THE BENOIT LAB
What's New
March 13, 2025
Stéphanie Belliveau ranks 1st at the 2024 Co-op Student of the Year Awards
Each year, the faculties, the Office of Graduate Studies, and the Co-op Office select outstanding co-op students to receive prizes recognizing their exceptional achievements during their co-op placement.
Stéphanie was awarded the 1st place prize for her winter 2024 co-op placements at Stemcell Technologies, where she worked with pluripotent stem cell (PSC)-derived liver organoids. For more details on Stéphanie's outstanding accomplishments, visit https://www.uottawa.ca/campus-life/news-all/2024-co-op-student-year-awards
Congratulations Stéphanie! This is fully deserved!
June 25, 2024
A flood of amazing news for the Benoit lab
Jacob Billingsley received an Ontario Graduate Scholarship for Doctoral students.
Stéphanie Belliveau was awarded an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award for the Summer of 2024.
Veronika Yevdokimova's abstract was acknowledged as a "Top Ranking Abstract" at the last Canadian Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics annual meeting.
Maroun Tarabey got the prestigious uOttawa Undergraduate Research Scholarship, supporting his work in our lab over the next two summers.
Congratulations to everyone!!
May 30, 2024
Yannick receives high distinction from his Alma Mater
For their annual award gala, the École Secondaire DuRocher in Shawinigan honored former student Yannick Benoit with the 2024 Rocher d'Or, awarded to an alumnus who demonstrated outstanding career accomplishments and community implication. While acknowledging the crucial role of his former high school teachers and staff on his education and career path, Yannick addressed the attendees with concepts such as cancer stem cells, precision therapeutics, and current challenges in drug discovery.
February 13, 2024
Celebrating seven years of hard work
Our study on vanoxerine as a repurposed drug to block colon cancer stem cell functions has been published in Nature Cancer. This paper represents years of hard work by several lab members. Fantastic team effort!!
Now, let's do it again!
Five More Years of CIHR Funding!!
February 01, 2024
Fantastic news on this first day of February: The lab received substantial funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to support our exciting work on colorectal cancer stem cells and the development of new therapies. This five-year grant was awarded through the CIHR Project Grant initiative for work conducted in collaboration with the Tiberi lab at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
Another Distinction for Chris Bergin
December 04, 2023
Chris received prestigious recognition from the Faculty of Medicine for his hard work over the last years, with the Award of Excellence in Graduate Studies. This prize is awarded to a Ph.D. student who has demonstrated academic excellence through their overall average and research capabilities and demonstrated involvement in extracurricular activities related to the Faculty of Medicine or in the community. Congratulations Chris! This is well-deserved.
It is Halloween at uOttawa
October 31, 2023
Once again this year, the team members went above and beyond with amazing costumes under the theme of Harry Potter for the uOttawa Faculty of Medicine grad students' Halloween BBQ. We hope you guys can bring some magic to the experiments!
Amanda successfully defends her M.Sc. thesis
October 26, 2023
We have the immense pleasure of counting one additional graduate from the lab. Congratulations to Amanda Mendes da Silva, who did a fantastic job defending her master's thesis. Her presentation took place in front of colleagues, friends, and family (in Brazil!! via Zoom). Amanda's evaluation committee unanimously recognized the hard work invested in her project over the last few years. Well done, and we are all super proud of you, Amanda!
October 11, 2023
The Benoit lab publishes three new articles
As part of the Colorectal Cancers 2.0 special issue of the journal Cancers, Chris and Amanda provided their views on the recent characterization of LINE1 retrotransposition frequency in human colorectal tumors and how such knowledge could shape future drug discovery endeavors.Next, Amanda and Veronika extensively reviewed the roles of the protein Sam68 in cancer, its relationship with neoplastic stemness, and its attractiveness as a target to develop new therapies against cancer stem cells. This article was published in Cancer & Metastasis Reviews as part of the special issue "Cancer Cell Plasticity in Therapy Resistance."Finally, Jacob and Veronika commented on recent cutting-edge findings from the Sethi lab (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) identifying populations of dysfunctional stem-like cells within intestinal precancerous lesions. These cells exhibit molecular programs typical of fetal development that could represent novel therapeutic targets. Jacob and Veronika's article was published in the journal Cancers.
