Juliette Fédry

Juliette Fedry, 29 yo, was introduced to biochemistry during her engineer studies at Ecole Polytechnique. She graduated from the University Paris-Saclay ”Biomolecule engineering” master program. She specialized in structural biology during her PhD work in the Felix Rey structural virology unit at Pasteur Institute. She worked there under the supervision of Thomas Krey and performed a structural and functional study of an ancient gamete fusion protein.

This work revealed homology between this protein and the fusion proteins used by viruses like Zika and Dengue to enter their target cells – suggesting that the transfer of a viral gene could be at the origin of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes.