Biosketch

I have a long-standing interest in marine invertebrate Biology. I obtained my PhD in 1999 from the University of Provence with a thesis on the cytomorphology of the digestive system in Chaetognatha. I’m currently working in a group which studies a broad range of animal taxa using morphological and molecular tools to highlight macro and microevolution processes and understand the evolution of animal diversity.

My research focuses on the description of the morphology and development regarding cell lineage and gene expression mainly in the nervous and sensory system of Chaetognatha. For a better understanding of the evolution of these enigmatic and understudied metazoans, I also study their phylogenetic relationships thanks to morphological and molecular data.

In 2011, I founded the Startup Coral Biome located at the Campus University of Luminy. The goal of Coral Biome is to develop and produce marine natural products (MNPs) of interest for major public health issues such as cancer, inflammation and multi-drug resistant infectious diseases thanks to our own biomass production facility and our coral farm partners around the world.