A new seminar series at the IRIM has been launched in 2019 by Caroline Goujon and Boris Bonaventure, aiming at providing experience and feedbacks from people with successful and interesting careers outside academia, and who previously did a PhD and, possibly, one postdoc (or several postdocs!). The 'Career outside academia’ seminars are held for PhD students and postdocs, in an informal and relaxed context and any type of questions/discussions are welcome.
Please contact the current team of organizers if you have any questions: Caroline Goujon, Nuria Andrés (IGMM), Abla Houmey (IRIM), Arnaud Lecante (IRIM), Rohit Shrivastava (CRBM), Marine Bernardet (IGMM).
Past organizers were: Manon Gourdelier (IRIM, 2021-2022), Boris Bonaventure (IRIM, 2019-2021).
Future seminars:
Wednesday the 8th of March, time to be defined (lunch time), Salle de séminaire de l'IGMM or Marcel Dorée (to define-. The speaker will be Mariella Lomma, Medical Director France at Biomérieux.
Mariella Lomma's minibio: After a Master in Biotechnology at Bologna university (Italy), Mariella did her PhD in microbiology at the Pasteur institute, and a postdoc at Imperial College London (UK). In 2013, she leaves basic research and became Scientific Editor at Nîmes' university hospital (CHU). After 3 years in this position, she joined the biomedical industry and first became Medical Science Liaison at Basilea Pharmaceutica, and later Clinical Development Manager at Accelerate Diagnostics. In May 2019, she joined BioMérieux as a Medical Advisor and in 2022 she has become Medical Director France.
Past seminars:
Alexis Mougeolle, Senior Key Account Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific. Wednesday the 1st of February 2023, 1:00 pm, Philippe Jeanteur Room and Zoom.
Alexis obtained his PhD in biochemistry at the Polytechnic Institute of Bordeaux in 2014 working on sarcopenia, an age-related degenerative disease of muscle cells. Following his thesis, he began his commercial career at Fisher Scientific as a Life Science Specialist and then progressed to the position of Account Manager. Since 2019 Alexis has held the position of Key Account Manager within the Thermo Fisher Scientific group.
Alexis is also part of the "Resaliance PhD" association, which aims to facilitate the support of researchers (doctoral students/postdoc) in their integration into the world of the industry.
Giorgio Galli, Associate Director at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. 18th of January 2023, 13h30 (Zoom)
Dr. Giorgio Galli obtained his PhD at the Biotech Research and Innovation Center and University of Copenhagen in Denmark working on the molecular functions of the transcription factor PRDM5 in embryonic development and cancer. He then did his Post-doctoral training at Children’s Hospital in Boston and Harvard Department of Stem Cells and Regenerative Biology working on Hippo pathway transcriptional complexes in adult stem cells and cancer. He set up his lab in 2015 at the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland in the Oncology department focusing on large scale functional genomic screens. He then became Group Leader in the Oncology Drug Discovery Biology unit. His group focuses on characterizing the molecular mechanisms engaged by a variety of key oncogenic drivers including Transcription Factors and Chromatin Remodeling Complexes to drive novel drug discovery programs.
Gregory Berger, Principal Scientist, Celonic, June the 13th 2022, 1pm on Zoom
Gregory obtained his PhD in Virology and Immunology from the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon) in France, focusing upon the development of new lentiviral vectors for the development of dendritic cell-based immunotherapy. After his thesis he joined the department of Immunobiology and Infectious Disease at King’s College London as a post-doctoral researcher where his work focused predominantly on viral vector integration and immune cell dysfunction upon transduction. Gregory started his career in the industry as “Process development Scientist” within the group “Catapult : Cell and Gene Therapy” in London. In 2022 he joined Celonic Group, in Basel, Switzerland, as “Principal Scientist” where he is currently working with the process and analytical team to address the current challenges regarding viral vector manufacturing.
