JGV Summer of Prizes: Dr Sebastian Lequime
Posted on October 2, 2018 by Microbiology Society
This year, the Journal of General Virology (JGV) has sponsored four poster prizes at conferences and meetings around the world. Over this week, we will be getting to know a little more about the winners and their research.
First up is Dr Sebastian Lequime. Sebastian is a postdoctoral fellow at the Rega Institute in Belguim. This August, he won the JGV Prize for Best Poster at The Second Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in Montpellier.
What was your winning talk called?
Within-host evolutionary dynamics of dengue virus in its mosquito vector Aedes aegypti
Who or what inspired you to be a scientist?
After my secondary education, I didn’t have any definitive idea on what I wanted to do. I studied biology, and then virology, and it got more and more exciting. At some point, my curiosity brought me to the edge of what was known, the only way to go further: research!
What are you currently working on and what area of your research excites you the most?
I’m currently working on ways to take within-host diversity information into account when studying epidemics. More broadly, I find the diversity of RNA viruses, on every scale – from within-host to epidemics to long-term evolution – really fascinating. Thanks to NGS, we can really start (only start) to embrace it.
How would you explain your poster to a child under 10?
It was about what happens to a virus when entering a new mosquito host, especially if it changes during the process, and if yes, how much. I found that the virus does change, but only a little bit, and it rather depends on the mosquito it infects.
What would you be doing in your career if you weren’t a scientist?
Really tough question, I can’t imagine myself in a career where any form of science is involved. Maybe librarian: books can be another way to let my curiosity wander around!
Stay tuned for more prize winners!