Assistant professor
Department of Medicine
Faculty of Medicine

Vincent Picher-Martel is a neurologist at the CHU de Quebec and assistant professor under scholarship at the Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine of Laval University. He obtained his medical degree at Laval University in 2017, his PhD in neurobiology at Laval University in 2019 and his Neurology specialist certificate in 2022. Then, he completed a fellowship in neuromuscular medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 2022-2023 and a postdoctoral research fellowship in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) under the supervision of Dr. Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 2023-2024. Since 2024, Dr. Picher-Martel leads a research group at the CHU de Québec Research Centre- Laval University (CRCHUQc-UL). His research program is focused on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) modeling and gene-directed therapies in Oculopharyngeal Muscular Dystrophy (OPMD) and ALS.

Development of gene-directed therapy for Oculopharyngeal Muscular Dystrophy
The first objective of his research program is to generate a new cellular model of Oculopharyngeal Muscular Dystrophy using induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs)-derived myocytes with trinucleotide repeat expansion in the PABPN1 gene. He is using this model to test a genetic therapy approach called antisense oligonucleotide. The goal here is to find a treatment to reduce the amount of toxic protein in muscles and reduce the weakness. This project is aiming to provide researchers with a new cellular model to study the disease and develop new medication to treat the disease.

Identify the genetic modulators of the autophagy pathway in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
The second objective of his research program is to study the role of the autophagy-lysosome pathway (ALP) in ALS. The ALP is considered the major clearance pathway of aggregated proteins and damaged organelles. Many lines of evidence suggest an implication of the ALP in ALS. Several of the proteins found in neuronal aggregates are implicated in autophagy and several ALS-related genes are directly implicated in this pathway. He is using iPSCs-derived neurons carrying various mutations in autophagy-related genes to perform a FACS (Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting)-based genome-wide CRISPRi screen and identify common modulators of autophagy in ALS/FTD neurons. The objective is to identify genes that could improve autophagy function and therefore, reduce the amount of toxic proteins in ALS neurons.