Simon-Alexandre is a PhD student jointly supervised at INRS and the Université Laval in collaboration with Prof. Sylvain Moineau, a world leader in CRISPR biology.
His research focuses on the structural and functional engineering of CRISPR–Cas9 systems, with the goal of understanding how guide-RNA recognition, target binding and catalytic activation are modulated by protein dynamics and molecular interactions.
His project integrates:
- Protein engineering of Cas9 variants
- Structural and biophysical characterization (NMR, modeling, mutagenesis)
- Functional assays to probe DNA targeting and cleavage
- Comparative analysis of natural Cas systems and engineered variants
Working at the interface of structural biology and microbial immunity, Simon-Alexandre contributes to developing next-generation CRISPR tools with improved specificity, stability and functional tunability for biotechnology and genome engineering applications.