iCAN Science Seminar on Epigenomic evolution of breast cancers at single-cell resolution with Dr Céline Vallot

Welcome to the iCAN science seminar with Dr. Céline Vallot (Institut Curie, CNRS) on Epigenomic evolution of breast cancers at single-cell resolution.

The dynamic nature of chromatin and transcriptional features are expected to participate to tumor evolution. Dr. Vallot’s group focuses on the study of the dynamics of histone modifications in cancer cells upon cancer treatment as well as during the initial steps of tumorigenesis. They develop experimental and computational approaches to map histone marks at single-cell resolution, enabling the investigation of the dynamics of chromatin marks in model systems and human samples. They have for example combined single-cell epigenomic and transcriptomic approaches to lineage tracing strategies to reveal the initial epigenomic events driving tolerance to chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer. They have shown that the repressive histone mark H3K27me3 is a lock to the activation of a drug-persistent expression program in breast cancers. Using demethylase inhibitor in combination to chemotherapy, they improve the response rate and delay recurrence both in vitro and in vivo.  They also study mechanisms of cell plasticity in early breast tumorigenesis in vivo. They have recently mapped state transitions during Brca1-tumorigenesis in the mouse. They discovered that luminal progenitor cells undergo a major epigenomic disruption prior to a partial epithelial to mesenchymal transition at the onset of tumorigenesis. 

When: Thu 9.10.2025 at 15:00–16:00
Where: Biomedicum 1, seminar room 3, and online. Link for online participants on Zoom
Host: Assoc. Prof. Sakari Vanharanta

Bio: Céline Vallot is head of the Dynamics of epigenetic alterations in cancer (DEpiC) group. Her team specializes in cancer epigenetics and single-cell epigenomic technologies. Her field of interest is focused on non-genetic mechanisms of breast tumor evolution during early phases of tumor initiation and in response and resistance to cancer treatment. She established her team at Institut Curie in 2017, occupying both wet lab epigenetics specialists and computational scientists to constitute a multi-disciplinary team of 12 people. The team is a recipient of an ERC Starting (2020-2025) and Consolidator Grant (2025-2030). In 2020 she co-founded the Single-Cell Initiative facility (Institut Curie), enabling the analysis of single cells in space and times at various scales (DNA, RNA, epigenomes, proteins). Dr Vallot is the scientific founder of the start-up company One Biosciences in 2020, now employing over 15 scientists to bring single-cell profiling to the patient to guide treatment decisions.

For more information on the seminar series, contact ican-comms@helsinki.fi