Mélanie Denizot, Innovation Manager, Lyon Biopôle, June the 29th at 2pm, Salle Philippe Jeanteur, IGMM annd Zoom
Mélanie Denizot obtained her PhD in cell biology and virology at the Center for the Study of Pathogens and Biotechnology for Health (now IRIM) in Montpellier, where she studied the role of the CXCR4 receptor in cell activation and death of CD4 T cells upon HIV-1 infection. After her thesis, Mélanie joined the University of Reunion as a postdoctoral researcher where she worked on the chikungunya virus. Back in mainland France, she joined the bioMérieux group for a short period as a biosciences research associate. Mélanie will then hold positions of Project Manager in biotechs Fab'entech then ENYO pharma. Since 2018, Mélanie joined Lyonbiopôle as Innovation Manager.
Christine Duthoit, Project Leader Cell Engineering and Immunology, Flash Therapeutics
25th of May 2022, 1pm on Zoom
Christine obtained her PhD in Immunology in 2000 from Aix-Marseille University. During her thesis in an Inserm laboratory, Christine studied auto-immune diseases. She then did a postdoc at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital (USA) on immune responses. She then came back to France and worked for CNRS (2003-2008) and for Inserm in Immunology. In 2008, Christine became project leader at Vectalys, where she's in charge of developing in vivo models and primary cells modifications with lentiviral vectors. In 2018, Vectalys grew and became Flash Therapeutics. Since then, she's been in charge of gene therapy and immunotherapy applied projects, both in vivo and ex vivo.
Olivier Masson, Medical Science Liaison, Pfizer, 13th of April 2022
Olivier obtained his PhD in health biology in 2010, at the Institute for Research in Cancerology of Montpellier (IRCM), where he studied the role of adipocyte cathepsin D and its LRP1 receptor. After his thesis, Olivier did a post-doc in Canada on colon cancer cells and anoikosis, a form of programmed cell death.
In 2012, he resumed his studies and obtained a master's degree in Management and Evaluation of clinical trials at the University of Montpellier.
Olivier began his career in the private sector as a “Medical Science Liaison”. A position he first occupied within the company SOBi (Swedish Orphan Biovitrum), in Paris, then after 5 months he joined the AstraZeneca group for 3 years. And since 2018, he has worked for the biopharmaceutical group Pfizer.
Mélanie Da Silva and Emilie Evanno, Study directors at SGS. 9th of March 2022, 17h30, Zoom.
Mélanie Da Silva , study director at SGS:
she obtained a PhD in neuroscience from University of Montpellier in 2017, in partnering with Cisbio, a company known to develop in-vitro solutions for the Drug Discovery in Research and Development and IGF (Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle). During her thesis, she characterized and developed functional assays in order to investigate G protein pathways involved for GPCR function. She joined SGS France in Poitiers in 2018 as Study Director in Immunanalysis department. She is responsible of Bioanalysis for pre-clinical and clinical trial program. In 2021, she became Team Leader of PK/PD/IG immunoanalysis team.
Emilie Evanno, study director at SGS:
Emilie obtained her PhD at the University of Poitiers in 2016. During her thesis, Emilie studied the epigenetic modifications during the epithelia-mesenchymal transition in non-small-cell lung cancer in collaboration with Eurofins Pharma Discovery Service company. She then did a postdoc in Marc Piechaczyk’s lab at the IGMM where she participated to the characterization of Fra-1 protein partners in triple negative breast cancer. She then decided to join the SGS company (Poitiers, France) as Study Director in the immuno-analysis department. She supervises the development of protocols that will be used during the samples analysis for pre-clinical and clinical trial program.
Marcos W. Steinberg, Associate director for translational biology, Gossamer Bio, San Diego, USA.
23 février 2022, 17h30, Zoom.
Marcos' minibio: In 2003, Marcos obtained his PhD in Immunology at the University of Buenos Aires and the Institute of Molecular Genetics of Montpellier (IGMM), where he studied preclinical gene therapy for ZAP-70 immunodeficiency and the roles of tyrosine kinases ZAP-70 and Syk in TCR signalling pathways. After one year of post-doc in the same lab, he did a second post-doc in La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology (California, USA) for 6 years, where he worked on the roles of LIGHT, HVEM and BTLA molecules in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis. In 2010, he continued studying some of these molecules in infectious and inflammatory diseases as Visiting Scientist.
