Romain Durand, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow / Molecular genetics
e-mail:
romain.durand.1 [at] ulaval.ca

Biography

I grew up in Gif-sur-Yvette, a middle-sized town in the southwest suburbs of Paris. I was initially trained as an engineer in biological engineering at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne, north of Paris. During this 5-year program, I learned among other things how to manage a team and find innovative solutions to complex problems. However, I’d known for a long time that I wanted to work in research. Therefore, in 2015, I started an MSc program in microbiology at the Université de Sherbrooke under the supervision of Vincent Burrus and Sébastien Rodrigue. In 2017, I followed up with a PhD on the same subject. I studied the molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance dissemination, particularly the relationship between two families of mobile genetic elements: IncC conjugative plasmids and Salmonella genomic island 1 (SGI1). Both families of elements drive the dissemination of multiple antibiotic resistance genes in a broad range of Gammaproteobacteria, including human pathogens. In 2021, I joined the Landry lab to learn about another kingdom of life.

 

Research interests

I am generally interested in antimicrobial resistance. Using a combination of several last-generation molecular biology techniques and computational analyses, I will study the evolution of resistance to the antifungal flucytosine in the model yeast S. cerevisiae.

Publications

Durand R, Jalbert-Ross J, Fijarczyk A, Dubé AK, and Landry CR. Cross-feeding affects the target of resistance evolution to an anti-fungal drug. PLOS Genetics 19(10): e1011002 (2023)

Yi L*, Durand R*, Grenier F, Yang J, Kaiyang Y, Burrus V and Liu JH. PixR, a Novel Activator of Conjugative Transfer of IncX4 Resistance Plasmids, Mitigates the Fitness Cost of mcr-1 Carriage in Escherichia coli. mBio13(1), pp.e03209-21 (2022)

Durand R, Huguet KT*, Rivard N*, Carraro N, Rodrigue S, Burrus V. Crucial role of Salmonella genomic island 1 master activator in the parasitism of IncC plasmids. Nucleic Acids Research gkab204 (2021)

Bioteau A, Durand R, Burrus VRedefinition and Unification of the SXT/R391 Family of Integrative and Conjugative Elements. AEM 84 : e00485-18 (2018)

Carraro N*, Durand R*, Rivard N, Anquetil C, Barrette C, Humbert M, Burrus V. Salmonella Genomic Island 1 (SGI1) Reshapes the Mating Apparatus of IncC Conjugative Plasmids to Promote Self-Propagation. PLoS Genetics 13 : e1006705 (2017)

Dupont J-B, Tournaire B, Durand R, Marolleau B, Bertil E, Georger C, Lecomte E, Cogné B, Gjata B, Van Wittenberghe L, Vignaud A, Snyder RO, Moullier P, Léger A. Impact of an Antioxidant Treatment on Recombinant Adeno-Associated Virus (rAAV) Vector-Mediated Gene Transfer in a Mouse Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Cah. Myol. 13 : 99-101 (2016)

Dupont J-B, Tournaire B, Durand R, Marolleau B, Bertil E, Georger C, Lecomte E, Cogné B, Gjata B, Van Wittenberghe L, Vignaud A, Snyder RO, Moullier P, Léger A. Impact of a Treatment with Antioxidant on Gene Transfer Efficiency After Recombinant Adeno-Associated Vector Injection in a Mouse Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Mol Ther. 24 : S155 (2016)