Anne Dejean-Assémat


Anne Dejean-Assémat is a French molecular biologist working on the mechanisms leading to the development of human cancers. As Research Director at INSERM and Professor at the Pasteur Institute, she heads the Laboratory of Nuclear Organization and Oncogenesis at the Pasteur Institute and the INSERM Unit 993 'Molecular and Cellular Biology of Tumors'.

Biography

Anne Dejean-Assémat was educated at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, graduating with a Master of Science degree in Genetics in 1981. She then earned her PhD in Virology at the Pasteur Institute in 1988. Her thesis topic was the role of integrated hepatitis B virus sequences in the development of  hepatocellular carcinoma. Since 2003, she has been leading the Nuclear Organization and Oncogenesis Unit at the Pasteur Institute. Anne Dejean-Assémat has held several scientific administration positions at the Scientific Council and as a president of the Genetics, Development and Cancer committee at INSERM and in a study section at the French Ministry of Research and Technology. In 2004, she became a member of the French Academy of Sciences. She received the Prize L’Oréal-Unesco for Women in Science in 2010, the Grand Prix INSERM, 2014 and the Sjöberg Prize, 2018.

Scientific contributions

A molecular biologist, Anne Dejean-Assémat investigates the mechanisms, at the genetic, epigenetic and cellular levels, responsible for the development of human cancers. Anne Dejean-Assémat and her collaborators have made important advances in understanding the origin of certain cancers and have opened up unique perspectives for new differentiation and targeted therapy leads.
She discovered mutations in the genes encoding the receptors for retinoic acid, the active derivative of vitamin A, in liver cancer and some types of leukemia and dissected the molecular mechanisms underlying their role in oncogenesis and treatment sensitivity. Her main contributions are the first demonstration of a direct role for the hepatitis B virus in human liver cancer as an insertional mutagen, the discovery of a gene encoding a retinoic acid receptor at a hepatitis B virus integration site and the molecular cloning of the PML-RAR oncoprotein responsible for acute promyelocytic leukemia.
Focusing on the cellular defects characterizing this type of leukemia, she then discovered the implication of a novel cellular organelle, the PML Nuclear Body, and clarified the mechanisms underlying the high efficiency of acute promyelocytic leukemia treatment by retinoic acid and arsenic which leeds to cure in more than 95% of the patients. Together, her studies led to the identification of the genetic and cellular mechanisms responsible for a human leukemia and to the understanding of the unique efficacy of this anti-tumor therapy targeted on the genetic defect. Her most recent work aims at eludicating the role of the post-translational modification by the SUMO protein in the epigenetic control of gene expression.
Manipulation of experimental data supporting research articles published by Anne Dejean-Assémat has been reported in several cases.

Society membership