CV Science

Angelos Constantinou PhD in Biological Sciences

Course and current status

From 1.05.10 Director of Research 2^nd Class -DR2 at INSERM, principal investigator at the Institute of Human Genetics, CNRS-UPR-1142, 141 rue de la Cardonille, 34396 Montpellier CEDEX 5.

1.05.04-30.04.10 Assistant Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Lausanne, Switzerland (Career development award by the Swiss National Science Foundation).

01.02.03 - 30.04.04: Senior Assistant (Maître assistant) at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

05.01.99 - 08.11.02: Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Stephen C. West at Cancer Research UK, Clare Hall laboratories, London Research Institute, UK.

01.10.93 - 31.12.98: PhD Student with Prof. Stuart G. Clarkson, University Medical Centre, Geneva, Switzerland.

01.11.92 - 31.05.93: Research Assistant (7 months) with Prof. Christos Comninellis, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Scientific summary

The activation of oncogenes in tumor cells induces constitutive stress during DNA replication. Further, most radio and chemotherapies are based on stress overload. Both oncogene activation and chemotherapeutic treatments provoke the collapse of replication forks and the formation of double-strand breaks. Hence, to improve cancer treatments, it is in our view essential to understand how tumor cells respond to and tolerate replication obstacles. To achieve this goal, we are exploiting novel biochemical approaches to unveil molecular mechanisms by which DNA damage response proteins sense and signal blocked replication forks and regulate DNA repair. We are employing molecular combing and up-to date CHIP-based approaches to understand how DNA damage signaling and the regulation of chromatin structure ensure completion of genome duplication under stressful conditions.