Vincent Dion PhD

Vincent Dion started his scientific career in 1999 as a summer student in Stanley L. Miller’s laboratory at UCSD (USA). He also spent time as an undergraduate in the laboratory of David H. Evans at the University of Guelph (Canada), where he got a B.Sc. with honours in 2002. In 2007, he obtained his PhD from Baylor College of Medicine (USA), under the supervision of John H. Wilson, for defining the role of DNMT1, a DNA methyltransferase, in preventing disease-causing CAG/CTG repeat expansions. As a postdoc with Susan M. Gasser at the Friedrich Miescher Institute (Switzerland), he discovered a novel role for chromatin remodeling enzymes in the repair of deleterious DNA double-strand breaks. He joined the CIG in 2013 as an assistant professor with the support of a professorship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Since then, his lab has made key contributions towards the development of gene editing approaches to correct mutations that cause 14 different neurological, neuromuscular, and neurodegenerative diseases, which all remain without a cure.