Romain Levayer, 2019 laureate of the Schlumberger Foundation for Education and Research Prize

Every year, the Schlumberger Foundation for Education and Research (FSER) awards a prize to three or four particularly promising scientists to help them develop their research in the field of biology and biomedicine.

This year, the prize went to Romain Levayer, from the Cell Death and Epithelial Homeostasis five-year group. The official award ceremony took place on March 19.

This prestigious award recognizes all the research carried out by the G5, which investigates the plasticity of cell behavior and specifically the regulation and adjustment of epithelial cell death. The G5 team particularly focuses on the influence of mechanical forces on cell death and its contribution to tissue homeostasis, as well as competition among different cell types. This research will provide vital information for understanding epithelial homeostasis, mechanotransduction, cell decision-making and tissue invasion by tumor cells. The team uses vinegar flies (Drosophila melanogaster) to answer these questions through a combination of genetic approaches, live-cell imaging, image analysis, optogenetics and biophysics.

Top picture, from left to right : François Schweisguth, Romain Levayer, Stewart T. Cole, Arnaud Echard
Bottom picture : the four awardees of the 2019 FSER award. From left to right: Romain Levayer, Stefano Palminteri (ENS-Paris , Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Computationnelles à Paris), Sonia Garel(Ecole Normale Supérieure, Inserm U204, CNRS UMR8197, PSL Université Paris) and Francesca Giordano (Institut de Biologie Integrative de la Cellule (I2BC), UMR9198, Paris Sud/CNRS, à Gif-sur-Yvette.)