Christian Rocheleau, PhD
Associate Professor, McGill University, Canada
Former RTI Lab: Doctoral candidate, Mello Lab
Training Period: 1994 - 2000
Prior Academic Degree Institution: Assumption College
Christian Rocheleau 
@RocheleauLab
Analysis of Cell Polarity Signaling in C. elegans: A Dissertation
A native of Massachusetts, I attended undergraduate at Assumption College in Worcester (1990-94), where I developed an interest in cell biology and signal transduction. I further pursued these interests earning a Ph.D. (2000) at the UMass Chan Medical School (Worcester) working with Dr. Craig Mello. There I used the then new technique of RNA-mediated interference (RNAi) and the emerging genome sequence to elucidate a novel Wnt/MAPK-like pathway as establishing polarity and cell fates in the early C. elegans embryo. As a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund Postdoctoral fellow I continued studies in signal transduction in the Department of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) working with Dr. Meera Sundaram (2000-05). There I characterized the role of scaffold proteins in the Ras/MAPK pathway and identified numerous novel regulators of Ras/MAPK signaling via mutagenesis screens and RNAi. In 2005 I established my own lab in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine at McGill University and the MUHC Research Institute as an Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair. In 2011 I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure and joined the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology as an associate member.