Then he joined Tanabe Research Laboratories (San Diego, USA) as Research Scientist I, where he was project leader in the Immunology group and in 2015, he worked in Celgene/Receptos (San Diego, USA) as Principal Scientist on early target validation and hit-to-lead transition. In 2018, he worked as Principal Scientist in BMS/Celgene Neuroscience TRC (San Diego, USA) and since 2020, he is Associate Director in Translational Biology in Gossamer Bio (San Diego, USA).
Charlotte Floderer, Program Manager for Bioconjugates, Lonza Bioscience. 12th of January 2022, 18h, Zoom.
Minibio: Charlotte obtained her PhD at the IRIM, Université de Montpellier, in 2016. During her thesis, Charlotte had studied the assembly dynamics of HIV-1 at the plasma membrane of human T cells, using super-resolution microscopy. She then did a postdoc at the EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) in experimental Biophysics to study the impact of the dynamic of a molecular gradient in the regulation of yeast size.
She then decided to join the pharmaceutical company Merck Serono in process development and validation. She was involved in the marketing authorization of two new drugs. In 2021, she has joigned Lonza Bioscience as Program Manager Bioconjugates to manage the devlopment activioties and marketing authorization of new targeted therapeutic solutions.
Cristina Angelin-Duclos, Medical and scientific Head of Sanofi Pasteur Europe. 1st of December 2021, 12h30, Zoom. In English.
Cristina obtained her PhD in virology and molecular biology at the University and National Research Council of Pavia in Italy. Following that she did several post-docs. The first at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, where she worked on the molecular biology of oncogenic viruses such as HTLV-1, then at Columbia University in New York, where she worked for 5 years in the field of immunology and more precisely on B cells. And finally, at the ENS (Ecole Normale Supérieure) in Lyon in the field of hematopoiesis and erythrocyte cells.
In 2004 Cristina decided to get back on track, quit academic research and resumed studies in an international MBA at EM Lyon.
In this context, in 2005 Cristina joined Sanofi Pasteur MSD first as "Product Manager" for the marketing of the HPV vaccine (Human PapillomaVirus) then she will occupy the positions of Manager Medical Information Service, Chief of product and regulatory affairs, and finally Deputy director compliance officer. After 11 years with Sanofi Pasteur MSD at the France subsidiary, in 2017 Cristina joined the Sanofi group where she now holds a position of medical plan manager for Europe, for the SP Vaccines branch.
Charlotte Mahiet, Head of Villejuif Bio Park. 17th of November 2021, 13h, Zoom. In English.
Charlotte's minibio : Charlotte obtained her PhD in Virology from the University of Paris 7 in 2012. During her PhD at Genomic Vision and Institut Pasteur, she studied the characterization of the herpes simplex virus type 1 genome. After her thesis, Charlotte completed a post-doc at King's College London in London, UK, on the control of HIV-1 gene expression by SR proteins. In 2017, she joined Tableau Software in London where she worked as a product consultant for 3 years. In 2020, Charlotte joined the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Val-de-Marne as a manager of the Health Sector, and took over the direction of the Villejuif Bio Park incubator.
Fabrice Kolb, Head of the research department on immune and inflammatory diseases. 13th of october 2021, 17h, Zoom. In English.
Fabrice's minibio : Fabrice obtained his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Strasbourg in 2001. During his thesis at the IMCB (Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology), he studied the regulation of R1 plasmid replication by an antisense RNA and virulence genes of Staphylococcus Aureus by RNA-III. Following his thesis, Fabrice did a post-doc at the FMI (Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research) in Basel, Switzerland, on the mechanistic of RNA interference machinery in mammals. In 2006, he joined Novartis, also in Basel, where he worked as a project leader in dermatology/inflammation and oncology for projects on drug discovery and new targets within the protease family. After 9 years at Novartis, Fabrice became senior principal scientist at Roche in the immunology department, where he remained 4 years during which he led several drug discovery projects. In 2019 he joined the pharmaceutical company Galapagos in Basel where he is director of the research department on immune and inflammatory diseases.
