results show that breast cancer risk-associated SNPs are enriched in the cistromes of FOXA1 and ESR1 and the epigenome of histone H3 lysine 4 monomethylation (H3K4me1) in a cancer- and cell type-specific manner. Furthermore, the majority of the risk-associated SNPs modulate the affinity of chromatin for FOXA1 at distal regulatory elements, thereby resulting in allele-specific gene expression, which is exemplified by the effect of the rs4784227 SNP on the TOX3 gene within the 16q12.1 risk locus.

Speaker Profile:

Mathieu Lupien has been scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI) and cross-appointed to the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) since 2012. He earned his Ph.D. at McGill University in 2005, followed by a post-doctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA as an Era of Hope fellow. Lupien completed his post-doctoral training in medical oncology in 2008. In 2009, Dr. Lupien was recruited as a faculty member at Dartmouth Medical School, in Hannover, NH where he became Director of the Quantitative Epigenomics laboratory. Dr. Lupien has co-authored approximately 30 peer-reviewed publications in his short career, including seminal work reported in high-impact journals including Science, Cell, Nature Genetics and The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Among other honors, Dr. Lupien is a recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

Speaker Poster:

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