Professor of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, United States
Prof. Le Roch has more than 25 years’ experience in drug discovery and functional genomics in Apicomplexan parasites including in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. She received her BA. in biochemistry/chemistry in 1995 from the University of Paris - Sorbonne, France. She then joined the laboratory of Prof. Doenhoff in North Wales University, UK as an assistant Researcher to work on the development of a vaccine against Schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia, a parasitic disease that affect 200 million people worldwide. Following this research experience, Dr. Le Roch obtained her master’s degree in Parasitology in 1997 at the University of Lille II, France and the University of Oxford, UK where she worked on the characterization of molecular components driving Pneumocystis carinii infection, an opportunistic pathogen that occurs in immunosuppressed populations. She completed her Ph.D. in June 2001 at the University of Paris - Sorbonne under the supervision of Prof. Deorig. Her work focused on cell cycle regulation and protein kinases in the human malaria parasite. In 2001, as a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Le Roch joined the Scripps Research Institute, USA, where she worked with Prof. Winzeler on the functional genomics of malaria parasites. In January 2004, as a research fellow, she joined the Genomic Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) where she set up the malaria drug discovery program. Since April 2006, as an Assistant, Associate and now full Professor at the University of California Riverside (UCR), Prof. Le Roch expanded her research scope by investigating new high-throughput functional genomics approaches to better understand epigenetics, chromatin structure and molecular factors driving the parasite gene expression. Her expertise in drug discovery and molecular biology techniques as well as her in-depth experience acquiring, handling, and analyzing large genome wide datasets from a wide array of samples and techniques have been demonstrated with over 130 peer-reviewed publications, 14 book chapters and one US patent. Since 2016, Dr. le Roch is also the Director of the UCR Center for Infectious Disease and Vector Research (http://cdvr.ucr.edu/) – a center that consists of 35 faculty that incorporates genomics and systems-based methods to find new approaches to control the spread of infectious diseases in general and diseases vectored by arthropods in particular.
Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose
3 - Climate Change, Parasitic and Fungal Diseases
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
1:30 PM – 3:15 PM US PT
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
1:30 PM – 2:05 PM US PT