Dr. Anne-Claude Gingras is an expert in mass spectrometry-based proteomics, a technology that enable the identification and quantification of proteins from biological samples. She develops tools to better understand how proteins associate with one another to perform their activities.

She is in particular interested in understanding how signals that are received by each of the cells forming a human body are interpreted. Such signals include hormones and growth factors that can instruct the cell to grow and divide, as well as the availability of nutrients. A cell also must respond to other types of cues, and notably monitor its spatial constraints. When the cellular response to these signals is defective, pathologies such as cancers can arise. By systematically employing proteomics approaches, alongside molecular biology, cell biology and genetics techniques, Dr. Gingras is providing a better understanding of the key signalling pathways that control cell and tissue growth in normal and disease states.

Dr. Gingras is also harnessing proteomics methods to better understand the intricate spatial organization of all proteins inside a human cell. To do so, she is primarily delivering within cells enzymatic fusions of proteins that can mediate the attachment of a permanent tag to other proteins that are located in the same neighbourhood. She can then identify the tagged proteins using mass spectrometry. Using this powerful approach, she has already provided new insight regarding the composition and organization of structures inside the cells called stress granules that have been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases. She is now systematically defining the “residential address” of each protein expressed in a human cell in order to provide a reference map to further study disease biology, with a focus on rare genetic diseases.

Dr. Gingras’ team is innovative and highly collaborative, which enable local, national and international colleagues to more rapidly tackle challenging biomedical questions.