Etienne Danchin

Etienne GJ Danchin, INRAE senior scientist at the Institute Sophia Agrobiotech. He is an evolutionary biologist studying genome evolution mainly in species impacting plant health either negatively (pests and parasites) or positively (symbionts and biocontrol agents). By comparing the genomes of different species, he tries to identify distinctive features characteristics of some biological traits and lifestyles. His main goal is to understand how pests and parasites have evolved the ability to manipulate their hosts to their own benefits and how these same species adapt to environmental changes including host defense systems and methods deployed to control them. He is convinced that better understanding how these species evolve and adapt will illuminate development of more environmentally sound and efficient solutions to reduce the damage caused by pests and parasites to the world agricultural production. To investigate these questions, he uses bioinformatics and computational biology, including artificial intelligence in collaboration with Université Côte d’Azur.