Programme > Keynote Speakers

Dr. Saadi Khochbin is Principal Investigator at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences of Grenoble, France. His laboratory is interested in understanding how the genome communicates with its close or distant environment to control its various activities. His team has developed an original research line aiming to understand the molecular basis of male genome programming. Their past discoveries range from the functional characterisation of new enzymes regulating chemical modifications of histones, to these chemical modifications themselves, histone- binding factors and specific histone variants.

Contact : saadi.khochbin@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr

Website : https://iab.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/

Professor John Rouse is Programme Leader at the School of Life Sciences of the University of Dundee, Scotland. His research team is interested in how cells detect, signal and repair DNA damage and how they deal with blocks to DNA replication. In the past few years, they discovered a range of factors in mammalian cells that are instrumental for the repair of DNA damage and broken replication forks. They are interested in figuring out the modes of action of these proteins and their relevance to disease, and in discovering new players in the DNA repair process. Many important chemotherapeutic agents act by inducing DNA damage and/or DNA replication stress, and Prof Rouse’s team is interested in finding ways of making these therapies more effective and in preventing resistance.

Contact : j.rouse@dundee.ac.uk

Website : http://www.lifesci.dundee.ac.uk/

Dr. Jacqueline Jacobs is group leader at the Division of Molecular Oncology of the Netherlands Cancer Institute and was selected as EMBO Young Investigator by the European Molecular Biology Organization. Her group seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie responses to telomere dysfunction and that have critical consequences for cancer development and aging. To do this, they take both unbiased and candidate-driven approaches, alongside in-depth mechanistic studies, particularly focused on identifying what precise DNA damage signaling responses and processing activities act at telomeres and how these are regulated.

 Contact : j.jacobs@nki.nl

Website : https://www.nki.nl/