Benoît Arragain studied molecular biology, biochemistry, and structural biology at the University Grenoble-Alpes in France. He started his PhD at the Institut de Biologie Structurale in the Electron Microscopy and Methods group under the supervision of Guy Schoehn and Hélène Malet, focusing on understanding the replication and transcription mechanisms of bunyaviruses. He then joined Stephen Cusack’s group at EMBL Grenoble as a postdoctoral fellow, where he investigated host-factor interactions with the influenza viral polymerase.
Throughout his research, Benoît has employed biochemical, biophysical, and single-particle cryo-electron microscopy approaches to resolve viral nucleoprotein structures and capture detailed structural snapshots of viral polymerases in action. His work has provided key insights into how viruses protect, replicate, and transcribe their genomes within host cells.
In Florian Schur’s group, Benoît will combine his in vitro expertise with cellular biology and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) to study the morphogenesis of poxviruses.