The 2018 Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers was awarded to Samuel Collombet, post-doctoral fellow in molecular biology, for his work on the X chromosome inactivation process.

Epigenetic control

For his PhD, Samuel Collombet made a dynamic model of the molecular mechanisms that control two types of immune cells: B lymphocytes and macrophages. He also analyzed the processes involved in reprogramming differentiated cells towards pluripotency.

For his post-doctoral project, he will analyze molecular mechanisms at the entire genome level to study a crucial epigenetic phenomenon in mammals at the single cell level: the process of X chromosome inactivation. His findings should provide new insights into the link between chromatin structure and gene expression.

Samuel Collombet in a few words

Thesis: "Investigation of the Regulatory Network Controlling Blood Cell Specification and Reprogramming", under the supervision of Professor Denis Thieffry, Biology Institute of the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), Complexity of Living Things Graduate School - Specialization in cellular biology, Université Pierre et Marie Curie

POST-DOCTORATE: "Chromosome Architecture, Genes and Causality: Single-Cell Chromosome Inactivation" under the direction of Professor Edith Heard, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany

Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers

Created in 1990, the Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers is one of the first initiatives of the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller. Until 2021, this prize was awarded each year to 14 young doctors of science or doctors of medicine, to enable them to carry out their post-doctoral stay in the best foreign laboratories. 349 young researchers were distinguished. The prize endowment was €25,000.

All the award-winners