Dr Eloïse Dray is Assistant Professor/research in the Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology at the University of Texas Health, in San Antonio. She received her PhD from University Paris 11 in France, where she studied the role of breast cancer protein BRCA2 in meiosis. She then moved on to Patrick Sung laboratory at Yale University (2006-2011) for her postdoctoral training, where she trained in protein biochemistry. There, she investigated the link between tumor suppressors and DNA damage repair pathways.
After 1 additional year as a post-doctoral trainee in Australia (2012), at the University of Queensland under the direction of Prof Melissa Brown and Matt Trau, she started her autonomous research group with the support of an early career fellowship from the National Breast Cancer Foundation and a Vice Chancellor fellowship, at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
At QUT, she developed her current research program to study the role of hereditary mutations and epigenetic silencing of DNA damage repair genes, in familial cancer predisposition. Dr Dray uses a combination of cell biology, biochemistry and small animal models to understand the contribution of abnormal DNA repair pathways to carcinogenesis. She is especially interested in understanding how DNA damage repair pathways are deactivated post-repair, and how the coordination of DNA damage responses with the cell cycle progression contribute to genomic stability and cancer avoidance.
Dr Dray joined UTHSCSA in 2018.