Romain Feron

After a bachelor in life sciences from the University of Montpellier (France), I obtained a Master in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Montpellier and the University of Groningen (Netherlands) as part of the Master Erasmus Mundus in Evolutionary Biology (MEME). I then obtained a Master in Bioinformatics from the University of Rennes (France). Following that, I worked as a bioinformatician in the Laboratoire de Physiologie et Genomique des Poissons at INRA in Rennes (France), where I developed tools to analyze population genomic datasets to study sex-determination in fishes. I am now pursuing a PhD in the Waterhouse group on the relationship between sequence conservation and function in Mosquitoes.

 

I am generally interested in all aspects of genome evolution; I want to understand as much as possible about how genomes shape and influence the diversity of life. In practice, this means studying the relationships between genes and phenotypes, but also the evolutionary history of these genes. It also involves better understanding the roles and evolutionary forces acting on non-coding regions of the genome; an outcome of my PhD project will involve facilitating the identification and characterization of non-coding functional elements in genomes.

 

On the technical side, I enjoy implementing tools and pipelines that can be used by the genomic community. I am also a proponent of open and reproducible science, and I am implementing these ideas in my PhD work by using and promoting tools such as Snakemake and Bioconda.