Dr. Claudine Rancourt

Dr Claudine Rancourt is Associate Professor in the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Department at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke. Following obtaining her B.Sc. degree in Biology/Biotechnology, Dr Rancourt completed a Ph.D. degree in Microbiology at the Université de Sherbrooke in 1996 . She then undertook a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship in the Gene Therapy Program in oncology at the Tumor Wallace Comprehensive Cancer Institute, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research training benefited from the support of a series of prestigious scholarships and awards from the Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC), the Glaxo Wellcome Foundation and the Suzan G. Komen Foundation (USA). She is currently a Fellow of the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec (FRSQ).

Dr Rancourt’s research interests focus on a better understanding of how cancer develops and progresses, but the ultimate goal of her scientific contribution is to develop new and effective therapeutic strategies. Her laboratory provided the first direct evidence for CA125 functions in cellular proliferation, apoptosis and metastatic progression in ovarian cancer cells. Her results suggest that CA125 could be a novel molecular therapeutic target in the treatment of ovarian cancer and that inhibiting CA125 function in combination with chemotherapy treatment could be more effective to control the ovarian cancer than chemotherapy alone. Her work is supported by the National Cancer Institute of Canada since 2000. A patent covering this aspect as well as the use of CA125 specific inhibitors is pending.

Dr Rancourt also developed an innovative cell-based gene therapy to deliver anticancer agents to ovarian tumor cells. The efficacy and ovarian tumor specificity of this system was demonstrated in a mouse model of ovarian cancer. This work, supported by the CIHR, was awarded The Best Paper Prize 2003 by the International Society of Cellular Therapy. Dr Rancourt is now at a point where her expertise in the development of cell-based therapies can be merged to the identification of CA125 as a novel molecular therapeutic target. She plans to use the CA125 specific inhibitors that she developed in a cell-based therapy approach in combination with chemotherapeutic drugs.

Dr Rancourt is also working on identifying, in cell culture and mouse models, new tumor suppressor genes involved in breast cancer, with collaborators at Université de Montréal and McGill University (funded by the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation). Because of her unique expertise on the use of viral vectors in gene therapy strategies, she will also be responsible for determining whether such novel tumor suppressor genes can be used in gene therapy approaches for the treatment of breast cancer.

As part of the FRSQ cancer research network (Breast and Ovarian Cancer Axis), Dr Rancourt is instrumental in the development of new cellular and animal models for ovarian and breast cancer. She is also in charge of the Quebec tissues and data bank on breast and ovarian cancers at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke. This bank will soon include prostate cancer specimens from participating patients.

Dr Rancourt’s work is expected to benefit the Canadian population as transforming breast and ovarian cancers into manageable chronic diseases will result in a better quality of life for all women affected by those diseases.

Throughout her very young career, Dr Rancourt has authored and co-authored 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals and addressed 54 scientific presentations at national and international meetings. Over the past few years, she has been solicited on a regular basis as a guest-speaker. She also participated actively in the organization of several symposia. Besides her academic duties, Dr Rancourt’s unfaltering commitment to the fight against cancer extends to community outreach and volunteer work notably by her active involvement in fundraising activities for Ovarian Cancer Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society.

For further information, please contact Dr. Claudine Rancourt using the Email contact form or by phone at 819 820-6868 ext 16808