Vanessa Dumeaux

Principal Investigator
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vdumeauxobfuscate@uwo.ca

Dr. Dumeaux received her doctorate in Pharmacy in 2002 in France. She then obtained her Ph.D. in molecular epidemiology, a joint degree from the University of Tromso (Norway) and the University of Paris-South XI (France). During her PhD, she developed expertise in genomics in the group of Professeur Borresen-Dale at the Norwegian Radium Hospital which was among the pioneers in expression profiling of breast carcinomas in collaboration with groups at Stanford University. Dr Dumeaux co-initiated the post-genomic wing of the Norwegian Women and Cancer cohort to study the systems biology of breast cancer in a population-based context. She has had a long-standing interest in the development of RNA-based biomarker signatures in blood, which can be used to inform on exposure (exposome; eg. organic pollutants) and health status (eg. diagnostics of breast cancer, side-effects of radiotherapy).

During her post-doc, she visited the Department of Applied Mathematics (University of Paris Descartes) and the Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics (Princeton University), and finally moved to Canada in 2009 to continue her research in bioinformatics and genomics at McGill and Concordia University.

In recent years, Dr Dumeaux also created a freelance consultancy as well as a cooperative to fill today’s great demand for data science experts in both academic and private sectors.

She joined Western University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in April 2022.

Employment, Position:

• April 2022- Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University

• April 2022- Member, Center for Translational Cancer Research, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University

• July 2022- Affiliate Assistant Professor, Department of Oncology, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University

• 2017- 2022 Freelance Consultant, Dumeaux Data Science

• 2020-2022 Founder & President, SCIEL (Single-Cell, Informatics, Experiment, Learning) coopérative

• 2019-Nov2021 Affiliate Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Concordia University

• 2017-Nov2021 Senior Scientist, PERFORM Centre, Concordia University

• 2014-17 Research Scientist, Breast Cancer Informatics laboratory, McGill University

• 2011-14 Research Scientist, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, visiting McGill University

  • 2013-14 Associate Member,Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Occupational Health
  • 2011-14 Affiliate Assistant Professor, Department of Oncology

• 2006-11 Post-Doctoral & Research Fellow, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, visiting:

  • 2009-11 Goodman Cancer Centre, McGill University
  • 2008-09 Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Paris Descartes
  • 2008 Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, Princeton University
  • 2006-08 Department of Genetics, The Norwegian Radium Hospital

Education:

2005 PhD Molecular Epidemiology, University of Paris XI and The Arctic University of Norway

2002 MSc Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Bordeaux II, France

2002 Doctor in Pharmacy, University of Poitiers, France

Patents and intellectual property rights:

08/2020 Patent submitted to Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT US 63/091,084) Methods for identifying epigenetic modifications in sperm, diagnosing infertility, and identifying treatment strategies

11/2013 Patent submitted to Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT/NO2013/050203) Gene expression profile in diagnostics

Funding (past 5 years):

2024-2029 NSERC Operating Grant (Principal Applicant): Computational and genomic approaches for the characterization of host-adapted microbial communities

2023-2025 Cancer Research Society / CIHR-ICR (Principal Applicant): High-resolution mapping of cancer immunity to predict response to therapy in HER2-positive breast cancer patients

2023-2025 The Schulich Collaborative Research Seed Grant (Principal Applicant): Tumor and systemic immune markers for measuring breast cancer response to therapy

2023-2027 Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Project grant (Co-applicant): Predicting Radiation Response Following Breast-Conserving Therapy for DCIS: Translation and Validation of a Novel Predictive Biomarker Classifier blood flow in healthy and complicated pregnancies. (Principal Applicants: Eileen Rakovitch, Michael Hallett)

2023-2028 Canada Foundation JELF (Co-applicant): Computational infrastructure for data science in human health (Principal Applicants: Michael Hallett, Jennifer Guthrie, Pingzhao Hu)

2022-2024 Cancer Research Society, Operating Grant (Co-applicant): Studies of Anticancer Effects of Radiation Therapy and Polo-Like Kinase 4 (PLK4) Inhibitor CFI-400945 in Triple Negative Breast Cancer (Principal Applicant: Armen Parsyan)

2022-2027 Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Project grant (Principal Applicant): Identification of functional epigenomic regions in sperm that are environmentally responsive and associate with fertility and embryo development (Nominated Principal Applicant: Sarah Kimmins)

2022-2027 Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Project grant (Co-applicant): Identifying molecular mechanisms underlying the regulatory role of sperm chromatin in embryo development and adult disease (Nominated Principal Applicant: Sarah Kimmins)

2020-2021 Concordia Universiy OVPGRS, Team Accelerator Program (Principal Applicant): High-resolution mapping of cancer immunity for HER2+ breast cancer patients

2019-2020 PERFORM Centre, Starting Project Funds (Principal Applicant): Contribution of the brain-gut-microbiota axis in health benefits associated with exercise

2019-2020 Concordia Universiy OVPGRS, Team Start-Up Program (Principal Applicant): High-resolution mapping of cancer immunity for HER2+ breast cancer patients

2017-22 Canadian Institutes of Health Research Project grant (Co-applicant): DCIS-Precise: A genomics-driven model for predicting DCIS response to radiation (PI: Rakovitch, Hallett)

