Amandine Amalric

Postdoc

Amandine has always been interested in a career in cancer biology research. During completing a Master’s degree in Cancer-Biology at the University of Montpellier (France), she had the opportunity to join Eric Julien’s lab (Montpellier Cancer Research Institute) to work on the contribution of H4K20 methyltransferases in cancer development then, Julie Pannequin’s lab (Institute of Functional Genomics) to study the role of mRNA methylations in colorectal cancer. In France, from October 2019 to March 2023,  she carried out her thesis work in Julie Pannequin’s lab and the Platform of Clinical Proteomics under the joint supervision of Dr. Alexandre David and Pr. Christophe Hirtz. Her PhD work focused on the emerging field of epitranscriptomics (RNA epigenetics) and its potential exploitation for cancer diagnosis and therapeutic purposes. By developing a LC-MS/MS method, epitranscriptomic profiles have been established to identify RNA modifications involved in cancer cell adaptation (manuscript submitted), to stratify patients and predict grades of certain cancers, including glioma (Relier, Amalric et al. Analytical Chemistry 2022), and to diagnose cancer at an early stage with liquid biopsy (patent pending). Additionally, since there is already evidence that metabolism influences RNA/DNA modification dynamics, she became interested in the relationship between metabolism and epigenetics.

In June 2023, she began a postdoctoral associate position at the Aird lab, co-mentored with Nathaniel Snyder (Temple University, Philadelphia), to work on a project incorporating metabolism and mass spectrometry.