Faculty Profile - Dr. Céline M. Lévesque

Dr. Céline Lévesque	Dr. Céline M. Lévesque Assistant Professor Oral Microbiology Biological & Diagnostic Sciences Rm 375D, Faculty of Dentistry 124 Edward Street Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1G6, Canada Office: 416-979-4917 ext. 4313 Lab: 416-979-4917 ext. 4692 Fax: 416-979-4936 celine.levesque@dentistry.utoronto.ca

Current academic / hospital appointments

• 2011 – present: Canada Research Chair in Oral Microbial Genetics (Tier II)
• 2007 – present: Assistant Professor, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto
• 2007 – present: Cross-appointed, Department of Chemistry and Biology, Ryerson University

Education

• 2005 – 2007: Adjunct Professor (status only), Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto
• 2003 – 2005: Postdoctoral Fellow – Research Associate, University of Toronto
• 2002 – 2003: Postdoctoral Fellow, Université Laval, Québec City
• 2002: Ph.D. Université Laval, Québec City
  

Courses

Graduate/Postgraduate: Investigating Pathogenic Biofilms (DEN1022H). Course Director and Lecturer (2008 – present). Biomaterials Seminars, Pediatric Dentistry. Lecturer (2008 – present).

Undergraduate: Oral Microbiology (DEN124Y). Lecturer (2010 – present).

Research interests

The fight against biofilm infections (e.g., lung infections associated with CF, dental disease, urinary tract infections) represents a major challenge in medicine in the 21st century as biofilms are inherently tolerant to antibiotics. It is thus essential to learn the mechanisms that promote their tolerance to develop novel strategies to treat chronic infections. My research program seeks fundamental knowledge about genetic networks that regulate the dormancy state and the suicidal programmed cell death pathway in streptococcal pathogens. The opportunity to interfere with the expression of bacterial toxic or suicidal genes could provide a sophisticated means for manipulating the composition of pathogenic biofilms, and possibly, eradicating the infection.

Recent publications (selected)

• Dufour D., V. Leung, and C.M. Lévesque. 2011. Bacterial biofilm: structure, function, and antimicrobial resistance. Endo. Topics (in press).
• Dufour D., M. Cordova, D.G. Cvitkovitch, and C.M. Lévesque. 2011. Regulation of the competence pathway as a novel role associated with a streptococcal bacteriocin. J. Bacteriol. [Epub ahead of print, October 7, 2011].
• Syed, M.A., S. Koyanagi, E. Sharma, M.-C. Jobin, A.F. Yakunin, and C.M. Lévesque. 2011. The chromosomal mazEF locus of Streptococcus mutans encodes a functional type II toxin-antitoxin addiction system. J. Bacteriol. 193:1122–1130.
• Perry J.A., M.B. Jones, S.N. Peterson, D.G. Cvitkovitch, and C.M. Lévesque. 2009. Peptide alarmone signaling triggers an auto-active bacteriocin necessary for genetic competence. Mol. Microbiol. 72:905–917.
• Perry J.A., D.G. Cvitkovitch, and C.M. Lévesque. 2009. Cell death in Streptococcus mutans biofilms: a link between CSP and extracellular DNA. FEMS Microbiol Lett. 299:261–266.
  

Current Research Grants

2009 – 2014: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
‘Induction of death by fratricide as a mechanism of persistence of biofilm infections’
Principal Investigator

2009 – 2014: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
‘Environmentally stress-inducible MazEF suicide module in the biofilm-forming organism Streptococcus mutans’
Principal Investigator

2007 – 2011: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
‘The competence regulon in Streptococcus mutans’
Co-Investigator

Students

• 2011 – present: Alexandra Mankovskaia, MSc candidate
• 2009 – present: Daniel Kobric, MSc candidate – Periodontology (co-supervision)
• 2009 – present: Kamna Singh, PhD candidate (co-supervision)
• 2008 – present: Vincent Leung, PhD candidate

* Presently accepting students for supervision