Welcome to Olivier Messina

Hi, everyone! I am Olivier Messina, a French biologist with an interest in understanding the relationship between 3D genome organization and transcription. I completed my PhD in Marcelo Nollmann’s lab in Montpellier, France (2019–2024), focusing on the fascinating field of chromatin architecture. During my doctoral research, I contributed to the development of HiM, a microscopy technique designed to trace chromatin architecture across different cell types. I applied HiM to investigate chromatin folding, particularly the communication between cis-regulatory elements in the regulation of gene expression during early Drosophila embryogenesis and in the Drosophila brain. Additionally, I adapted HiM in combination with sophisticated bioinformatics methods to explore chromosome architecture and transcription at the single-cell level in mouse and human tissues. 

I joined Maria Cristina Gambetta’s lab in January 2025 as a postdoctoral researcher, where I will be studying the regulatory role of long-range chromatin interactions between promoter pairs in fully differentiated Drosophila neurons using microscopy- and sequencing-based methods (Hi-C, Micro-C).

Welcome Zoe Nahas !

Hi! My name is Zoe, I am starting as a post-doc in the group of Christian Fankhauser on December 1st. I grew up in France, though I have been living in the UK for many years, first for my undergraduate in Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford, and then for my PhD at the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge. In my PhD, I used experiments and mathematical modelling to understand how plants dynamically regulate their shoot architecture. Generally, I am interested in how plants continuously integrate different types of internal and environment information to coordinate their development. I also like to swim, play football, hike, and climb.