Antoine CLAESSENS

**Antoine Claessens** **Chargé de Recherche INSERM** Nationality: Belgian Chargé de Recherche INSERM Head of équipe ATIP-Avenir GATAC-Malaria LPHI (UMR5294), Bat 24, cc107 CNRS/Université Montpellier Place Eugène Bataillon 34095 Montpellier cedex 5 France **EDUCATION** 2000-2004: **University of Liège, Belgium** 4-year degree (MSc) in biochemistry, passed with *La plus grande distinction* 2004-2004: **University of Cambridge, UK** 6-month undergraduate project in developmental biology of Drosophila, supervised by Steve Russell, Ashburner group 2005-2006: **University of Edinburgh, UK** Master in Life Sciences: The molecular basis of disease. The MSc included three 3-month projects in different labs: molecular basis of schizophrenia, synthetic biology and malaria **MALARIA CAREER** **Scientific discoveries** **Skills mastered** **Publications** **2006-2011: Wellcome Trust PhD thesis** with Alex Rowe at Edinburgh University, and Zbynek Bozdech at NTU-Singapore ØNew model for parasites and human endothelial cells interaction ØIdentified new parasite ligands binding to endothelial cells ØUncovered G-quadruplex in the *P. falciparum* genome Ø*P. f.* cell culture in a cat3 lab ØMolecular biology techniques ØTranscriptomics, from making my microarray chips to analysing the data on my own ØPerl programming (intermediate level) First author publication in \- ***PNAS***5 *- **Malaria Journa**l*4 *- **JoVE***6 *- **BMCgenomics***2 (co-senior author) Middle author publication in \- *Expert reviews in mol. Med.*3 *- PLoS Pathogens*7 **2011: Short contract with Pierre Buffet at** Pitié-Salpêtrière. Experience gained in immunofluorescence assays and malaria in a clinical environment Middle author publication in *Journal of Infectious Disease*10 **2011-2014: Postdoc** with Dominic Kwiatkowski at the Sanger Institute and in Oxford University ØDiscovered how *var* gene sequence diversity is generated ØIdentified the origin of the AT richness (~80%) of the *P. falciparum* genome ØWhole genome sequencing data analysis ØPopulation genetics ØR programming (advanced level) First author publication in \- ***PLOS Genetics***8 (corresponding author) \- ***Nucleic Acid Research***11 (co-first) Middle author publication in \- *DNA Research,* *Wellcome OR* **2014-2017: MRC-Fellowship** joint London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine / MRC-Gambia, The Gambia ØCulture adaptation of *P. falciparum* selects for nonsense mutations ØGenetic diversity in The Gambia (work in progress) ØGenomic epidemiology ØFieldwork in rural Gambia ØTeam manager (2 fieldworkers, 3 lab techs, 3 Master students) First author publication in \- ***Scientific Reports***12 (corresponding author) \- ***PLOS Genetics*** **2018**: Chargé de Recherche INSERM at MIVEGEC, Montpellier, France **2019**: ATIP-Avenir at DIMNP, UMR CNRS-UM 5235, Montpellier, France