Papers

Candida albicans exhibits heterogeneous and adaptive cytoprotective responses to anti-fungal compounds

A Deep Learning Approach to Capture the Essence of Candida albicans Morphologies

The association between long-term DDT or DDE Exposures and an altered sperm epigenome—a cross-sectional study of Greenlandic Inuit and South African VhaVenda men

Sperm histone H3 lysine 4 tri-methylation serves as a metabolic sensor of paternal obesity and is associated with the inheritance of metabolic dysfunction

Genetic-epigenetic interactions in paternal transgenerational inheritance of metabolic disorders

Whole-genome sequencing of H3K4me3 and DNA methylation in human sperm reveals regions of overlap linked to fertility and development

ChIP-seq protocol for sperm cells and embryos to assess environmental impacts and epigenetic inheritance

A deep learning approach to capture the essence of Candida albicans morphologies

Histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation in sperm is transmitted to the embryo and associated with diet-induced phenotypes in the offspring

A metagenomic-based study of two sites from the Barbadian reef system

Sperm histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation is altered in a genetic mouse model of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance

Atrx Deletion in Neurons Leads to Sexually Dimorphic Dysregulation of miR-137 and Spatial Learning and Memory Deficits

Histone deacetylase 1 and 2 drive differentiation and fusion of progenitor cells in human placental trophoblasts

Candida albicans exhibits distinct cytoprotective responses to anti-fungal drugs that facilitate the evolution of drug resistance

The time-varying effect of radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery for DCIS.

Screening of Candida albicans GRACE library revealed a unique pattern of biofilm formation under repression of the essential gene ILS1.

Atrx deletion in neurons leads to sexually-dimorphic dysregulation of miR-137 and spatial learning and memory deficits.

Reproducible Data Analysis Pipelines for Precision Medicine.

Mms21: A Putative SUMO E3 Ligase in Candida albicans That Negatively Regulates Invasiveness and Filamentation, and Is Required for Genotoxic and Cellular Stress Response.

Role of SUMOylation in differential ERα transcriptional repression by tamoxifen and fulvestrant in breast cancer cells.

Reproducible Data Analysis Pipelines for Precision Medicine.

Interactions between the tumor and the blood systemic response of breast cancer patients.

Building Applications for Interactive Data Exploration in Systems Biology.

The prognostic ease and difficulty of invasive breast carcinoma.

Peripheral blood cells inform on the presence of breast cancer: a population-based case-control study.

High coffee consumption and different brewing methods in relation to postmenopausal endometrial cancer risk in the Norwegian women and cancer study: a population-based prospective study.

Reproductive factors and risk of hormone receptor positive and negative breast cancer: a cohort study.

Genome-wide association study in breast cancer survivors reveals SNPs associated with gene expression of genes belonging to MHC class I and II.

Using blood gene signatures for assessing effects of exposure to perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in humans: the NOWAC postgenome study.

Sex hormones and gene expression signatures in peripheral blood from postmenopausal women - the NOWAC postgenome study.

Blood gene expression profiling of breast cancer survivors experiencing fibrosis.

Cigarette smoking and colorectal cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.

Eighteen insulin-like growth factor pathway genes, circulating levels of IGF-I and its binding protein, and risk of prostate and breast cancer.

The genetics and epigenetics of fatigue.

Deciphering normal blood gene expression variation--The NOWAC postgenome study.

Menopausal hormone therapy and breast cancer risk: impact of different treatments. The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

Gene expression profiling of peripheral blood cells for early detection of breast cancer.

Towards a more functional concept of causality in cancer research.

Polymorphisms in fatty-acid-metabolism-related genes are associated with colorectal cancer risk.

Reproductive risk factors and endometrial cancer: the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

Serum levels of IGF-I, IGFBP-3 and colorectal cancer risk: results from the EPIC cohort, plus a meta-analysis of prospective studies.

Found in transcription: gene expression and other novel blood biomarkers for the early detection of breast cancer.

Exploring the human genome with functional maps.

Aneuploidy prediction and tumor classification with heterogeneous hidden conditional random fields.

Systems epidemiology in cancer.

Gene expression analyses in breast cancer epidemiology: the Norwegian Women and Cancer postgenome cohort study.

Comparison of globin RNA processing methods for genome-wide transcriptome analysis from whole blood.

Hormone replacement therapy use and plasma levels of sex hormones in the Norwegian Women and Cancer postgenome cohort - a cross-sectional analysis.

Cohort profile: The Norwegian Women and Cancer Study--NOWAC--Kvinner og kreft.

Hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer in former users of oral contraceptives--The Norwegian Women and Cancer study.

Gene expression profiling of whole-blood samples from women exposed to hormone replacement therapy.

TP53 mutations in ovarian carcinomas from sporadic cases and carriers of two distinct BRCA1 founder mutations; relation to age at diagnosis and survival.

Previous oral contraceptive use and breast cancer risk according to hormone replacement therapy use among postmenopausal women.

Use of oral contraceptives, alcohol, and risk for invasive breast cancer.

Breast cancer and specific types of oral contraceptives: a large Norwegian cohort study.