Yannick receives the Shawinigan Mayor's Office Honorific Mention
October 03, 2023
Born and raised in Shawinigan, the City Council awarded Yannick such a distinction during their October 3rd meeting for the extent of his research on cancer. The honorific mentions from the Mayor's Office are meant to acknowledge the work of personalities from different spheres of society who give exposure to the city of Shawinigan.
September 21, 2023
Veronika and Jacob received a Conference Travel Award to attend the 2023 CCRC in Halifax
Our two Ph.D. students, Veronika Yevdokimova and Jacob Billingsley, were both awarded a $1,000 Conference Travel Grant from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (Faculty of Medicine, uOttawa) to participate in the 2023 Canadian Cancer Research Conference in Halifax. Veronika and Jacob will have the opportunity to present posters on their respective research project. Congratulations!
September 01, 2023
Congratulations to Kristina Ayoub for completing the M.Sc. with Research Project program
Kristina successfully completed her M.Sc. in CMM through the "Masters with Research Project" stream. All the best with your future projects, Kristina!
Here's Dr. Bergin
March 17, 2023
We are extremely proud to announce that Chris Bergin successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, and became the very first doctor to graduate from the Benoit lab. Chris had an impressive journey with us so far, with four publications as first author, multiple co-authorships, two excellence scholarships, and numerous individual awards. This is just the beginning, since Chris is continuing his outstanding work with us, and we are looking forward to more success stories. Congratulations Chris!
November 25, 2022
We Rock! The Benoit Lab wins the World-Renowned 2022 CMM Curling Championship
The team constituted of Chris Bergin, Amanda Mendes, Jacob Billingsley, Jillian Crosmas, and Grace Embree crushed the competition to earn the prestigious trophy. They also won numerous other prizes, including the "Best Team Spirit", and the"Best Outfit".
Congratulations to our legends!
October 5, 2022
Yannick wins the 2022 Canada Gairdner Awards Early Career Investigators Competition
He was selected by this year's laureates Drs. John E. Dick and Stuart Orkin for his work on cancer stem cells.
A total of six Early Career Investigator winners have been selected from many applicants across Canada. Yannick will give a talk alongside the 2022 Gairdner Awards Laureates at the Gairdner Science Week Laureate Lectures on Oct 27 in Toronto.
You can see the announcement here: https://twitter.com/GairdnerAwards/status/1577685831913017344
September 29, 2022
Congratulations to Amanda Mendes da Silva for securing a uOttawa Conference Travel Award
With this prize, Amanda participates to the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Club de Recherche Clinique du Québec held in Lac Delage, where she presents a poster. Congratulations Amanda!
August 24, 2022
We are proud to receive a 2-year Operating Grant from The Cancer Research Society
We are thankful to the CRS and their generous donors for this operating grant. It will be crucial to conduct exciting work testing the translational value of one of our main drug candidates.
August 18, 2022
Congratulations to Joshua Haebe, who successfully defended his M.Sc. thesis
Josh has been an appreciated team member over the last four years. This includes his UROP internship, TMM Summer Training program, Honours term, and a 2-year M.Sc.
Best of luck with your future endeavors!
May 03, 2022
The Benoit Lab and Collaborators Get $113K to Acquire Powerful New Research Equipment
Dr. Yannick Benoit (main applicant) and co-applicants from the University of Ottawa - Dr. William Stanford, Dr. Barbara Vanderhyden, and Dr. Mireille Khacho - were recently awarded with a Research Tools & Instruments grant from the NSERC to acquire a single-cell western platform. This new instrument is key to stem cell research, enabling precision protein detection within heterogeneous cell systems.
Thanks to the NSERC for continuous support!
April 28, 2022
An International Travel Award from the Stem Cell Network!
