Biography:

Alexandre Blais’ research interests revolve around the systems biology of gene expression regulation. After obtaining an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the Universite de Montreal, he did his Ph.D. at the Universite Laval in Quebec City, under the supervision of Dr. Claude Labrie. This is where he became fascinated with the process of transcription and the molecular basis of its regulation. Dr. Blais then went to the New York University School of Medicine, to further his training. He joined the lab of Dr. Brian Dynlacht, an expert in systems biology approaches applied to the study of the transcriptional regulation of the cell cycle. There, Dr. Blais made important contributions to this field by mapping transcriptional regulatory networks involved in controlling the development of skeletal muscle and in enforcing cell cycle exit of differentiated muscle cells.

Short summary of research interests:

Dr. Alexandre Blais has joined the Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology in July 2007, where he has started his own laboratory. Using a multi-faceted approach that combines elements of functional genomics, genome-wide screens and bioinformatic analyses, his research group pursues some of the most interesting and intriguing aspects of the regulatory networks that he uncovered previously. Among those, he has set out to determine the molecular basis of combinatorial regulation of transcription by pairs of transcription factors. Because it applies to all living organisms, this work has implications that go well beyond the regulation of muscle development. It will help explain how complex gene expression patterns, at the basis of cell fate determination and tissue specification, can be established by a relatively small number of transcription factors.