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Bénédicte Fauvel, Chief Operating Officer, MedXeCell. 15th of September 2021, 12h30, salle Marcel Dorée & on Zoom.
Bénédicte's minibio : Bénédicte obtained her PhD in biology from Montpellier University in 2004. During her thesis at the CPBS (Centre d'études d'agents Pathogènes et Biotechnologies pour la Santé, now IRIM), she had studied HIV-1 and HTLV-I replication, with a focus on the late phases of the virus replication cycle. In 2005, Bénédicte had joined Sanofi as postdoc for 18 months, with a project aiming to develop preclinical tests for the screening or validation of new molecules. In 2007, she participated in the creation of a start-up in Montpellier (OriBase Pharma), with the goal of developing new therapies (chemical compounds and monoclonal antibodies) in oncology. She spent 9 years in this company, first as a R&D project leader, then as the Head of preclinical pharmacology, and finally as the joint director, Head of the preclinical development. In 2016, she joined the "société d’accélération de transfert de technologies", SATT AxLR, as Project Leader for the Health and Biotechnology Axis, with the goals of detecting, investing, following, guiding and transfering innovative research projects. In 2021, she joined the company MedXCell as the COO (Chief Operating Officer) in order to supervize and accelerate the company development.
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Virginie Courtois, manager of the Molecular Biology Unit, Research department, Sanofi Pasteur (France). Mercredi 28 Juillet 2021, 12h30, via Zoom. This seminar was held in French.
Virginie's minibiography: Virginie started doing research as a technician during holiday periods in an INSERM lab located in Clermont-Ferrand. She then obtained a BsC and Master in Molecular and cellular biology from Claude Bernard Lyon I university and did a PhD in Molecular and cellular biology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon. Her PhD research was on the study and characterization of a gene essential for mouse brain development; she obtained her PhD in October 2002. She then worked for a start-up based in Lyon and with the national reference center for cystic fibrosis (hôpital Henri Mondor, Créteil) to develop a diagnostic test using DNA arrays and surface chemistry. In 2006, she joined Merial company (today Bohringer Ingenheim), specialized in animal health, as a molecular biologist in charge of DNA vaccine development. At the end of 2006, she joined the Vaccine Unit of Sanofi Pasteur, as the Research Unit Manager for recombinant antigen production. Since then, she's held several Scientific Manager positions in the Research department at Sanofi Pasteur, covering Molecular Biology, antigen production using different expression systems, as well as transcriptmics/proteomics.
Benjamin Muller, IDEXX, R&D manager. Wednesday the 7th of July 2020. 12h30 via Zoom.
Benjamin Muller's minibio: After an Engineer diploma in biotechnology at ENSTBB in Bordeaux in 2009, I worked as an study engineer in CNRS, at IGMBC in Illkirch-Graffenstaden. I was in charge of proteins purification in the lab. Then I had the opportunity to do a PhD in collaboration between UMR5235 (Michel Vidal's team) and Ciloa, a start-up working on exosomes in Montpellier, where I worked on the development of monoclonal antibodies using exosomes. After my PhD, I joined IDEXX (veterinary company producing diagnostic kits) were I started in R&D as a project manager in charge of the development of new diagnostic kits and became R&D manager on Montpellier's in 2017. In 2018, I joined the Production team and became Manager of the Technical Manufacturing Service, where we produce and validate the antigens and antibodies used in the diagnostic kits.
Darja Pollpeter, Scenic Biotech (The Netherlands). Wednesday the 16th of June 2020, 12h30, via Zoom.
