David Lalaouna

David Lalaouna is a CNRS Associate Researcher (CRCN) in the IBMC, University of Strasbourg, France. He dedicated his entire career to the study of small regulatory RNA (sRNA)-mediated regulation in various genus (e.g. Pseudomonas, Escherichia, and Staphylococcus). His current research program focuses on the sRNA-mediated adaptation of the human opportunistic pathogen Staphylococcus aureus to metal-based host defense strategies.

Dr. Lalaouna received a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Aix-Marseille (France) in 2012. His doctoral research notably emphasized the crucial role of regulatory RNAs in the phenotypic switching phenomenon, enabling bacteria to exploit and explore their ecological niches more efficiently. As a post-doctoral fellow (from 2012 to 2018) in Pr. Eric Massé’s lab (University of Sherbrooke, Canada), he characterized the targetome of multiple sRNAs in Escherichia coli. For this purpose, he especially developed the in vivo MS2-affinity purification coupled with RNA sequencing (MAPS) technology. The main objective of his second postdoctoral training in Dr. Pascale Romby's lab (CNRS/University of Strasbourg, France) was to deeply characterize sRNA-based regulatory networks and their dynamics in Staphylococcus aureus. In 2020, he succeeded to get a permanent CNRS research position (CRCN).