Marc Drolet

Biography

Dr. Drolet completed his PhD studies in bacterial genetics, under the direction of Dr. Alexandre Sasarman, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Université de Montréal. He then completed two postdoctoral fellowships in Montreal, one at the Biotechnology Research Institute under Dr. Peter Lau and the other at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research with Dr. Alain Nepveu. His third postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Leroy Liu at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore focused on the study of topoisomerases and the topology of DNA. In September 1993, he began his career as an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Université de Montréal. Since 2005 he is a full professor in the department and he was acting director of this department from May 2011 to September 2012. The results of Dr Drolet’s work on topoisomerases and DNA topology in the E. coli model organism are highly cited in the field and have had a major impact on understanding the mechanisms of genome maintenance and expression in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Dr. Drolet was a scholar of the FRSQ. He serves as an external referee for many scientific journals and sits on several national pairs committees. He has chaired the committee for the creation of the undergraduate program in microbiology and immunology and has served on many institutional committees.

Team

• Nadia Labbaci (étudiante à la maîtrise)
• Julien Brochu (étudiant à la maîtrise)
• Émilie Vlachos (programme Honor)
• Sarah Sutherland (stagiaire 1^er cycle)

Theme

• Bacteriology

Research topics

• Roles of DNA topoisomerases in the maintenance of genome stability in bacteria.
• Mechanisms of adaptive mutagenesis.
• Mechanisms of R-loop formation.
• Characterization of DNA topoisomerases from Campylobacter jejuni.
• The use of DNA topoisomerases as cellular targets in antimicrobial chemotherapy.

Publications

• V. Usongo, M. Martel, A. Balleydier et M. Drolet (2016). Mutations reducing replication from R-loops suppress the defects of growth, chromosome segregation and DNA supercoiling in cells lacking topoisomerase I and RNase HI activity. DNA Repair. 40:1-17.
• M. Martel*, A. Balleydier*, A. Sauriol* et M. Drolet (2015). Constitutive stable DNA replication in Escherichia coli cells lacking type 1A topoisomerase activity. DNA Repair. 35:37-47.
• Usongo V et Drolet M. 2014. Roles of type 1A topoisomerases in genome maintenance in Escherichia coli. PLoS Genet. Aug 7;10(8):e1004543.