> PeopleOur Team
Philip AwadallaPrincipal Investigator
Mélanie CapredonPost - Doc
Youssef IdaghdourPost - Doc
Alan HodgkinsonPost - Doc
Julie HussinPhd. Student
Jacklyn QuinlanPhd. Student
Vanessa BruatResearch Assistant - bioinformatics leader
At the Awadalla Lab I oversee all bioinformatics projects and participate in the development of tools to analyze and manage the next-generation sequencing data. Through a close working relationship with post-doc and students from the Lab, the bioinformatics team is in charge of selecting, integrating, developping, and applying appropriate bioinformatics tools to support all the laboratory researches. Thibault de MalliardResearch Assistant - Bioinformatics
I am currently in charge to provide bioinformatics support to the lab crew, and develop bioinformatics solutions about the next-generation sequencing. Jean-Christophe GrenierResearch Assistant - Bioinformatics
Jean-Philippe GouletAnalyste - Épidémiologie Génétique
Cette plateforme de recherche permet l’intégration de vastes ensembles de données è une échelle encore inégalée : que ce soit au niveau génomique, phénomique, environnemental, géographique, sociodémographique ou médical. Intégrer ensemble ses nombreux facteurs permettra potentiellement de faciliter l’émergence de nouvelles pratiques pour les soins de santé en améliorant les moyens de prévention, de diagnostic et de traitement, pavant ainsi le chemin vers la médecine personnalisée. Analyst - Genetic EpidemiologyAs a scientific member from CARTaGENE's collaborative service, I am constantly looking for new genetic analysis methods to improve the achievement of our aims. I assist researchers and collaborators in their experimental designs, their biostatistical and bioinformatic analyses as well as in the interpretation of the results thus obtained.CARTaGENE's research platform offers scientists a plethora of information about Quebec population on an unprecedented integrative scale: phenomics, genomics, environmental, geographical, medical records, etc. Integrating these factors together has the potential to facilitate the emergence of new practices for health care, improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment, thus paving the way for personalized medicine. CARTaGENEOrganization
Philip Awadalla is the Director of CARTaGENE, the Quebec Biobank and Population Project. Entirely publicly funded, CARTaGENE is an infrastructure for population genomics research. This resource will contribute to the development of better diagnosis, treatment and disease prevention programs. PHASE A of this program is well-underway, collecting biological and clinical material from 20,000 participants throughout Quebec from the ages fo 40-69. Combined with clinical and medical data, this project is an excellent resource to evaluate the environmental and genetic control points associated with chronic disorders in Quebec. > Alumni |
Our research includes work relevant to all types of human diseases: genetic, immunological, infectious, chronic and cancer. Using genomic data from single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), next-generation re-sequencing, and gene expression, along with modern statistical tools, we are able to locate genome regions that are associated with disease pathology and virulence as well as study the mechanisms that cause the mutations. 
I did my PhD with Pr. Bernard Champion, at the CRLHOI laboratory (Centre de Recherche Littéraire et Historique de l’Océan Indien) at the University of La Reunion, and with Dr. Jean-Michel Dugoujon at the AMIS laboratory (Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Moléculaire et d’Imagerie de Synthèse) in Toulouse. During my PhD I was interested in the human biological history of Madagascar, most especially in the ethnic group of the Antemoro, by analyzing genetic markers on the NRY and the mtDNA. I joined the Awadalla Laboratory in January 2012. Now I have become interested in understanding the evolution of the host response to malaria and sickle cell anemia by developing population genetics data.
I am broadly interested in understanding the genetic basis of functional variation in humans and the role gene-by-environment interactions play in shaping variation in immune system response. My aim is to better understand the genetic and environmental contributions to variation in susceptibility to diseases, particularly sickle cell disease and Malaria. Study populations in Montreal and Western Africa will be sampled and genotypic and endophenotypic data generated using a systems genetics approach and a combination of genomic and field-based techniques. The main objectives are to identify the key genetic regulatory factors that modulate sickle cell severity and response to malaria infection and test hypotheses regarding the immunological consequences of genotypic and endophenotypic patterns of variation. 
I did my PhD with Adam Eyre-Walker at the University of Sussex, UK, and joined the Awadalla Lab in October 2011. In the past I have looked at the patterns and processes associated with mutation rate variation in mammalian genomes, in particular looking at how mutation rates vary across the genome in a cryptic fashion, as well as variation in the mutation rate in cancer genomes. More recently I have become interested in the fitness effects of such mutations, particularly in a disease setting.
I joined the Awadalla lab in January 2009 as a Ph. D. student in Bioinformatics, at University of Montreal. My broad interests are in developing bioinformatics and statistical genetic tools to understand evolutionary forces that shaped the human genome and their impact in medical genetics. In particular, I am interested in the rate of de novo genetic events occurring during meiosis, namely mutations and recombination breakpoints, and how they contribute to human diseases and genomic instabilities. I am currently examining genomic data from families having offsprings with pediatric cancer and cardiovascular conditions.
I have a BSc in biochemistry and a MSc in human genetics. I am in the process of obtaining my PhD in Public Health with Epidemiology as my option. My main interest is in genetic epidemiology of tropical diseases and international health. My project aims at identifying genetic and environmental determinants that differentially affect gene expression in malaria and sickle cell disease, which in the latter case, results in a wide range of disease severity. Using a longitudinal study design in two African cohorts, I will be able to address this issue by obtaining clinical data, which includes whole- genome sequences and genetic expression information. Results from my project will increase scientific knowledge of population genetics for these two diseases.
Prior to joining the Awadalla Lab in august 2010, I worked over 8 years at Genizon Biosciences Inc, a biotechnology company. During this time, as bioinformatician and manager I was responsible for providing support in key areas of the gene discovery process such as genetic marker selection, genotyping primer design, gene data mining, genomic sequence annotation, sequence analysis and patent preparation.
I began working in the Awadalla Lab in 2010. Before, I worked 1.5 years for the french National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) with the MIG laboratory (Mathematics, Informatics et Genomics). There I participated to the european project Nanomubiop. I was in charge to develop a software to produce probes for a HPV chip.
I joined Awadalla lab in march 2011 as a research assistant and currently work for both Philip Awadalla's and Luis Barreiro's laboratories. I have a M.sc in bioinformatics that I got at the University of Montreal and worked on phylogenomics of the Archaea. In this lab, I'm an all around bioinformatician providing support for assembling and analyzing the genomic data that came from next-generation sequencers. I'm also providing support in writing programs to analyze the data and the results coming from the sequencers and public available databases. 
En tant que membre scientifique du service collaboratif de CARTaGENE, je suis constamment à la recherche de nouvelles méthodes d'analyse génétique pour améliorer nos résolutions de problèmes. J'assiste chercheurs et collaborateurs tant dans le design expérimental, les analyses biostatistiques et bioinformatiques que dans l'interprétation des résultats.
