Cedric Bouysset

Oxford, UK · cedric@bouysset.net

I received my PhD in chemistry from the Université Côte D'Azur, France, in 2021. I'm specialized in chemoinformatics and machine-learning, as well as molecular modeling of G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs). My PhD project tackled taste perception and olfaction using computational approaches, as well as software development side-projects and teaching.


Experience

Cheminformatics Research Scientist

April 2022 - Now

Web Developer

Volunteer work for the design and maintenance of the consortium webpage

March 2020 - Now

Google Summer of Code participant

Development for the Python module MDAnalysis. In charge of the RDKit interoperability project:

  • Conversion between MDAnalysis atom groups and RDKit molecules
  • Leverage RDKit functionalities (SMARTS queries, molecular descriptors calculations... etc.) directly from MDAnalysis
Link: bit.ly/37uNr9C
June 2020 - August 2020

Technician

IFM Lab, Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires, UMR 7006, Université de Strasbourg, France

Developped ChemFlow, a series of computational chemistry workflows:

  • designed to automatize and simplify the drug discovery pipeline and scoring function benchmarking
  • including extensive data analysis and reporting tools for rapid decision making
  • adapted to work locally or on compute clusters
July 2017 - August 2017

Research

PhD Student and Teaching Assistant

ChemoSim Lab, Institut de Chimie de Nice, UMR 7272, Université Côte d'Azur, France

Title: Molecular basis of chemosensory perception

Smell and taste perception consists in a chemical stimulation of transmembrane receptors lying on the surface of sensory cells located in the nasal or oral cavity. The receptors involved in olfaction and the perception of bitter, sweet and umami taste all belong to the well-studied G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) family, yet to date their exact tridimensional structure still eludes us. In this thesis, I study the molecular structures at the frontline of chemosensory perception, namely receptors and their ligands, through a computational lens.

Techniques: Molecular modeling, chemoinformatics, machine-learning, molecular dynamics, software and web development

October 2018 - September 2021

Internship

ChemoSim Lab, Institut de Chimie de Nice, UMR 7272, Université Côte d'Azur, France

Development of QSAR models for the prediction of several gustative and olfactive properties

February 2018 - July 2018

Internship

IFM Lab, Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires, UMR 7006, Université de Strasbourg, France

Calculation of binding affinities of ligand-receptor complexes from MD simulations, using the MM/PBSA approach

March 2017 - June 2017

Internship

Equipe Arômes Parfums Synthèse Modélisation, Institut de Chimie de Nice, UMR 7272, Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France

Construction of 3D models of several bitter taste receptors using homology modeling and multiple sequence alignment

June 2016

Honours & Awards

  • February 2022 - Best PhD Thesis Award - 12th edition of GIRACT's European PhD in Flavor Research Awards
  • December 2019 - Laureate of the Université Côte D'Azur Excellence award
  • November 2019 - Best Oral Communication Award - 9th meeting of the French Chemoinformatics Society
  • September 2019 - Laureate of The Gen Foundation grant awarded to students and researchers in natural sciences
  • July 2019 - Travel grant for my participation at the XXIX ECRO Meeting in Trieste, Italy
  • March 2019 - First prize of the best poster during the 'Complex Days' organized by The Complex Systems Academy of Excellence
  • December 2018 - Laureate of the 9th European PhD in Flavor Research Bursaries for first year students by Giract
  • October 2018 - PhD fellowship by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research

Education

Université de Strasbourg, France

Master in Chemoinformatics
Diploma received with honors

GPA: M1 15.1/20 - M2 14.9/20

2016 - 2018

Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France

Bachelor in Chemistry
Diploma received with honors

GPA: L1 15.8/20 - L2 14.9/20 - L3 14.5/20

2013 - 2016

Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France

First cycle of medical studies
2011 - 2013

Lycée Albert Premier, Monaco

Scientific Baccalaureate
Diploma received with honors
2011

Publications

First-author publications

5.  Functional Molecular Switches of Mammalian G Protein-Coupled Bitter-Taste Receptors

Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences
Topin J., Bouysset C., Pacalon J., Kim Y., Rhyu M., Fiorucci S. & Golebiowski, J.
October 2021
PDF

