A new team leader in molecular and cellular biology

How does the cell divide when its genome is damaged? This is one of the research interests of Dr. Anne Royou, a new team leader who joined the institute in March 2011. Her team, “Control and dynamics of cell division”, which is affiliated to the Institut de Biochimie et Génétique Cellulaires (IBGC) of Bordeaux, will be first hosted at IECB for a probative period of three years.  

Following a bachelor degree in physiology and cell biology, Anne Royou did a postgraduate degree in molecular and cellular genetics at the Université Paris XI. At the end of 1997, she started a PhD thesis under the guidance of Dr. Karess, at the Centre de Génétique Moléculaire in Gif-sur-Yvette, studying the role of non-muscle myosin II during development in Drosophila. Her research on this protein, which plays a key role during cytokinesis, led her to collaborate with Dr. William Sullivan’s lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a team she then joined in 2002 as a post-doctoral fellow. There, she became interested in the mechanisms which preserve genome integrity during cell division. Back in France in 2010, she obtained a CNRS permanent position, an ATIP/Avenir grant and was recruited as a team leader at IECB.

During her post-doctoral studies, Anne Royou focused her research on the mechanisms that prevent chromosomal instability. After inducing genome damage by breaking chromosomes, she observed the fate of theses broken chromosomes during cell division. She discovered that, despite the damage, the chromosome fragments were segregated correctly into the two daughter cells. This correct transmission of the chromosome fragments is mediated by a chromatin tether that connects the two chromosome fragments. Thanks to this tether, cells with damaged chromosomes can divide into two daughter cells featuring the correct number of chromosomes. At IECB, Anne Royou will endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of this novel process. First, she will investigate the nature and properties of the DNA tether. Second, she will study how the cell coordinates the segregation of these abnormally long chromosomes with cell division.