Aurélien Dugourd
In 2013, I graduated from my Master degree in Genetic, Genomic and Biotechnology at the University de Bretagne Occidentale. My master thesis was on the development of new way of administration of Therapeutic agents in the context of Cystic Fibrosis.
Then, I did a second Master degree in Computational Biology at the University of Nantes. The subject of my master thesis, which I performed at the Institut Curie was the development of a mathematical model of the interplay between autophagy and apoptosis.
After I graduated from my Computational Biology master’s degree in 2015, I joined Julio Saez-Rodriguez team at the JRC COMBINE lab in Aachen as a PhD student. I worked on the development of an hybrid mechanistic model, integrating gene regulation, signaling pathways and metabolomics data to explain disease phenotypes, help find new therapeutic targets and predict their potential effect based on a specific patient profile. This project was part of the collaborative SyMBioSys ITN project, financed by the European Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions. I am currently a postdoc in the lab working primarily in the SMART-CARE consortium to apply mass-spectrometry-based systems medicine to cancer.
0000-0002-0714-028XResearch Interests
Models are everywhere; we create and use them constantly most of the time without even being aware of it. As an example, every morning we use an implicit model to determine how much time it will take us to reach our workplace based on contextual parameters such as weather and traffic, hence allowing us to find out at what hour we have to leave to be on time.
Thus, thanks to the ever-increasing power of computers, we now use models in biology to process large amount of biological data generated by experimentalists. These models allow us to better understand how biological systems work and even to predict their behaviors in the limits of clearly defined boundaries.
Hence, my work focuses on the development of accurate biological models that aim at bridging three different layers of biological systems: the gene regulation, signaling and metabolic pathways. These models are developed based on comprehensive biological data in order to be as relevant as possible. My goal is to use these models both to have a better understanding of cell functioning and to help develop more relevant and personalized treatments for patients.
Professional Career
| 2020-present | Post-doctoral fellow Saez Lab, Heidelberg University |
| 2020-present | Post-doctoral fellow Kramann Lab, RWTH Aachen |
| 2015-2020 | Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher (SymBioSys) |
Education
| 2015-2020 | PhD student in mechanistic modeling at Saez Lab, Heidelberg University. |
| 2013-2015 | M. Sc. in Computational biology at University of Nantes, France. |
| 2011-2013 | M. Sc. in Genetic, Genomic and Biotechnology at University of Occidental Brittany, France. |
| 2009-2011 | Bachelor in Biology at University of Occidental Brittany, France. |