Congratulations to Chris Bergin for securing an International Travel Award from the Stem Cell Network. This award of up to $2,500 will support his attendance to the next Digestive Disease Week in San Diego. The Benoit lab is thankful to the Stem Cell Network for its contribution to the development of our team members.
March 20, 2022
Prizes awarded to two team members
Kudos to Amanda Mendes who earned the second place for her outstanding presentation at the 2022 CMM Seminar Day, held on March 1st. Amanda received a cash prize of $250. Great job!
Chris Bergin's research abstract was selected for a "Poster of Distinction" to the next Digestive Disease Week, taking place in San Diego on May 21 - 24, 2022. Only top-10% abstracts receive such a prestigious mention. Congratulations Chris, and enjoy your trip to California!
November 15, 2021
Two back-to-back papers from the Benoit lab
Our group recently published a review article highlighting the importance of the histone methyltransferase G9a in cancer stem cells and the recent advances in developing new tools to modulate its activity. The article appears in the journal Oncogenesis (DOI: 10.1038/s41389-021-00370-7).
Next, we just published an article in the Cell Press journal iScience supporting the importance of Sam68 as a therapeutic target to block cancer stem cell activity in colorectal tumors. The "In Press" version of the article can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221014139
September 15, 2021
Welcome to our new students
The Benoit lab is proud to welcome two new students:
- Ashley Hagerman, who is joining the lab as an Honours student in Biopharmaceutical Science, Genomic option.
- Tanguy Fenouil, an INSERM-funded visiting MD/Ph.D. student from Lyon (France)
May 17, 2021
Congratulations to Angelique Masibag, M.Sc.!
Kudos to Angelique who successfully defended her Master thesis in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, on May 17th. We are all very proud of her accomplishment and wishing her all the best for the future.
Congratulations Angelique!!
May 11, 2021
Benoit lab members contribute to two cutting-edge studies on cancer drug discovery
Chris, Aïcha, Angelique and Yannick are among the authors of a new paper published in Cell Chemical Biology characterizing a novel compound targeting a key molecular mechanism essential to cancer stem cells. Here is the link to the study.
Yannick also contributed to an article recently published in Cell Reports Medicine reporting abnormal dopamine receptor signaling as a potential therapeutic target in human acute myeloid leukemia. The full study is accessible here.
May 07, 2021
Josh has won the 1st place award for the 2021 CMM Poster Day
With his outstanding presentation, the professors form the CMM department declared Josh as the 1st place winner of the 2021 edition of the CMM poster day for the M.Sc. student category. Once again, congrats Josh!
May 01, 2021
Welcome to our new students
The Benoit lab is proud to welcome three new students, who will start working with us this summer.
- Amanda Mendes da Silva is a visiting graduate scholar from Brazil with much experience as a Pharmacists
- Tamara Sandouka is joining the lab as a TMM Honours student
- Keshav Gupta received a NSERC USRA scholarship to work with us during the next semester. Congrats on the award Keshav.
April 01, 2021
Josh got awarded with a Canada Graduate Scholarship
Congratulations, Josh, on this amazing accomplishment! This is well deserved.
January 28, 2021
Aïcha becomes the very first graduate from the lab
We are proud to announce that Aïcha Zouggar successfully defended her thesis and she now officially holds a Master degree in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, with specialization in Bioinformatics.
Congratulations Aïcha!!
December 16, 2020
Our lab just published an article describing how the chromatin modifier G9a is regulating key functions of human colon cancer stem cells
This study was published as a brief communication in the journal Oncogene and represents the hard work from co-first authors Chris Bergin and Aïcha Zouggar, as well as several other team members. The full article is accessible here.
November 09, 2020
The Benoit lab is awarded with a major grant from the CIHR to conduct research on colorectal cancer stem cells
This project grant will support our work on identifying and developing novel therapeutics efficiently targeting cancer stem cells, to eventually come up with strategies to improve the survival of patients. Great job team!
October 15, 2020
Chris receives OGS Scholarship and uOttawa Excellence Scholarship
We are very proud to announce that Christopher Bergin was recently awarded with the Ontario Graduate Scholarship as well as a University of Ottawa Excellence Scholarship for the year 2020-2021. This is well deserved!
