SIMON BESSON-GIRARD

I obtained a B.Sc. and M.Sc. of biology from University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, with a specialisation in mathematics and modelling of biological systems (essentially biostatistics and bioinformatics). 

In 2016, I completed my M.Sc.'s with a 6 months internship at the RIKEN in Yokohama (Japan), where I started my specialisation in single-cell transcriptomics.

In 2017, I joined the freshly established lab of Prof. Dr. Özgün Gökçe (Systems Neuroscience Group) at the Institute for Stroke and Dementia research (ISD), affiliated to Ludwig Maximilan University of Munich (LMU), in Germany. There, I established a comprehensive experimental (Smart-seq2) and bioinformatics pipeline for single-cell RNA sequencing. In addition to bioinformatics, I developed crucial molecular biology skills associated with single-cell technologies, integrating state of the art liquid handling robotics. This pipeline became the foundation of a core facility. I focused on unraveling how the brain functions in aging and disease, with a particular emphasis on immune cells and their interactions with other cell types.

Upon completion of my Ph.D., I moved to France in 2023, and joined the Curie Institute as a Research Engineer in the Custom Single Cell Omics platform. In this role, I continue to support cutting-edge research by providing expertise in genomics, transcriptomics, epigenetics, and proteomics, all through single-cell technologies.