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
ENS de Lyon 2023-
Masters Biosciences: UE Advanced Genomics; UE Practicals in next generation sequencing
EMBL-EBI 2019-2022
PhD students: Using Workflow Management Systems (Snakemake) and Introduction to High-Performance Computing
Online webinar: Why and how to develop open-source software
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: ENS de Lyon Masters Biosciences; Université Lyon 1 Masters Cellular and Molecular Biology (BMC) and Bioinformatics
2020
Organiser of the 2020 EMBL-EBI/Sanger/Cambridge University eSCAMPS Conference
Supervision
2025
Clara Centa, Msc Bioinformatics, Université Lyon 1, France
Andrew Hsiao, Msc Frontiers in Biosciences, Université Lyon 1, France
2024
João Ribeiro, Bsc Bioinformatics, Setubal Polytechnic University, Portugal
Guilhem Biossé, Msc Bioinformatics, Université Montpellier, France
Outreach
2025
Déclics 2025 - dialogues between researchers and high-school students
Awards
Successes
Travel grants 2024-
Travel grant to ALPHY 2024 (300€); Travel grant to ESEB 2025 (700€)
Best talks 2022-
Best Talk at ISMB/ECCB 2023 Conference (Section EvolCompGen) ($200); Best Talk award at JOBIM 2022 Conference (400€)
2018-2022
Postgraduate fellowship - full tuition at University of Cambridge
Prize 2016-
Ashworth Medal for best student in Evolutionary Biology - University of Edinburgh (2016; £400); Best student in Msc Bioinformatics - University of Lyon 1 (2018)
Fellowship 2012-2016
Undergraduate fellowship - full tuition at University of Edinburgh
Unsuccesses
Fellowships 2023-
EMBO Postdoc Fellowship - (2023 after oral interview); Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoc Fellowship (2024; grade 91.8%)