September 14, 2020
Welcome to our New TMM Honours Students
Gautam Agrawal and Christelle Kwakedi are joining us to complete their Honours in Translational Molecular Medicine! Gautam is returning after completing a TMM rotation with us last Winter. For Christelle, it's a new adventure.
Welcome on board!
September 07, 2020
Josh Haebe is Now a Master Student!
After completing COOP, UROP, TMM Summer Training, and Honours programs with us, Josh is now officially becoming a graduate student (Master in Cellular and Molecular Medicine). He was also awarded an Admission Scholarship from the Faculty of Medicine for his excellent academic record. Keep up with the good work Josh!
July 16, 2020
Two Back-to-Back Papers from the Benoit Lab
Congratulations to Chris, Aïcha, and Josh for first authorships on a series of two articles published in the journal Genes. Those two papers are parts of a special issue on "Colorectal Cancer Genetics, Epigenetics, and Emerging Therapies".
Good job guys!
July 15, 2020
Our Lab is Collaborating on Key Projects
Chris and Yannick contributed to a blockbuster study from the Lacoste lab (uOttawa) characterizing the contribution of vascular networks to 16p11.2 deletion autism syndrome in mice. This study was published in the prestigious journal Nature Neuroscience.
Also, Yannick appears on a new paper from the Beaulieu lab (Université de Sherbrooke) demonstrating the role of Integrin-linked kinase (ILK) in human intestinal epithelial cell contractility (BMC Molecular Cell Biology, 2020).
May 13, 2020
Chris is racking up prizes!
Congratulations to Chris Bergin who got awarded with first place Best Poster Presentation (for Ph.D. students) and second place Best Oral Presentation (Ph.D. students) at the CMM/NSC Program 2020 Poster Day and 2020 Seminar Day. These awards come with $300 and $200 prizes, respectively.
Well done Chris!
September 12, 2019
Thanks to the Cancer Research Society for supporting a key project in our lab!!!
Our project studying the value of repurposing an old drug into a cancer stem cell killing agent was recently awarded with research funding from the Cancer Research Society, at their last Operating Grants competition. Thanks to all the CRS donors and partners for their generosity. This means much to us, as we can continue our work toward finding new cures to improve survival and life quality of people afflicted by the disease.
May 31, 2019
High School Students Want to Learn About Cancer Research
Our lab hosted a group of high school
students from the Ottawa area, who
participated to the Discovery Day in
Health Sciences, presented by the Canadian
Medical Hall of Fame. Lab members organized
and presented multiple workshops describing
headlines of our effort to find new cures for cancer.
Overall, the Faculty of Medicine hosted 225 students
and the outreach activity was a great success!
May 01, 2019
Welcome François and Céline!
We are pleased to welcome François Desrochers to the Benoit lab as a new Master student in Cellular and Molecular Medicine. François has much experience biotechnology and will definitely make our team stronger!
We are also happy to count Céline Pujol as a new visiting student in our lab. Céline is currently completing a second year internship in the field of biomedical engineering and will the summer with us studying anticancer drugs and high content imaging techniques.
April 04, 2019
Simon, Simon, Simon!!
Simon Reilley receives another NSERC Undergraduate Research Scholarship Award to work with us on intestinal stem cell epigenetics this Summer. Great job securing this second NSERC scholarship!!
March 22, 2019
Welcome to Dr. Neda Firoozi joining us as a CCRI Postdoctoral Fellow
Neda holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (Iran). She will work with us and the Beauchemin lab on the synthesis of novel molecules targeting cancer stem cells through the Center for Catalysis Research and Innovation program "PDF to hire".
March 14, 2019
The Benoit lab receives substantial funding from Canada Foundation for Inovation to support acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment
Our project titled "Single-cell Characterization of Drug Response in Human Cancer Stem Cell Populations" was among the 7 projects at uOttawa funded by the CFI. This investment represents a huge research opportunity for our group and the broader scientific community at uOttawa. Stay tuned for more details!
