Elodie Billey: The Plant Cell First Author

Elodie Billey, co-first author of “LARP6C orchestrates post-transcriptional reprogramming of gene expression during hydration to promote pollen tube guidance”

Current Position: Researcher in Microalgae Engineering, TOTAL Refining & Chemicals, France. 

Education: Ph.D. Plant Biology from University of Perpignan Via Domitia (UPVD).

Non-scientific Interests: hiking, photo, gardening.

Brief bio: Elodie’s interest for plant science and molecular biology starts at school and was confirmed during her Ph.D. at the Laboratory of Genome and Plant Development (LGDP, CNRS, UPVD; Perpignan, France). She addressed the question of the regulation of mRNA translation by a protein from the LARP family in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. This topic steered her to work on the effect of LARP RNA binding protein on male gamete delivery therefore on pollen fertility. During her Ph.D., she was led to collaborate with outstanding teams. The time spent at UPVD also included a one year-teaching which represented a great opportunity for her and during which she learned a lot. Then, her curiosity led her to explore new organisms moving to a post-doctoral position on engineering of microalgal species at the Cell & Plant Physiology Laboratory (LPCV, CEA, CNRS, UGA, INRAE; Grenoble, France) in collaboration with a private company (Total RC, France), which then hired her. She discovered the broad field of lipid metabolism, in particular with the study of an ACS protein in Microchloropsis gaditana and its role in fatty acid partitioning in the cell. In the near future, Elodie will focus on deciphering microalgal metabolism by genetic engineering.