BILL 2024 Project

Once again this year, first-year master’s students in the IMHE, Bioinformatics, and EcoEpi programs collaborated on the BILL (Bioinformatics Learning Lab) educational innovation project. Supervised by a multidisciplinary team (Anne-Sophie Gosselin-Grenet, Jean-Christophe Avarre, Anna-Sophie Fiston-Lavier, Marie-Ka Tilak, Arnaud Soulier, Catherine Breton), the students worked in an inter-master’s group and pooled their skills on a real research project: the study of the genomic evolution of Cyprinid herpesvirus 3 (CyHV-3), the causative agent of carp herpesvirus disease, which emerged 25 years ago and has since spread worldwide, posing health challenges in many countries. After extracting viral genomes from infected cells through serial passages, the students sequenced the viral DNA using next-generation sequencing technology (Oxford Nanopore®), then performed bioinformatic analysis of the sequencing data to identify the dynamics of genomic variations.