Assistant professor
Department of Pediatrics
Faculty of Medicine

Pr. Sébastien Levesque joined the Department of Pediatrics at Université Laval and the CHU de Québec Research Center as an Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator in April 2026. He earned a master’s degree in microbiology and a PhD in molecular medicine at Université Laval, where he developed marker-free selection strategies for CRISPR-based genome editing and cell therapy. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School under the supervision of Dr. Daniel E. Bauer. During his postdoctoral training, he developed new approaches, including prime assembly, to facilitate precision genome engineering for functional genomics and gene therapy of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, with applications for severe inherited blood disorders.

As part of his research program, Pr. Levesque aims to develop novel methods and technologies for precision genome editing. His interests include CRISPR-based technologies, prime editing and prime assembly, RNA therapeutics, protein engineering, functional genomics, disease modeling, and therapeutic genome editing for rare genetic diseases and cancer, with a particular focus on unmet clinical needs for pediatric patients with severe blood disorders.