Chantal Autexier

Biography

Dr. Autexier obtained her Ph.D. from the Microbiology and Immunology Department at McGill University in 1991 and pursued postdoctoral training with Carol W. Greider at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York from 1991 to 1996. She is best known for her studies identifying and characterizing essential determinants of telomerase function (Autexier, C. and Lue, N.F. 2006. The structure and function of telomerase reverse transcriptase. Annual Review of Biochemistry, 75, 493-517). Her current research team is actively pursuing the identification and characterization of mechanisms that regulate telomerase and telomere function, and cell survival, with the long term objective to develop anti-cancer therapies that target telomerase or telomeres. She is co-organizer of the Canadian Symposiums on Telomeres and Genome Integrity.

Research Interest

The long-term objective of Dr. Autexier’s research is the development of anti-cancer therapies that target telomerase or telomere function. Her research team’s short-term objectives are to: 1) identify and characterize the mechanisms that regulate telomerase and telomere function; and 2) evaluate the principles of anti-cancer strategies that target telomerase or telomere function.