photographist

« I remember a walk in the forest with my CE2 class, and the teacher telling us what kind of ferns we were walking on and making me touch the trees and the different leaves, saying: "That's a tree of this family and at its foot grows this type of mushroom... they have these colors...". I was amazed by the diversity of living things. Even as a child, I loved listening to reports on animals, nature, the workings of the human body... My father always fed my curiosity, when I was eleven, I asked him to explain to me how the human heart works. He made me a simplified diagram of the heart in relief! I also loved maths. For me, solving an equation was like solving a riddle. But I've always had a particular affection for biology, the science of living things. There's something about living things that we still don't understand, despite all our scientific knowledge.

I enrolled for a degree in Life Sciences. It wasn't easy to adapt to university, as nobody knew Braille or 3D. I set up a working group with students who had difficulties. When I started my Masters in molecular and cellular biology, a wonderful genetics professor took me on as part of his team. As I couldn't do the experiments, I started training in bioinformatics. I was able to analyze data, generate interesting results and validate my Master's degree in 2019. The team then offered me the chance to continue my thesis and work with them on intracellular protein addressing, with a disability PhD scholarship from cnrs. In 2021, I was lucky enough to win the Thierry Célarié-Femmes & Sciences prize, which enabled me to acquire specialized equipment. In 2022, I was delighted to win a Jeunes Talents award from L'Oréal, which will help me after my thesis. I hope to get a job as a bioinformatics researcher.»

Salomé Nashed,
PhD, Laboratory of computational and quantitative biology, Sorbonne university

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