We are delighted to welcome Dr Laurianne Scourzic (Weill Cornell Medicine, New York) who will be presenting a seminar :
Stem-like plasticity of Germinal Center B cells: mechanisms and implication for adaptive immunity and in B-cell lymphoma
Dr Scourzic is currently an Instructor of Molecular Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, but she is planning to return to France next year. Please let me know if you want to meet with her.
Bio: Dr Scourzic was trained in Biology, receiving a B.S. in Cellular Biology and Physiology from the Bretagne Occidental University, obtained her European Master & Magistere of Genetics from the Paris Diderot University/Cold Spring Harbor, and defended her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Paris Saclay/Gustave Roussy Institute in the laboratory of Dr Olivier Bernard. During this time, she generated and characterized the first mouse model for Angioimmunoblastic T-cell Lymphoma (AITL) using serial transplantation of Dnmt3aR882H mutated and Tet2 inactivated Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSC). As a joint postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Dr Eftychia Apostolou and Pr Ari Melnick at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, she deciphered that IG-DMR constitutes a bipartite control element that maintains imprinting at the Dlk1-Dio3 locus by allele-specific restriction of the DNA (de)methylation machinery using dCas9-Dnmt3a, dCas9-Tet1 or dCas9-KRAB CRISPR strategies. Additionally, she identified that Germinal Center (GC) B-cells receiving help from Follicular Helper (TFH) T cells are endowed with high plasticity and manifest a stem cell-like functionality in a physiological context as demonstrated by somatic cell reprogramming of normal GC B-cells or harboring lymphoma driver mutations using Dox-inducible floxed mouse models (4-7 alleles). Furthermore, these GC stem-like signatures are associated with inferior outcomes in Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) patients.
