Carlos E. Sousa Neves graduated in Biochemistry from the University of Lisbon (Portugal) after which he moved to Aberdeen, Scotland, where he obtained his PhD in developmental biology from the University of Aberdeen. After gaining further post-doctoral experience, he joined a small startup company in Edinburgh (Fios Genomics) as a bioinformatician. Since then he has worked for Sophia Genetics in Lausanne. He will join Paul Franken’s lab from January 2021 to study the molecular changes induced by acute sleep deprivation in mice.
Guillaume Lavergne graduated from the University of Clermont-Ferrand (France), with a Master’s of Biology in Genetics and Physiology. He then obtained his PhD working in the Jagla lab at the GReD institute in Clermont-Ferrand where he studied Drosophila muscle stem cells during embryogenesis at the interface between stem cell biology, neurogenesis and myogenesis. He joined the Roignant group in January 2021 to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the specificity of m6A deposition in Drosophila. He will also investigate the link(s) between epitranscriptomic and epigenetic marks, and the conserved evolutionary features of m6A deposition.
Enrico obtained his bachelor and master degree from the University of Padua. For his master thesis he moved to the University of Leicester where he studied the diapause of Drosophila melanogaster in the lab of Bambos Kyriacou. He then joined the group of Charlotte Förster at the University of Würzburg where he studied and characterized the circadian clock of selected non-model insect species. He obtained his PhD in 2018 and continued with a project on the anatomical and functional characterization of the dorsal clock neurons of D. melanogaster. Enrico joined the Benton lab in January 2021 to work on the genetic mapping of gustatory preferences.
Noémie was born in a small town close to Paris. She fell in love with genetics in her first science classes in middle school. After high school, she studied medicine in Paris and received her Bachelor’s in medical sciences. Then, she switched from medicine to research and graduated from the Magistère Européen de génétique in Paris Diderot University. During her Master’s, she had the opportunity to work on the HOX gene evolution in plankton (Oikopleura dioica) in the Chourrout group, Center for Marine Biology in Bergen, Norway. Afterwards, she had a great experience studying the effects of compressive stresses on C. albicans in the Holt group, NYU, New York. Finally, she did her Master’s thesis with Dr Escude’s group at the Natural History Museum of Paris, where she worked on the evolution of alpha-satellite sequences in Cercopithecini. Now, she begins a new chapter in the Vastenhouw lab. She will be focusing on understanding early gene transcription in zebrafish and the biophysical mechanisms involved in that process. Exciting!
During her free time, she likes to play the violin (be careful of your ears), travel, and build her family tree.
Edlyn Wu. Canadian. Molecular biologist and biochemist. Edlyn completed her MSc and PhD in the lab of Dr. Thomas Duchaine (McGill University, Montreal), where she investigated the mechanism of microRNA-mediated gene silencing, using C. elegans as a model organism. With a passion for traveling and a long standing interest in zebrafish and early developmental biology, she moved to Dresden and joined the Vastenhouw group for her postdoc in January 2017. In Lausanne, Edlyn will continue to investigate the molecular events that regulate the timing of zygotic genome activation and is looking forward to take part in science communication activities.