Darja's minibio: Darja obtained a degree in biochemistry at the University of Leipzig, Germany, before she started her PhD at Northwestern University in Evanston, USA in 2005. As a PhD student she studied the innate immune responses and viral sensing to infections with paramyxoviruses, such as measles or mumps. In 2011, Darja moved to King's College London for a postdoc with Michael Malim working in host restriction to HIV infection. Afterwards she joined the Biotech start-up company Scenic Biotech, which was founded in 2017 and located in Amsterdam Netherlands. At Scenic she is currently involved in both R&D to identify genetic modifiers for rare diseases as well as drug development for immuno oncology targets.
Tuesday the 10th of March 2020, 18h, Salle de Séminaire de l'IGMM. Pascale Joseph, Intellectual Property Manager, Deinove.
Pascale Joseph's minibio: Pascale obtained her PhD. in Microbiology and Biotechnology in 2002 from University of Mediterranean (LCB-CNRS, Marseille). Her work allowed the discovery of very well conserved genes clusters in Gram positive bacteria and their role in antibiotic resistance. Then, she hold two successive post-doctoral positions respectively, at Tufts University School of Medicine (Boston-Massachusetts, USA, 2002-2005) and at Infectiology Research Institute of Montpellier (IRIM, Ex-CPBS, 2005-2007) where she continued to work in the field of Bacteriology and Drug Discovery. After 10 years in academia, she joined in 2008 the French Biotech Start-up, DEINOVE, initially as R&D Project Manager on Bio-based Ethanol Production Process using bacteria. Then, in 2012, she became the Intellectual Property Manager and Legal of the Company which now focuses on Drug Discovery, Antibiotic Resistance and Development of Innovative Bio-based active Ingredients for Cosmetics and Nutrition.
Thursday the 9th of January, 11h30, Salle de Séminaire de l'IGMM. The speaker was Victor Racine, founder of Quantacell. This seminar was held in French.
Victor Racine's minibio: After an Engineering diploma in informatics and a DEA (Master) in Biophysics, Victor did his PhD in cell imaging quantification at the Institut Curie on vesicular trafficking (2003-2006). He then did a postdoc at Singapore where he performed High Content Screenings and worked on quantitative histology at the IMCB (Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology 2007-2009). With the aim of discovering the research in industry, he then worked in 2 biotechs in Bordeaux (2010-2013). In 2014 he has created the QuantaCell company in Bordeaux and later on in Montpellier, which offers imaging analysis service and AI for biomedical imaging.
Friday the 29th of November, 13h, Salle de Séminaire de l'IGMM. The speaker was Julie Bayle, Scientific communication manager at Royal Canin. This seminar was held in English.
After a Master and PhD in immunology in Marseille, Julie did a 2-year postdoc at Boston university in dermatology. After that, she spent 5 years as project manager (preclinical and clinical drug development) in a start up in Montpellier (Medesis Pharma). She then joined the MARS group in 2012 as a researcher in the R&D team of Royal Canin. Since July 2018, Julie has been Scientific communication manager at Royal Canin and is in charge of 13 emerging markets.
Wednesday the 2nd of October, 9h15 Salle Marcel Dorée. The speaker was Benoit Giquel, Outreach Scientist Europe for Addgene. This seminar was held in English.
Benoit Giquel's minibio: After a Master in Developmental Physiology and Functional Differentiation at the University of Paris 7, Benoit completed a PhD in Developmental Biology at the Cochin Institute on the role of HLA-B27 in the onset of spondyloarthropathies. He then pursued his career with three post-docs in Immunology laboratories. The first took place in Paris, at the St Vincent de Paul Hospital, where he worked on the role of NKT cells in the progression of the X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy. He then moved to the UK, at the King’s College London, to study first the use of TLR ligands in anti-tumour immunotherapy and then the role of the MPEG1 molecule in the antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity. No longer attracted by the sirens of research, he later joined Addgene, in 2014, as an Outreach Scientist for Europe, with the mission of raising awareness about Addgene on the old continent. Since 2018, he has been the manager of the Addgene Europe office in London.
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Monday the 16th of September, 12h, Salle de séminaire de l'IGMM. The speaker was Mariella Lomma, Medical Advisor France at Biomérieux. This seminar was held in French.
