FunRNA Team Welcomes two new PhD students this Fall: Laura Chabes Pereira and Valentin Bourdin

The FunRNA team is growing! We are excited to welcome Laura Chabes Pereira and Valentin Bourdin, two talented new PhD students whose research will expand our exploration into the world of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Their work will be crucial in advancing our understanding of how lncRNAs influence gene regulation and organ development in various biological contexts.

Laura is a plant biologist from Brazil. She completed her master’s degree in plant biology at Université Clermont Auvergne in France, where she studied the functional conservation of potential lncRNA MARS homologs within biosynthetic gene clusters. Laura is now starting her PhD with the FunRNA team, focusing on lncRNAs involved in lateral root development and their evolutionary conservation across Brassicaceae species.

Valentin has a background in both mathematics and plant biology, enabling him to approach developmental biology questions from both computational and experimental perspectives. His PhD project focuses on deciphering the genetic regulation of plant organ development through gene regulatory network reconstruction, single-cell omics analyses, and wet-lab experiments. Valentin is particularly interested in identifying new coding and non-coding transcriptional regulators involved in cell identity transitions.

We are excited to see the contributions that Laura and Valentin will make to the FunRNA team. Their innovative research will help push the boundaries of our understanding of gene regulation, and we are eager to see how their work shapes the future of lncRNA studies in plant biology.