From patient to student, Brennan Bergeron has spent a considerable part of his life at St. Jude. His interest in biology came from his own illness with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and the doctors who treated him. The St. Jude Graduate Program was a natural next step in his education.
Bergeron received his bachelor’s degree in biology in 2016 from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His interests include developing clinical treatment protocols to increase the life expectancy and quality of life of childhood cancer survivors.
Bergeron currently works in the lab of Daniel Savic, PhD, Pharmaceutical Sciences, where he contributes to gene regulatory architecture to address fundamental and critical questions concerning childhood leukemia. He earned his master’s degree from the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in June 2019.
“St. Jude is like a home for me,” he says. “It has been incredible to witness the diversity of disciplines working together to create a program where everyone brings their own unique strengths.”
Hometown: Youngsville, Louisiana
Dissertation: Elucidating the Structure and Role of Glucocorticoid-Response cis-Regulatory Elements in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
Publications
Bergeron BP, Diedrich JD, Zhang Y, Barnett KR, Dong Q, Ferguson DC, Autry RJ, Yang W, Hansen BS, Smith C, Crews KR, Fan Y, Pui CH, Pruett-Miller SM, Relling MV, Yang JJ, Li C, Evans WE, Savic D. Epigenomic profiling of glucocorticoid responses identifies cis-regulatory disruptions impacting steroid resistance in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Leukemia 2022 Aug 26. doi: 10.1038/s41375-022-01685-z. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36028659.
Ferguson DC, McCorkle JR, Barnett KR, Bonten EJ, Bergeron BP, Bhattarai KR, Yang W, Smith C, Hansen BS, Bajpai R, Dong Q, Autry RJ, Gocho Y, Diedrich JD, Crews KR, Pruett-Miller SM, Roberts KG, Stock W, Mullighan CG, Inaba H, Jeha S, Pui CH, Yang JJ, Relling MV, Evans WE, Savic D. Amino acid stress response genes promote L-asparaginase resistance in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Blood Adv 2022 Jun 14;6(11):3386-3397. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2022006965. PMID: 35671062; PMCID: PMC9198938.
Diedrich JD, Dong Q, Ferguson DC, Bergeron BP, et al. Profiling chromatin accessibility in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia identifies subtype-specific chromatin landscapes and gene regulatory networks. Leukemia 2021.