Simon Roux, Ph.D.

Simon Roux, Ph.D.

DOE Joint Genome Institute

Simon Roux, Ph.D., completed his M.S. and Ph.D. at the Université Blaise Pascal (now Université Clermont Auvergne), in Clermont-Ferrand, France, where he studied the diversity, ecology and evolution of aquatic viruses through metagenomics. He then worked as a postdoctoral scientist in the Sullivan Lab (University of Arizona / Ohio State University), where he continued the development of bioinformatic tools for viral metagenomics, led large-scale analysis of marine viral diversity and explored other emerging dataset types, such as single-cell genomics. 
 
Since 2017, Simon has been working as a scientist at the DOE Joint Genome Institute, where he leads the Viral Genomics group that focuses on viruses of microbes and their impacts on ecosystems. Current projects include the study of viral diversity and virus:host interactions in different soil and freshwater model systems, along with the development of new computational approaches and experimental protocols to characterize the host range and functional potential of uncultivated viruses. 
 
The long-term goal of this research is to understand the ecological and evolutionary drivers of virus:host dynamics in natural microbial communities. By combining experimental and computational approaches spanning from the molecular to the ecosystem scale, the hope is to address fundamental questions, such as “how do viruses spread and adapt across microbiomes?" “How do viruses take over and reprogram microbial cells?” “How do viral infections alter ecosystem processes?”