THE BENOIT LAB
Yannick D. Benoit is a Principal Investigator and Associate Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (Faculty of Medicine) of the University of Ottawa since April 2017. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 from the Université de Sherbrooke, where he studied human intestinal mucosa and epigenetic regulation of intestinal progenitor cells under the supervision of Dr. Jean-François Beaulieu.
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From 2010 to 2012, he completed his first postdoctoral fellowship in Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College (New York), co- supervised by Drs. Lorraine J. Gudas and Steven M. Lipkin. This unique training experience allowed Dr. Benoit to expand his knowledge in stem cell biology and colorectal cancer epigenetics.
In 2013, Dr. Benoit joined the Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute at McMaster University to refine his expertise in the areas of human cancer stem cells and drug discovery. Under the supervision of Dr. Mick Bhatia, he had the opportunity to build upon the expertise in Pharmacogenomics that he acquired at Weill Cornell Medical College by participating in the development of new therapeutic avenues to eliminate human cancer stem cells.
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As a world leader in stem cell biology, Dr. Bhatia's mentorship inspired Dr. Benoit to seek out and achieve outstanding scientific accomplishments, including notable studies pertaining to human stem cell biology, published in prestigious, high-impact journals.
Currently, Dr. Benoit and his team are working in close collaboration with the Stem Cell High-Throughput Phenotyping platform, the Center for Innovative Cancer Research, and the Drug Discovery Initiatives at uOttawa to develop novel, highly translational anticancer agents targeting the epigenetic signature of human colorectal cancer stem cells.
The quality of Dr. Benoit’s work has been recognized through numerous prizes and awards. During his postdoctoral training, he received 3 major fellowships, from the CIHR, CRS, and FRQS excellence programs.
Dr. Benoit was awarded with the prestigious Scholarship for the Next Generation of Scientists from the Cancer Research Society (2015), supporting the top emerging scientists in cancer research. He has also secured an Early Researcher Award from the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science of Ontario (2018-2023) at his very first year of eligibility. Of note, in 2022, Dr. Benoit received the Gairdner Early Career Investigator Award for his work on cancer stem cells. His publication track record combined with personal distinctions are positioning Dr. Yannick D. Benoit as a promising young scientists in Canada in the fields of human Cancer Stem Cells and molecular biology.