March 13, 2019
Good News! Dr. Benoit was awarded with a NSERC Discovery Launch Supplement!
This award results from the Federal Government's investment to support equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as early career researchers in Canada. This funding will definitely leverage additional cutting work to be performed in the lab.
http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/NSERC-CRSNG/ProgramNewsDetails-NouvellesDesProgrammesDetails_eng.asp?ID=1030
February 20, 2019
Escaping the Benoit lab!!
Lab members had fun participating to a great team
building activity at Jigsaw Escape Rooms.
A big success for everyone!
...except for Yannick who got stuck inside and
missed the group picture.
January 08, 2019
Several new faces are joining us for Winter 2019 semester ...and maybe more!
Aube Fournier-Morin (Biology, Université de Sherbrooke), Véronique Gauthier (Applied Biotechnology, Collège LaCité), Alona Petrova (Biochemistry, University of Ottawa) will help us moving forward with our different projects and gain knowledge in stem cell biology, epigenetics, and drug discovery. Welcome on board girls!
December 15, 2018
We are proud to welcome Chris Bergin as a new member of the lab!
Chris is joining the Benoit lab as a Ph.D. student working of deciphering molecular mechanism of action of exciting new drug candidates. He is definitely a solid addition to our group!
November 03, 2018
Congrats to Josh Haebe for nailing a UROP scholarship!!
With this opportunity, Josh will work in the lab on developing new tools to screen for next generation drugs to fight against cancer.
The research lab participates to a contest of scientific art pictures organized by the Stem Cell Network. We would need your support! Please vote (add a Like👍) for the Benoit lab picture, entitled: "Stretching... on a hard morning". Just click on this news title and follow the link.
Many thanks!
July 15, 2018
Drs. Yannick Benoit and André Beauchemin got awarded with a joint CCRI research grant!
The CCRI Collaborative Research Award for Medicinal Chemistry “PDF for Hire” is intended to promote collaborative research between members of the CCRI, Faculty of Science (FoS) Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Ottawa and researchers in the Faculty of Medicine (FoM), University of Ottawa (Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, Immunology, Department of Cell and Molecular Medicine, OHRI, UOHI, and CHEO Research Institute)
May 16, 2018
Joshua Haebe just join our team!
Joshua is currently completing his B.Sc. in Biomedical science at the University of Ottawa. He just started an internship with our team and will be with us all summer. Welcome Joshua!
March 16, 2018
The Early Researcher Awards program gives funding to new researchers working at publicly funded Ontario research institutions to build a research team.
April 13, 2018
The Discovery Grants Program supports ongoing programs of research with long-term goals rather than a single short-term project or collection of projects. These grants recognize the creativity and innovation that are at the heart of all research advances.
March 08, 2018
Angelique Masibag just join our team!
Angelique recently completed her B.Sc. in Biochemistry (Honors). She is joining the Master program at CMM with a specialization in pathology and External medicine Welcome Angelique!
December 05, 2017
Simon Reilley just join our team!
Simon is currently completing his B.Sc. in Biomedical science at the University of Ottawa. He will start an internship in January 2018 with our team as part of the the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP).
August 15, 2017
Aïcha Zouggar just join our team!
Aïcha recently completed her B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the Université de Montréal. She is joining the Master program at CMM with a specialization in bioinformatic. She was also awarded an admission scholarship Welcome Aïcha!
June 15, 2017
This award is supported in conjunction with the Canadian Cancer Research Conference (CCRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Institute of Cancer Research (CIHR-ICR), Canadian Cancer Society (CCS), and Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR).
The purpose of this program is to strengthen the professional development of junior faculty from the cancer research community.
June 04, 2017
Press release on one of Dr Benoit's publication: Sam68 Allows Selective Targeting of Human Cancer Stem Cells.
"A reason why certain drugs work for some cancer patients but not others has been identified by a team of McMaster University researchers"
September 01, 2015
Scholarships for the Next Generation of Scientists is a Cancer Research Society funding program with the goal of supporting the future generation of Canadian researchers.