Alexandre Montpetit, Ph.D.

Assistant Scientific Director, McGill University and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre

Dr. Montpetit completed his undergraduate degree at the Department of Biochemistry of the Université de Montréal (class of ’96). He received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 2002, from the same institution, for his work on the genetics of acute lymphoblastic leukemia under Dr. Daniel Sinnett (at Ste-Justine Hospital). From 2002 to 2005, he completed post-doctoral research under Dr. Tom Hudson at the Montreal Genome Centre (which became the McGill University and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre in 2003) where he leaded large-scale genomic projects, mostly association studies for various complex traits and the Canadian portion of the HapMap project. In 2006, he became the Centre’s genotyping lab director and also the assistant scientific director. Description of research:

Use of high-throughput DNA technology (genotyping and sequencing) in the discovery of genetic determinants of rare and complex traits such as Type II diabetes, cancer or neurological diseases. Other interests involve the development of bio-informatic methods for the analysis of structural variants, methylation profile and other types of variation from high-density arrays.

Selected recent publications

Montpetit A, Cote S, Brustein E, Drouin CA, Lapointe L, Meloche C, Drouin R, Hudson TJ, Drapeau P, Cossette. 2008. Disruption of AP1S1, causing a novel neurocutaneous syndrome, perturbs development of the skin and spinal cord. PLoS Genetics.

Warby SC, Montpetit A, Hayden AR, Carroll JB, Butland SL, Visscher H, Collins JA, Semaka A, Hudson TJ, Hayden MR. 2009. CAG expansion in the Huntington disease gene is associated with a specific and targetable predisposing haplogroup. Am J Hum Genet 84: 351-366.

Zanke BW, Greenwood CM, Rangrej J, Kustra R, Tenesa A, Farrington SM, Prendergast J, Olschwang S, Chiang T, Crowdy E, Ferretti V, Laflamme P, Sundararajan S, Roumy S, Olivier JF, Robidoux F, Sladek R, Montpetit A, Campbell P, Bezieau S, O’Shea AM, Zogopoulos G, Cotterchio M, Newcomb P, McLaughlin J, Younghusband B, Green R, Green J, Porteous ME, Campbell H, Blanche H, Sahbatou M, Tubacher E, Bonaiti-Pellié C, Buecher B, Riboli E, Kury S, Chanock SJ, Potter J, Thomas G, Gallinger S, Hudson TJ, Dunlop MG. 2007. Genome-wide association scan identifies a colorectal cancer susceptibility locus on chromosome 8q24. Nat Genet 39: 989-994.

Sladek R, Rocheleau G, Rung J, Dina C, Shen L, Serre D, Boutin P, Vincent D, Belisle A, Hadjadj S, Balkau B, Heude B, Charpentier G, Hudson TJ, Montpetit A, Pshezhetsky AV, Prentki M, Posner BI, Balding DJ, Meyre D, Polychronakos C, Froguel P. 2007. A genome-wide association study identifies novel risk loci for type 2 diabetes. Nature 22: 881-885

Pare G, Serre D, Brisson D, Anand SS, Montpetit A, Tremblay G, Engert JC, Hudson TJ, Gaudet D. 2007. Genetic Analysis of 103 Candidate Genes for Coronary Artery Disease and Associated Phenotypes in a Founder Population Reveals a New Association between Endothelin-1 and High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol. Am J Hum Genet 80: 673-682.

Montpetit A, Phillips MS, Mongrain I, Lemieux R, and St-Louis M. 2006. High-throughput molecular profiling of blood donors for minor red blood cell and platelet antigens. Transfusion 46:841-848

Montpetit A, Nelis M, Laflamme P, Magi R, Ke X, Remm M, Cardon L, Hudson TJ, Metspalu A. 2006. An evaluation of the performance of tag SNPs derived from HapMap in a Caucasian population. PLoS Genet 2: e27.