Serge Mc GRAW, CHU Ste Justine, Montréal, Canada

Research Scientist, Embryonic and Developmental Epigenetics Lab, Centre de Recherche du CHU Ste-Justine
Assistant Professor, ​ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal

Abstract

My principal research interests are focused at understanding how inefficient establishment of the early embryonic epigenetic program may be involved in the occurrence of development and neuro-developmental disorders. During this talk, I will present data showing that prenatal alcohol exposure induces permanent changes to the developmental programming of early pre-implantation mouse embryos, ultimately leading to prenatal morphological defects, sex-specific alterations in brain DNA methylation and expression profiles along with postnatal cognitive deficits. These results suggest that adverse maternal alcohol exposure during the initial stages of embryonic development interferes with programming processes and triggers long-lasting impairment of brain development and function.

Biography

Dr. Serge McGraw is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Université de Montréal (Montréal, Canada).  His principal research interests are focused on the harmful developmental outcomes caused by epigenetic instabilities arising from alterations in DNA methylation profiles during early embryogenesis. By combining in vitro stem cell (mES, patient iPS) models as well as in vivo mouse models with multi-omics sequencing approaches, his laboratory aims at understanding how perturbations in the early embryonic program may lead to epigenetics errors driving in the occurrence of prenatal or after birth developmental disorders.