marc galland

Since September 2023, I am working at INRAE as a Plant Research Scientist working to understand and improve legume species (pea, faba bean) resistance to aphids. I live in France near Rennes (Brittany), a region full of celtic influence and traces (see picture). Originally trained as a “wet-lab” Plant Molecular Biologist, I progressively drifted towards Genomics, Data Management and Data Science applied to Plant Science. I will now investigate the genetic basis of aphid resistance in legume crops, a key element of a sustanaible agriculture in temperate and arid dry Mediterranean regions. From 2014 to 2023 and under the direct supervision of Petra Bleeker and Michel Haring, I spent a great deal of my professional life at the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (University of Amsterdam) as a postdoctoral researcher and support data scientist for experimental researchers. On a day to day basis, I helped experimental Life Scientists facing issues in Bioinformatics, Statistics, Data Science and Genomics and participated to research in the group of Petra Bleeker on tomato resistance to insect pests (whitefly, thrips). I also coordinated the Amsterdam Science Park Study Group, a small community of computional biologists that foster the adoption of Open Science practices in daily scientific work. We have received funding from NWO (Dutch Research Council) in 2021 and 2022 to expand our activities. Related to this, I also contributed to the establishment and expansion of the University of Amsterdam Data Science Center (DSC), applying Machine Learning techniques in Life Sciences and coordinating training activities of the DSC.