Rémi Buisson
Biography
Rémi Buisson, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the School of Medicine, University of California Irvine, with a joint appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences. He serves as Associate Director for the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center Genomics Research & Technology Hub. Buisson received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from University Laval in Canada and completed postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Buisson's research focuses on DNA damage response mechanisms and APOBEC-mediated mutagenesis in cancer. His laboratory has characterized how APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B enzymes generate mutations in tumor genomes and identified mechanisms linking DNA damage, viral infection, and innate immune responses to APOBEC3A expression. His work has demonstrated that APOBEC3A activity drives acquired resistance to targeted therapies in non-small cell lung cancer and that mesoscale DNA features influence APOBEC deaminase activity. His research has been supported by an NIH-NCI MERIT Award, an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award, and multiple NIH grants.
Buisson has trained numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, several of whom have received competitive fellowships including NIH diversity fellowships, EMBO postdoctoral fellowships, and CIRM Scholar Research training grants. He serves on the editorial boards of Nucleic Acids Research Cancer and Cancer & Metastasis Reviews, and organizes the annual International Conference on Base Editing and Applications and the SoCal Genome Stability Symposium. He is a standing member reviewer for the American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship study section.
Return to topEducation
- B.A. in Biochemistry, University Claude-Bernard Lyon 1 (France), 2006
- M.Sc. in Molecular Biology, University Claude-Bernard Lyon 1 (France), 2008
- Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, University Laval (Canada), 2012
Distinctions
- NIH-NCI MERIT Award, 2021-2028
- American Cancer Society Research Scholar, 2024-2028
- Athalie R. Clarke Achievement Awards, School of Medicine, UCI, 2024
- UCI School of Medicine Outstanding Early-Career Faculty Research Award, 2023
- NIH-NCI Career Development Award, 2017-2021
- Postdoctoral Fellowship: Susan G. Komen Fellowship Award, 2016
- Postdoctoral Fellowship: Rivkin Center Scientific Scholar Award, 2015-2016
- Postdoctoral Fellowship: Tosteson Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, 2014-2015
- Ph.D. Fellowship: FQRNT fellowships (Fonds de recherche du Québec), 2010-2012
- Ph.D. Fellowship: CRHDQ fellowships (Centre de recherche de L'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec), 2009-2010
Areas of Expertise
- Genome Instability and Cancer
- APOBEC3 Mutagenesis Mechanisms
- DNA Damage Response Pathways
- Homologous Recombination Regulation
- Innate Immunity and Viral Infection
- PARP1 Hyperactivation
- Translation Regulation
- CRISPR-Cas9 screen
Recent Publications
- Bournique, E., Sanchez, S., Oh, S., Ghazarian, D., Mahieu, A., Manjunath, L., Ednacot, E., Ortega, P., Masri, S., Marazzi, I., Buisson, R., “ATM and IRAK1 orchestrate two distinct mechanisms of NF-κB activation in response to DNA damage” (opens in new tab), Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, vol. 32, pp. 740-755, 2025.
- Manjunath, M., Santiago, G., Ortega, P., Sanchez, A., Oh, S., Garcia, A., Li., J, Duong, D., Bournique, E., Bouin A, Semler BL, Setiaputra D, Buisson, R., “Cooperative Role of PACT and ADAR1 in Preventing Aberrant PKR Activation by Self-Derived Double-Stranded RNA” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 16, 2025.
- Ortega, P., Bournique, E., Li, Y., Sanchez, S., Santiago, G., Brooke, H., Striepen, J., Maciejowski, J., Green, A., Buisson, R., “Mechanism of DNA replication fork breakage and PARP1 hyperactivation during replication catastrophe” (opens in new tab), Science Advances, vol. 11, 2025.
- Ortega, P., Sanchez, S., Seldin, M., Buisson, R., “Protocol to identify DNA motifs targeted by base editors using oligo-seq” (opens in new tab), STAR Protocols, vol. 6, 2025.
- Sanchez, A., Ortega, P., Sakhtemani, R., Manjunath, L., Oh S., Bournique, E., Becker, A., Kim, K., Durfee, C., Temiz, N., Chen, XS., Harris, RS, Lawrence, MS., Buisson, R., “Mesoscale DNA Features Impact APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B Deaminase Activity and Shape Tumor Mutational Landscapes” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 15, 2024.
