Brice Letcher

Researcher in Evolutionary Biology

Summary

Welcome! I am currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Biology and Modelling of the Cell (LBMC) in Lyon, France.

Mini-bio

After training in biology (Bsc) and bioinformatics (Msc), I did a PhD in bioinformatics in the UK, developing novel approaches to genotype microbial pathogens, with a focus on antibiotic resistance genes in M. tuberculosis and cell-surface antigens in P. falciparum.

I then moved back to Lyon for a postdoc where I have been working on the evolution of sex chromosomes and ties with the emergence of a strange mode of reproduction in nematodes, and the evolution of Programmed DNA Elimination during early embryogenesis, also in nematodes.

Research interests

Evolution of cellular processes; Evolution of reproductive systems; Evolution of host-pathogen interactions

Scientific Output

Publications

Please see my google scholar page for the complete and up-to-date list.

Software

delfies: Detection of double-strand breaks followed by neo-telomered addition; Gramtools: Genotyping highly variable loci across populations using genome graphs; Snakefmt: The formatter for Snakemake files

Conferences

2025 ESEB 2025 - Barcelona, Spain ALPHY 2025 - Lyon, France

2024 Ver Midi XXV - Lyon, France; ALPHY 2024 - Montpellier, France; ICTE 2024 - Saint Malo, France

2023 ISMB/ECCB 2023 - Lyon, France; 3Sex - Jacques Monod Conference - Roscoff, France; ALPHY 2023 - Grenoble, France

Invited Seminars

2024 BIGRE Seminar - TIMC-IMAG, Grenoble, France; MalariaGEN Journal Club - MalariaGEN Consortium, Online

2023 LBBE Lab Seminar - LBBE, Lyon, France

Visits

2024 Team Bétermier - I2BC, Paris, France; Team Blaxter - Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK

Education

2018-2022 PhD in Bioinformatics - University of Cambridge and EMBL-EBI, UK

2016-2018 Msc Bioinformatics - University of Lyon 1, France.

2012-2016 Bsc Biology (Honours Evolutionary Biology) - University Of Edinburgh, UK.

Scientific Service

Teaching

2023-, ENS de Lyon UE Advanced Genomics and UE Practicals in next generation sequencing, for second-year Masters students at ENS de Lyon, France

2019-2022, EMBL-EBI Using Workflow Management Systems (Snakemake) and Introduction to High-Performance Computing for incoming PhD students at EMBL-EBI, UK. Why and how to develop open-source software, Online Webinar for all.

Reviewing

2025- Genome Biology and Evolution

2023- Genome Biology; Bioinformatics Advances; Journal Of Open Source Software

2022- Microbial Genomics; Bioinformatics

Communities

2023- Chair & Organiser of a monthly Seminar Series on Molecular Evolution at ENS de Lyon, France

2024- Elected Board member on the Scientific Council of the LBMC Laboratory - as representative for postdocs

2023- Jury member: Masters Biosciences, ENS de Lyon; Masters Cellular and Molecular Biology (BMC); Masters Bioinformatics, University of Lyon 1

2020 Organiser of the 2020 EMBL-EBI/Sanger/Cambridge University eSCAMPS Conference

Supervision

2025 Andrew Hsiao, second-year Masters Frontiers in Biosciences, Université Lyon 1, France

2024 João Ribeiro, third-year Bsc Bioinformatics, Setubal Polytechnic University, Portugal

Guilhem Biossé, first-year Msc Bioinformatics, Université Montpellier, France

Outreach

2025 Déclics 2025 - dialogues between researchers and high-school students

Awards

Successes

2023 Best Talk award at ISMB/ECCB 2023 Conference - Evolutionary and Comparative Genomics Section ($200)

2022 Best Talk award at JOBIM Conference (400€)

2018-2022 Postgraduate fellowship - full tuition at University of Cambridge

2018 Best student in Msc Bioinformatics - University of Lyon 1

2016 Ashworth Medal for best student in Evolutionary Biology - University of Edinburgh (£400)

2012-2016 Undergraduate fellowship - full tuition at University of Edinburgh

Unsuccesses

2024 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoc Fellowship - Rejected after written report (grade: 91.8%)

2023 EMBO Postdoc Fellowship - Rejected after oral interview