Scientific topics
Keywords
Valérie Robert PhD, molecular and cellular genetics
Course and current status
Since October 2010: Staff Scientist CR1 INSERM (Permanent position). Group "Epigenetic regulation in C. elegans". LBMC, UMR5239. ENS-Lyon. Lyon. France
October 2007 - October 2010: Staff Scientist CR1 INSERM (Permanent Position). Group "Genetics and Neurobiology of C. elegans". INSERM U1024 - UMR 8297. IBENS. Paris. France
June 2004 - September 2007: Post-doctoral Fellow. Group "Genetics and Neurobiology of C. elegans". INSERM U1024 - UMR 8297. IBENS. Paris. France
February 2001 - May 2004: Post-doctoral Fellow. Group "Functional genomics". Hubrecht Laboratory/NIOB. Utrecht. The Netherlands.
July 1998- December 2000: PhD student. Group "mechanism and control of retrotransposition in D. melanogaster". IGH. Montpellier. France
November 1996 - June 1998: PhD student. Group "mechanism and control of retrotransposition in D. melanogaster". CGM. Gif-sur-Yvette. France.
Scientific summary
I am interested in the cellular mechanisms that control genome integrity. During my PhD, I focused on mechanism involved in the regulation of the spreading of Gypsy, a retrovirus present and active in the D. melanogaster genome.
During my firt post-doctoral rotation, I worked on co-suppression in the germline of C.elegans. Co-suprression is a widely conserved RNA silencing process that represses gene expression when copy number increases in the genome. I demonstrated that, in the C. elegans germline, co-suppression takes place at the transcriptional level of gene expression and did a genome-wide RNAi screen to identify genes involved in this process. I identified both genes that are involved in RNA metabolism and chromatin structure.
During my second post-doctoral rotation, I mostly focused on technological development and established an innovative technique to engineer the C. elegans genome by homologous recombination. This technique is now routinely used to construct knock-in and knockouts
In October 2010, I initiated a new project, which aims at analyzing epigenetic regulation that takes place in the C. elegans germline and their role in development and genome stability.
