Benoit Coulombe (born 1958 in

Granby, Quebec Granby is a town in southwestern Quebec, located east of Montreal. The population as of the Canada 2021 Census was 69,025. Granby is the seat of La Haute-Yamaska Regional County Municipality. It is the second most populated city in Estrie after ...

) is a Canadian scientist whose research focuses on the mechanisms by which regulated protein–protein, protein–DNA and protein–RNA interactions control the activity of

RNA polymerase II RNA polymerase II (RNAP II and Pol II) is a multiprotein complex that transcribes DNA into precursors of messenger RNA (mRNA) and most small nuclear RNA (snRNA) and microRNA. It is one of the three RNAP enzymes found in the nucleus of eukaryoti ...

, the

molecular machine A molecular machine, nanite, or nanomachine is a molecular component that produces quasi-mechanical movements (output) in response to specific stimuli (input). In cellular biology, macromolecular machines frequently perform tasks essential for l ...

that synthesizes all

messenger RNA In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of synthesizing a protein. mRNA is created during the p ...

(mRNA) and some small-nuclear RNA (

snRNA Small nuclear RNA (snRNA) is a class of small RNA molecules that are found within the splicing speckles and Cajal bodies of the cell nucleus in eukaryotic cells. The length of an average snRNA is approximately 150 nucleotides. They are transcribed ...

) in eukaryotes. Coulombe obtained his bachelor's degree in

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

in 1981 and his PhD in

Molecular Biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

in 1988 at the

University of Montreal A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

, before undertaking postdoctoral work at

the University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and the

Free University of Brussels University of Brussels may refer to several institutions in Brussels, Belgium: Current institutions * Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), a French-speaking university established as a separate entity in 1970 *Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), a D ...

. In 1993 he moved to the

University of Sherbrooke A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which rou ...

as an Assistant Professor, later attaining the tenured rank of Full Professor. In 2001 he moved to the

Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), (also known, in English, as Montreal Clinical Research Institute), is a medical research institute affiliated with Université de Montréal. Its work focuses mainly on cellular biology, molecula ...

. Coulombe is best known for his "promoter wrapping model" for transcriptional initiation by multi-subunit RNA polymerases, which has been described in molecular biology textbooks. More recently, his laboratory has used protein affinity purification coupled with mass spectrometry to generate high-resolution maps of the interactome of human RNA polymerases.Forget D, Lacombe AA, Cloutier P, Al-Khoury R, Bouchard A, Lavallée-Adam M, Jeronimo C, Blanchette M, Coulombe B. (2010) The protein interaction network of the human transcription machinery reveals a role for the conserved GTPase RPAP4/GPN1 and microtubule assembly in nuclear import and biogenesis of RNA polymerase II. Mol Cell Proteomics 9, 2827-2839. In 2012, the Coulombe laboratory discovered that methylation of molecular chaperones is a central element of a posttranslational modification code, they termed the " chaperone code", that orchestrates the functional organization of the proteome.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Coulombe, Benoit 1958 births Scientists from Quebec Living people People from Granby, Quebec Canadian molecular biologists Academic staff of the Université de Sherbrooke Université de Montréal alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto Academic staff of Vrije Universiteit Brussel 20th-century Canadian scientists 21st-century Canadian scientists French Quebecers