Benoît Bragantini, PhD

Benoît Bragantini, PhD

Dr. Benoît Bragantini is a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Dr. Georges Mer in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Lorraine in Nancy, France. His doctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. Bruno Charpentier were focused on the biogenesis of nucleolar ribonucleoparticles (RNPs) and their function in chromatin transcription. After he obtained his Ph.D., Dr. Bragantini spent a year pursuing his research on RNPs as well as teaching at the University of Lorraine. At the Mayo Clinic, his research is centered on mechanistic aspects of the cellular response to DNA double-strand breaks. In particular, he wants to understand how two proteins, 53BP1 and USP51, function in concert in the regulation of DNA double-strand break repair by homologous recombination (HR). 53BP1 inhibits HR while USP51 enhances this DNA repair pathway. HR reactivation in HR-defective ovarian cancer cells has been linked to PARP inhibitor resistance in cancer patients. Dr. Bragantini’s work is expected to improve our fundamental understanding of HR DNA double-strand break repair and may in the long-term help develop new therapies for ovarian cancer treatment.