Dr. Annabel Quinet joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Oncology as an Instructor in August, 2019.
Dr. Quinet moved from Brazil to France after receiving an Award from the French Department of Foreign Affairs and International Development and obtained her Bachelor’s in Sciences in 2007 from the University of Paris XI in Biological Sciences. With a second Scholarship Award from the French Government, she then obtained her Master’s degree in Sciences in Integrative Biology and Physiology, specialty Physiology and Physiopathology at the University of Paris VI (France) in 2009. With a Ph.D. fellowship award from the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, she obtained her Ph.D. in 2012 upon a joint international supervision of Dr. Stary from the University of Paris XI (France) and Prof. Menck from the University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil) by performing research in the fields of DNA repair and replication stress. During her Ph.D. studies, Dr. Quinet investigated the cellular and molecular effects of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation in human cells. Upon obtaining her Ph.D., Dr Quinet was invited by Prof. Menck to join his laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow, when she was awarded with a post-doctoral fellowship from the Ministry of Education in Brazil. During this time, she developed novel methodologies and found that DNA damage caused by UV irradiation can be tolerated through different mechanisms in the human genome and that this is dictated by the nature of the DNA damage. In addition, from 2012 to 2015, she co-organized and lectured classes for undergraduate students at USP. In 2016, Annabel Quinet joined the laboratory of Prof. Vindigni at Saint Louis University as a post-doctoral fellow to deepen her training in the fields of replication stress and genomic stability. Her current research focuses on how cancer cells can adapt to treatment with DNA damaging agents by promoting specific replication stress response mechanisms that might lead to the acquisition of resistance to chemotherapy. In addition, she works in different collaborative projects to further investigate the different mechanisms of replication stress response in human cells and its potential link to cancer development and treatment. From 2016 to 2019, she co-organized and promoted a joint work in progress seminar series entitled “DNA metabolism and Repair” for trainees from different laboratories at Saint Louis University and Washington University of Saint Louis whose research is focused on DNA repair, genomic stability and cancer.