Elise Pouponnot
PhD student
My name is Élise Pouponnot, and I am a PhD student in the GenOM team (I2SR group) at the Institute of Structural Biology (IBS), Grenoble. My thesis focuses on DNA damage repair through the BER pathway (Base Excision Repair). My goal is to better understand the interactions between the proteins involved in this pathway and to identify potential regulators, all within a dynamic cellular context.
To achieve this, I use cellular models that allow me to (i) perform pulldowns followed by mass spectrometry analyses to identify protein interactors and post-translational modifications of proteins of interest, and (ii) characterize their cellular localization using confocal and super-resolution microscopy. These approaches aim to identify new factors of the BER pathway and to highlight regulatory mechanisms of key enzymes involved in this process.
Since middle school, I have been passionate about genetics and DNA, with a constant desire to deepen my knowledge of life sciences. To reach the PhD level at IBS, I pursued a Bachelor’s degree in Life and Earth Sciences at the University of Limoges (specializing in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Genetics), followed by a Master’s degree in Biology and Health (Genomics and Biotechnologies track), also in Limoges.
This academic path now allows me to specialize in cellular and structural biology in order to better understand the complex mechanisms of oncogenetics.