Laurent Formery – PI

Laurent obtained a PhD at the Institut de la Mer de Villefranche-sur-Mer (Sorbonne University, France), during which he worked on the development and evolution of the nervous system in the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus, and on the roles of intercellular signaling pathways in this process. As part of his PhD, Laurent spent one year at the Shimoda Marine Research Center (Japan). He then did a postdoc in at Hopkins Marine Station (Stanford University, US) in the lab of Christopher Lowe and co-supervised by Daniel Rokhsar (UC Berkeley). There, he worked on axial patterning and nervous system evolution in several species of echinoderms and hemichordates. In 2025, he obtained an ATIP-Avenir fellowship to start his lab that focuses on body plan evolution in echinoderms.