Swansea University Medical School has welcomed a new researcher under a prestigious European scheme.
Dr Rémi Zallot successfully applied for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship from the European Commission and will be hosted by the Medical School’s Centre for Cytochrome P450 Biodiversity for the next two years.
His expertise in mining microbial genomes using bioinformatics to hypothesise functions for uncharacterised genes as well as test the proposed functions was developed during his previous stay at University of Illinois’s Carl R Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and at University of Florida’s Department of Microbiology and Cell Science.
Dr Zallot will be focusing on the numerous uncharacterised cytochrome P450 genes found in mycobacterial genomes, with specific attention to candidates that could be new drug targets.
He said: “I am honoured to have been awarded this fellowship. I am looking forward to exploring new aspects of microbiology, learning and exchanging not only with my new colleagues but also with other researchers across campus, the UK and Europe and also engage with the public to promote the value and fun side of science.”
During his time at the Medical School he will have access to the genomes of isolates obtained from the outbreak of TB in South Wales curated by consultant Dr Angharad Davies, as well as the use of international databases for comparative genomics purposes.
The Marie Sklowdowska-Curie fellowships were created by the European Union/European Commission to support research in the European Research Area and are among Europe’s most competitive and prestigious awards, aimed at supporting the best and most promising scientists.
Professor Steve Kelly said: “We are delighted to welcome Rémi Zallot to Swansea University Medical School and look forward to the discovery of new information about Mycobacteria and our favourite genes and proteins, the cytochromes P450.”
