Corina Lesseur, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor | Mount Sinai School of Medicine
March of Dimes
Corina Lesseur

Corina Lesseur, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Biography

Dr. Corina Lesseur is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Lesseur’s research focuses on understanding how molecular traits shape individual disease susceptibility and responses to environmental exposures. She is particularly interested in placental epi/genomics in relation to maternal and infant metabolic outcomes (birth weight, maternal obesity, and gestational diabetes) and in the effects of environmental exposures in early-life programming. Dr. Lesseur’s work as a March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar aims to assess the effects of gestational diabetes on placental DNA methylation patterns in a population of Pacific Islanders.

Dr. Hoffmann is a dedicated advocate for reproductive and child health, and she's actively involved in outreach events and working with legislators on these topics. These efforts include Dr. Hoffmann’s work advocating for healthy school start time. A too early high school start time negatively impacts student wellbeing, mental health, academic success, accidents, as well as lifetime earnings. Aligning school start time with the body’s natural changes in circadian time keeping during puberty allows to increase student wellbeing and success.

Education

MD, Luis Razetti School of Medicine, Central University of Venezuela (Caracas, Venezuela).

PhD, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire, USA)

Postdoctoral Fellowship, International Agency for Research on Cancer (Lyon, France).

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, USA).

Honors and recognition

March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award (2020)

K99‑HD097286 NIH/NICHD research grant “Integrative analysis of human placental epi/genome in relation to fetal growth” (2019)

Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship for training in cancer research at the International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC) (2014)

Selected publications

  1. Lesseur C, Kaur K, Kelly SD, Hermetz K, Williams R, Hao K, Marsit CJ, Caudle WM, Chen J. Effects of prenatal pesticide exposure on the fetal brain and placenta transcriptomes in a rodent model. Toxicology. 2023 May 15;490:153498. doi: 10.1016/j.tox.2023.153498. Epub 2023 Apr 3. PubMed PMID: 37019170; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10152924.
  2. Li Q, Lesseur C, Srirangam P, Kaur K, Hermetz K, Caudle WM, Fiedler N, Panuwet P, Prapamontol T, Naksen W, Suttiwan P, Baumert BO, Hao K, Barr DB, Marsit CJ, Chen J. Associations between prenatal organophosphate pesticide exposure and placental gene networks. Environ Res. 2023 May 1;224:115490. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115490. Epub 2023 Feb 23. PubMed PMID: 36828252; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10054353.
  3. Kaur K, Lesseur C, Chen L, Andra SS, Narasimhan S, Pulivarthi D, Midya V, Ma Y, Ibroci E, Gigase F, Lieber M, Lieb W, Janevic T, De Witte LD, Bergink V, Rommel AS, Chen J. Cross-sectional associations of maternal PFAS exposure on SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody levels during pregnancy. Environ Res. 2023 Feb 15;219:115067. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.115067. Epub 2022 Dec 14. PubMed PMID: 36528042; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9747685.
  4. Fernandez-Jimenez N, Fore R, Cilleros-Portet A, Lepeule J, Perron P, Kvist T, Tian FY, Lesseur C, Binder AM, Lozano M, Martorell-Marugán J, Loke YJ, Bakulski KM, Zhu Y, Forhan A, Sammallahti S, Everson TM, Chen J, Michels KB, Belmonte T, Carmona-Sáez P, Halliday J, Daniele Fallin M, LaSalle JM, Tost J, Czamara D, Fernández MF, Gómez-Martín A, Craig JM, Gonzalez-Alzaga B, Schmidt RJ, Dou JF, Muggli E, Lacasaña M, Vrijheid M, Marsit CJ, Karagas MR, Räikkönen K, Bouchard L, Heude B, Santa-Marina L, Bustamante M, Hivert MF, Bilbao JR. A meta-analysis of pre-pregnancy maternal body mass index and placental DNA methylation identifies 27 CpG sites with implications for mother-child health. Commun Biol. 2022 Nov 30;5(1):1313. doi: 10.1038/s42003-022-04267-y. PubMed PMID: 36446949; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9709064.
  5. Kaur K, Lesseur C, Deyssenroth MA, Kloog I, Schwartz JD, Marsit CJ, Chen J. PM(2.5) exposure during pregnancy is associated with altered placental expression of lipid metabolic genes in a US birth cohort. Environ Res. 2022 Aug;211:113066. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.113066. Epub 2022 Mar 3. PubMed PMID: 35248564; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9177798.
  6. Lesseur C, Jessel RH, Ohrn S, Ma Y, Li Q, Dekio F, Brody RI, Wetmur JG, Gigase FAJ, Lieber M, Lieb W, Lynch J, Afzal O, Ibroci E, Rommel AS, Janevic T, Stone J, Howell EA, Galang RR, Dolan SM, Bergink V, De Witte LD, Chen J. Gestational SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with placental expression of immune and trophoblast genes. Placenta. 2022 Aug;126:125-132. doi: 10.1016/j.placenta.2022.06.017. Epub 2022 Jun 30. PubMed PMID: 35797939; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9242701.
  7. Tekola-Ayele F, Zeng X, Chatterjee S, Ouidir M, Lesseur C, Hao K, Chen J, Tesfaye M, Marsit CJ, Workalemahu T, Wapner R. Placental multi-omics integration identifies candidate functional genes for birthweight. Nat Commun. 2022 May 2;13(1):2384. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30007-1. PubMed PMID: 35501330; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9061712.
  8. Binder AM, LaRocca J, Lesseur C, Marsit CJ, Michels KB. Epigenome-wide and transcriptome-wide analyses reveal gestational diabetes is associated with alterations in the human leukocyte antigen complex. Clin Epigenetics. 2015;7(1):79. doi: 10.1186/s13148-015-0116-y. eCollection 2015. PubMed PMID: 26244062; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4524439.
  9. Lesseur C, Armstrong DA, Paquette AG, Li Z, Padbury JF, Marsit CJ. Maternal obesity and gestational diabetes are associated with placental leptin DNA methylation. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2014 Dec;211(6):654.e1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2014.06.037. Epub 2014 Jun 19. PubMed PMID: 24954653; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4254188.
  10. Lesseur C, Armstrong DA, Paquette AG, Koestler DC, Padbury JF, Marsit CJ. Tissue-specific Leptin promoter DNA methylation is associated with maternal and infant perinatal factors. Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2013 Dec 5;381(1-2):160-7. doi: 10.1016/j.mce.2013.07.024. Epub 2013 Jul 30. PubMed PMID: 23911897; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3795868.

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