- Oh, S., Santiago, G., Manjunath, L., Li, J., Bouin A., Semler, BL., Buisson R., “A CRISPR-Cas9 Knockout Screening Identifies IRF2 as a Key Driver of OAS3/RNase L-Mediated RNA Decay During Viral Infection” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 121, 2024.
- Manjunath, M., Oh, S., Ortega, P., Bouin, A., Bournique, E., Sanchez, A., Martense, PM., Auerbach, AA., Becker, JT., Seldin, M., Harris, RS., Semler, BL., Buisson, R., “APOBEC3B drives PKR-mediated translation shutdown and protects stress granules in response to viral infection” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 14, 2023.
- Oh, S., Buisson,R., “A digital PCR-based protocol to detect and quantify RNA editing events at hotspots” (opens in new tab), STAR Protocols, vol. 3, 2022.
- Oh, S., Bournique, E., Bowen, D., Jalili, P., Sanchez, A., Ward, I., Dananberg, A., Manjunath, L., Tran, G., Semler, B., Maciejowski, J., Seldin, M., Buisson, R., “Genotoxic stress and Viral Infection Induce Transient Expression of APOBEC3A and Pro-Inflammatory Genes Through Two Distinct Pathways” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 12, 2021.
Most Cited Publications
- Buisson R., Dion-Cote A.-M., Coulombe Y., Launay H., Cai H., Stasiak A.Z., Stasiak A., Xia B., Masson J.-Y., “Cooperation of breast cancer proteins PALB2 and piccolo BRCA2 in stimulating homologous recombination” (opens in new tab), Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, vol. 17, pp. 1247-1254, 2010.
- Buisson R., Boisvert J.L., Benes C.H., Zou L., “Distinct but Concerted Roles of ATR, DNA-PK, and Chk1 in Countering Replication Stress during S Phase” (opens in new tab), Molecular Cell, vol. 59, pp. 1011-1024, 2015.
- Kabeche, L., Nguyen, H.D., Buisson, R., Zou, L., “A Mitosis-specific and R-loop driven ATR pathway promotes faithful chromosome segregation” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 359, no. 6371, pp. 108-114, 2018.
- Buisson, R., Langenbucher, A., Bowen, D., Kwan, EE., Benes, CH., Zou, L., Lawrence, MS., “Passenger hotspot mutations in cancer driven by APOBEC3A and mesoscale genomic features” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 364, no. 6447, 2019.
- Buisson, R., Joshi, N., Ho, CK., Rodrigue, A., Foo, TK., Hardy, E., Haas, W., Xia, B., Masson, J-Y., Zou, L., “Coupling of Homologous Recombination and the Checkpoint by ATR” (opens in new tab), Molecular Cell, vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 336-346, 2017.
- Buisson, R., Lawrence, MS., Benes, CH., Zou, L., “APOBEC3A and 3B Activities Render Cancer Cells Susceptible to ATR Inhibition” (opens in new tab), Cancer Research, vol. 77, no. 17, pp. 4567-4578, 2017.
- Poulet A., Buisson R., Faivre-Moskalenko C., Koelblen M., Amiard S., Montel F., Cuesta-Lopez S., Bornet O., Guerlesquin F., Godet T., Moukhtar J., Argoul F., Declais A.-C., Lilley D.M.J., Ip S.C.Y., West S.C., Gilson E., Giraud-Panis M.-J., “TRF2 promotes, remodels and protects telomeric Holliday junctions” (opens in new tab), EMBO Journal, vol. 28, pp. 641-651, 2009.
- Buisson R., Niraj J., Pauty J., Maity R., Zhao W., Coulombe Y., Sung P., Masson J.-Y., “Breast cancer proteins PALB2 and BRCA2 stimulate polymerase η in recombination-associated DNA Synthesis At Blocked Replication Forks” (opens in new tab), Cell Reports, vol. 6, pp. 553-564, 2014.
- Jalili, P., Bowen, D., Langenbucher, A., Park, P., Aguirre, K., Corcoran, R., Fleischman A., Lawrence, M., Zou, L., Buisson, R., “Quantification of ongoing APOBEC3A activity in tumor cells by monitoring RNA editing at hotspots” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 11, 2020.
- Buisson R., Masson J.-Y., “PALB2 self-interaction controls homologous recombination” (opens in new tab), Nucleic Acids Research, vol. 40, pp. 10312-10323, 2012.
Contact Information
Email: rbuisson@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 824-4835
Address: 316 Sprague Hall
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Last updated on 5/22/2026.