Sandy Al Hayek, Dallas, 27-31 March 2019

Annual Drosophila Research Conference

→ 500 € Prize

4th year PhD student with Jean-François Payre, Centre de Biologie du Développement, Toulouse

As a young researcher, this conference was an excellent opportunity to present my thesis project in front of more than a thousand researchers who are studying several biological aspects of the vinegar fly called Drosophila melanogaster. This presentation was a great success; I had very good feedback and many congratulations. I also met with recruiters to try to find a post doc job after my thesis. Indeed, I had two positive answers, the first in Dr. Neal Silverman’s laboratory at the University of Massachusetts, working on the innate immunity of Drosophila, and the other in Dr. Clement Chow’s laboratory, which works at the University of Utah, on the modelization of rare human diseases in Drosophila. Both offered me post docs fully funded for three years.

In parallel, I have been able to attend seminars of different themes including the study of reproduction, evolution, immunity and microbiome, models of human diseases, neural development, gene expression regulation and tissue regeneration by adult stem cells activity.

In addition, I took advantage of this opportunity to improve my English, make new friends and learn many new things about the culture of the city of Dallas.

I would like to thank you for selecting my project for the SFBD travel grant and I wish that I was worthy of this responsibility.