Sandra obtained her master’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Laval University, Canada in 2008. Her master’s work, co-directed by Drs Jean-Yves Masson and Martin Simard, aimed at identifying the role of yeast RNAi components in homologous recombination during meiosis. She then joined Martin Simard’s group as lab manager and research assistant from November 2008 to October 2015. There, she worked on microRNAs and RNAi pathways in the nematode C. elegans and in human cells. During this period, she also joined Dr Jacques Côté’s group at the CHU de Québec Research Center and helped generating human and yeast trangenic lines as well as key plasmidic constructs. Sandra joined Sophie Polo’s group in December 2015 as lab manager to investigate the mechanisms underlying histone dynamics in response to genotoxic stress in mammalian cells. She obtained a permanent CNRS position in December 2017. She is in charge of the Epifluorescence microscopy facility in our research unit.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Olley G., Madapura P., Grimes G., Piquet S., Polo S.E., FitzPatrick D., Bickmore W., Boumendil C. Cornelia-de Lange syndrome-associated mutations cause a DNA damage signalling and repair defect. Nat Commun, 12:3127, 2021.
• Piquet S., Le Parc F., Bai, S-K., Chevallier O., Adam S., Polo S.E. The histone chaperone FACT coordinates H2A.X-dependent signaling and repair of DNA damage. Mol Cell, 72: 888-901, 2018.
• Dabin J.*, Fortuny A.*, Piquet S, Polo S.E. Live imaging of parental histone variant dynamics in UVC-damaged chromatin. Methods Mol Biol, 1832: 243-253, 2018. *: equal contribution
• Meziane O, Piquet S, Bossé GD, Gagné D, Paquet E, Robert C, Tones MA, Simard MJ. The human decapping scavenger enzyme DcpS modulates microRNA turnover. Sci Rep, 5:16688, 2015.
• Rossetto D, Cramet M, Wang AY, Steunou AL, Lacoste N, Schulze JM, Côté V, Monnet-Saksouk J, Piquet S, Nourani A, Kobor MS, Côté J. Eaf5/7/3 form a functionally independent NuA4 submodule linked to RNA polymerase II-coupled nucleosome recycling. EMBO J, 33:1397-415, 2014.
• Jannot G, Bajan S, Giguère NJ, Bouasker S, Banville IH, Piquet S, Hutvagner G, Simard MJ. The ribosomal protein RACK1 is required for microRNA function in both C. elegans and humans. EMBO Rep, 12:581-6, 2011.
• Altaf M, Auger A, Monnet-Saksouk J, Brodeur J, Piquet S, Cramet M, Bouchard N, Lacoste N, Utley RT, Gaudreau L, Côté J. NuA4-dependent acetylation of nucleosomal histones H4 and H2A directly stimulates incorporation of H2A.Z by the SWR1 complex. J Biol Chem, 285:15966-77, 2010.