I am a passionate bioinformatician who loves working with various -omics data (genomes, transcriptomes, proteomes, and interactomes) to investigate the molecular mechanisms behind complex traits, specifically drug-response phenotypes, aging, and age-associated diseases.

• Bioinformatician & Postdoctoral Research Associate @ Université Paris Cité - Unité BFA CNRS UMR 8251 (Paris, FRANCE)
• Project in collaboration with
  • Michael Rera, PhD (Website) [CNRS] (PI/Advisor)
  • Marc Santolini, PhD (Website) [Learning Planet Institute] (Network Science Collaborator)

• PhD candidate in Bioinformatics @ Université de Montréal (Montréal, CANADA)
• Supervision by
  • Adrian Serohijos, PhD (Website) [Université de Montréal]
  • Julie Hussin, PhD (Website) [Université de Montréal]

$\bullet$ Bioinformatics $\bullet$ Computational Systems Biology $\bullet$ Evolutionary Biology $\bullet$ Population Genetics $\bullet$ Statistical Genetics $\bullet$ Network Science

$\bullet$ Complex traits $\bullet$ Omics-data science $\bullet$ Biological Networks $\bullet$ GWAS $\bullet$ QTL mapping $\bullet$ Biology of Aging $\bullet$ Evolution of Aging
$\bullet$ Conventional (S. cerevisiae, D. melanogaster, D. renio, M. musculus) and non conventional (H. glaber) model organisms

• Raquel R. Martins, Savandara Besse, Pam S. Ellis, Rabia Sevil, Naomi Hartopp, Catherine Purse, Georgia Everett-Brown, Owain Evans, Nadiyah Mughal, Mina H. F. Wahib, Zerkif Yazigan, Samir Morsli, Ada Jimenez-Gonzalez, Andrew Grierson, Heather Mortiboys, Chrissy Hammond, Michael Rera, Catarina M. Henriques, Telomerase Depletion Accelerates Ageing of the Zebrafish Brain
  Aging Cell, 2025, acel.70280

• Flaminia Zane, Hayet Bouzid, Sofia Sosa Marmol, Mira Brazane, Savandara Besse, Julia Lisa Molina, Céline Cansell, Fanny Aprahamian, Sylvère Durand, Jessica Ayache, Christophe Antoniewski, Michael Rera, Smurfness-based two-phase model of ageing helps deconvolve the ageing transcriptional signature
  Aging Cell, 2023, acel.13946 (Code)

• Savandara Besse, Raphaël Poujol, Julie Hussin, Comparative study of protein aggregation propensity and mutation tolerance between naked mole-rat and mouse
  Genome Biology and Evolution, 2022, evac057 (Code)

• Leo Blondel, Savandara Besse, Emily Rivard, Guillem Ylla, Cassandra Extavour, Evolution of a cytoplasmic determinant: evidence for the biochemical basis of functional evolution of the novel germ line regulator oskar
  Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2021, msab284 (Code)

• Savandara Besse*, Tatsuya Sakaguchi*, Louis Gauthier, Zahra Sahaf, Olivier Péloquin, Lidice Gonzalez, Xavier Castellanos-Girouard, Nazli Koçatug, Chloé Matta, Julie G. Hussin, Stephen W. Michnick, Adrian W.R. Serohijos, Genetic landscape of an in vivo protein interactome, Available on BioRxiv 2023.12.14.571726

* : Co-first Authors

• June/July 30th-3rd: I'll be at JOBIM 2026 in Strasbourg! 🥨

Say Hi if you see me there 😊

• July, 8th-11th: I was at JOBIM 2025 in Bordeaux! 🍷

I met the GT MERIT "Heterogeneous Data Integration" co-organizers and joined their team!

• March, 19th-23rd: I attended GSA Dros25 in San Diego! 🌴

My poster was about Studying Aging with Smurf flies using Gene Network-based Approaches

• Early January: 2nd PostDoc in Paris 🪰👨🏽‍💻

I got a 2-year Postdoctoral Fellowship from FRM, still playing with Smurf flies, Omics, and Networks to understand Aging

• June, 24th-28th: I was at JOBIM 2024 Toulouse! 🌹

I helped JeBIF (The Young French Bioinformatians) as a volunteer for their hackathon on Method reproducibility

• Mid-September: 1st PostDoc started in Paris 🪰👨🏽‍💻

Playing with Smurf flies, Omics, and Networks to understand aging

• September, 5th: PhD Defended! 🎉

5-year journey to become a Bioinformatician with a PhD diploma