Cell scientist to watch – Romain Levayer

Abstract

ABSTRACT Romain Levayer did his bachelor's and master's degrees at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France. In between these degrees, he did an internship in the lab of Geraldine Seydoux, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, USA. He then moved to Marseille, France, to join the laboratory of Thomas Lecuit at the Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille (IBDM) for his PhD. There, he studied epithelial morphogenesis during the early development of the Drosophila embryo. Postdoctoral work followed in the lab of Eduardo Moreno at the Institute of Cell Biology (IZB) at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where Romain investigated the mechanisms of epithelial cell competition. At the end of 2016, Romain returned to Paris to establish his research group at Institut Pasteur. His lab is trying to understand how the plasticity of behaviour of epithelial cells and the regulation of cell death modulate tissue morphogenesis and homeostasis. Romain was awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2017 and the SBCF Young Scientist Award in 2018, and he was one of the laureates of La Fondation Schlumberger pour l'Education et la Recherche (FSER) in 2019.