4.  ProLIF: a library to encode molecular interactions as fingerprints

Journal of Cheminformatics
Bouysset C. & Fiorucci S.
September 2021
PDF

3.  Reverse chemical ecology in a moth: machine learning on odorant receptors identifies new behaviorally active agonists

Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences
Caballero-Vidal G., Bouysset C., Gévar J., Mbouzid H., Nara C., Delaroche J., Golebiowski J., Montagné N., Fiorucci S. & Jacquin-Joly E.
August 2021
PDF

2.  Novel scaffold of natural compound eliciting sweet taste revealed by machine learning

Food Chemistry
Bouysset C., Belloir C., Antonczak S., Briand L. & Fiorucci S.
April 2020
PDF

1.  Machine learning decodes chemical features to identify novel agonists of a moth odorant receptor

Scientific Reports
Caballero-Vidal G., Bouysset C., Grunig H., Fiorucci S., Montagné N., Golebiowski J. & Jacquin-Joly E.
February 2020
PDF

Other publications

4.  MDAnalysis 2.0 and beyond: fast and interoperable, community driven simulation analysis

Biophysical Journal
Naughton F. B., Alibay I., Barnoud J., Barreto-Ojeda E., Beckstein O. Bouysset C., Cohen O., Gowers R. J., MacDermott-Opeskin H., Matta M., Melo M. N., Reddy T., Wang L., Zhuang Y.
February 2022

1.  Metal ions activate the human taste receptor TAS2R7

Chemical Senses
Wang Y., Soohoo A. L., Lei W., Christensen C., Margolskee R. F., Bouysset C., Golebiowski J., Zhao H., Fiorucci S. & Jiang P.
April 2019
PDF

Presentations

11th RDKit UGM

Poster
“Encoding molecular interactions as fingerprints with ProLIF”

October 12-14, 2022

10th RDKit UGM

Tutorial session
“Interactive visualization and filtering of small molecule datasets with mols2grid”

October 14-15, 2021

ECRO XXXI meeting

Poster
“Functional Molecular Switches of Mammalian G Protein-Coupled Bitter-Taste Receptors”

September 14-16, 2021

16th Weurman Flavour Research Symposium

Poster
“Bitter-Taste Receptors: From Sequence to Structure”

May 4-6, 2021

9th RDKit UGM

Oral presentation
“From RDKit to the Universe and back”

October 6-8, 2020

International Symposium on Olfaction and Taste

Poster
“Functional Microswitches of Mammalian G Protein-Coupled Bitter-Taste Receptors”

August 3-7, 2020

9th meeting of the French Chemoinformatics Society

Oral presentation
“Decoding sweet taste from chemical structures”

November 21, 2019

GDR-O3 2019 annual meeting

Poster
“Molecular insights into the structure-function relationships of bitter taste receptors”

November 7-8, 2019

ECRO XXIX meeting

Poster
“Molecular insights into the structure-function relationships of bitter taste receptors”

September 11-14, 2019

26th PACA Chemistry Day

Poster
“Modeling taste perception from chemical structures”

April 26, 2019

International Perfume Museum project

Public conference
“How our brain perceives odors and flavors”

Lecture given to middle school students

April 24 & May 15, 2019

21st GGMM congress

Oral presentation
“Numerical model of structure-taste relationships”

April 5, 2019

2nd UCA Complex Days meeting

Flash talk and Poster
“Modeling taste perception from chemical structures”

March 25, 2019

Teaching

For first year bachelor students (L1)

Chemical Senses

Lectures and practicals
2019-2021

Microscopic structure of matter

Practicals
2018

Structure and representation of molecules

Exercices
2018-2020

For second year bachelor students (L2)

Chemistry of Solutions

Exercices
2019-2020

Molecular structure and macroscopic properties

Exercices and Practicals
2020-2021


Interests

I spend most of my free-time playing video-games. I am a co-leader of a french speaking team with around 20 members. It involves vocal and game server configuration, competitive training, and participation to some events. I also develop and contribute to open-source computational chemistry tools such as mols2grid, ProLIF, or MDAnalysis.

In the winter, I enjoy snowboarding :snowboarder: The rest of the year, I regularly play badminton with friends.