Mariella Lomma's minibio: After a Master in Biotechnology at Bologna university (Italy), Mariella did her PhD in microbiology at the Pasteur institute, and a postdoc at Imperial College London (UK). In 2013, she leaves basic research and became Scientific Editor at Nîmes' university hospital (CHU). After 3 years in this position, she joined the biomedical industry and first became Medical Science Liaison at Basilea Pharmaceutica, and later Clinical Development Manager at Accelerate Diagnostics. In May 2019, she has joined BioMérieux as a Medical Advisor.
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Thursday the 13th of June 2019, 17h45, Salle de séminaire de l'IGMM. The speaker was Hélène Bauby, Market Development Manager and NGS specialist at Qiagen.
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Hélène Bauby's minibio : after a Master in microbiology at the Pasteur Institute, Hélène did her PhD at the INRA on Arabidopsis thaliana's phloem development. She then studied the interactions between HIV-1 and primary cells during a first postdoc at Cochin Institute in Paris and a second postdoc at King's College London. After 13 years in academia, she joined Qiagen (provider of molecular biology kits), initially as a rep. In 2016, she has become Market Development Manager, in charge of the development of reagents for NGS for Qiagen in France and Belgium.
Wednesday the 15th of May 2019, 11h, Salle de séminaire de l’IGMM. The speaker was Philippe Villain-Guillot, Nosopharm’s CEO.
Philippe Villain-Guillot's minibio : After an Engineer diploma in chemistry from ENSCM, Philippe went to the UK in 2003 and worked for Evotec as a medicinal chemist. He started his PhD thesis in 2004 in chemistry, in the antibiotics field, under the supervision of Jean-Paul Leonetti at Montpellier university. After his PhD, Philippe co-founded in 2009 the Nosopharm biotech company, specialized in research and development of new antibacterial molecules. He's been Nosopharm's CEO since then, and is more specifically in charge of all aspects concerning funding, business development and intellectual property.
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Thursday the 11th of April, 12h30, Salle de séminaire de l'IGMM. The speaker was Michaël Girardot, who is senior data scientist at CGI, here in Castelnau-le-Lez.
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Michael Girardot’s minibio: Michael holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and specializations in epigenomics and bioinformatics. He did his thesis at the INRA (Limoges). He then moved to Brussels for a first postdoc at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and, after that, he came to Montpellier for a second postdoc at the IGMM. After 15 years of research experience in academic research, he performed vocational retraining as a Data Scientist. In 2016, he joined CGI as a senior consultant in Big Data and Data Science. CGI is one of the largest IT and business process services providers in the world.
Thursday the 14th of March, 9h, Salle Marcel Dorée. The speaker was Nicolas Reymond, who is project manager at Eurobiomed, here in Montpellier. After 2 postdocs, Nicolas obtained an MBA and then joined the Eurobiomed cluster.
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Nicolas Reymond’s minibio: Nicolas holds a PhD in immunology and, after 15 years working as a project manager in academic labs (including many years abroad, in the UK, the USA and Canada), Nicolas did a Master's in Management and Business Administration. He then held marketing positions at Histalim, having operational marketing responsibilities and strategic responsibilities. Nicolas joined the Eurobiomed Cluster in 2016. He is in charge of the organization and development of the center's activities in the Montpellier branch. With his strong dual scientific and managerial expertise, he supports the development of companies in Biology/ Health in the region and promotes interactions between different ecosystem actors.
Monday the 11th of January, 13h30, Salle de séminaire de l’IGMM. The speaker was Cécile Herbreteau, who is the head of Research and Development of the pharmaceutical company Fab’entech, based in Lyon.
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Cécile Herbreteau’s minibio: After a master in molecular and cellular biology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) of Lyon, Cécile obtained a PhD in molecular virology in 2006. She then did a postdoc at the Centre Léon Bérard (Lyon). In 2009, she became a project manager at Idealp Pharma, which was specialized in Drug Discovery. In 2010, she joined the pharmaceutical company Fab’entech.
