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Assistant Director for Graduate Students, Lady Davis institute
Senior Investigator, Lady Davis Institute
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, McGill University
Dr. Chalifour received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Manitoba in 1982. She moved to the Biological Chemistry Department at Harvard Medical School, Boston, where she completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Melvin DePamphilis. She then moved to Montreal and worked at the Biotechnology Research Institute before joining the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research in 1990.
Major Research Activities
Dr. Chalifour’s research program utilizes molecular and physiological analyses to identify and characterize the impact of sex and sex hormones on the cardiovascular system in health and with pathology. Dr. Chalifour’s program is aimed at understanding the basic mechanisms whereby sex impacts normal cardiac function as well as the initiation and progression of cardiovascular disease. For example, echocardiographic analysis has identified unique cardiac structure and function features depending on the sex. Further, the pattern of expression of proteins involved in the control of calcium homeostasis is different in male and females and it is altered in cases of sex hormone deficiency.
Dr. Chalifour’s laboratory is also studying the impact of exposure to sex hormones and endocrine disruptors during gestation on the physiology, expression pattern, and response to physiological and pathophysiological stress of the adult progeny. She has found this fetal programming to be evident after exposure to feminizing and masculinization hormones. She is characterizing the impact of sex hormones and endocrine disruptors on the epigenome as the mechanism for gestational programming, and as a link to the transgenerational effect of an altered gestational milieu.
Recent Publications
Morris Schweitzer, Sandra Makhoul, Miltiadis Paliouras, Lenore K. Beitel, Bruce Gottlieb, Mark Trifiro, Shafinaz F. Chowdhury, Naif M. Zaman, Edwin Wang, Harry Davis and Lorraine E. Chalifour. (2016). Characterization of the NPC1L1 gene and proteome from an exceptional responder to ezetimibe. Atherosclerosis. 246(3): 78-86.
Bhavini B. Patel, Amanda Kasneci, Alicia M. Bolt Vanessa Di Lalla, Massimo R. Di Iorio, Mohamad Raad, Koren K. Mann and Lorraine E Chalifour. (2015). Chronic exposure to bisphenol A reduces successful cardiac remodeling after an experimental myocardial infarction in C57bl/6n mice. Toxicological Sciences. 146(1): 101-115.
Bhavini B. Patel, Mohammad Raad, Igal A Sebag and Lorraine E. Chalifour. (2015). Sex-specific cardiovascular responses to control or high fat diet feeding in C57bl/6 mice chronically exposed to bisphenol A. Toxicology Reports. 2: 1310-1318.
Rami Haddad, Amanda Kasneci, Igal A Sebag and Lorraine E Chalifour. (2013). Cardiac structure / function, protein expression and DNA methylation are changed in adult female mice exposed to diethylstilbestrol in utero. Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology. 91(9): 741-749. Bhavini B. Patel, Mohamad Raad, Igal A Sebag and Lorraine E. Chalifour. (2013). Lifelong exposure to bisphenol A alters cardiac structure/function, protein expression and DNA methylation in adult mice. Toxicological Sciences. 133(1): 174-185. |