Conferences at IRIM

All seminars and conferences at the IRIM laboratory take place every Friday at 11:00 AM in the meeting room "Marcel Dorée". Seminars are either presented by the IRIM teams (internal seminars) or given by external speakers (invited seminars, see below).

In 2019, the IRIM has also launched a new seminar series, aiming at providing experience and feedbacks from people with successfull and interesting careers outside academia, and who previously did a PhD and a postdoc (or several postdocs!). The 'Career outside academia’ seminars will be held for PhD students and postdocs only, in a informal and relaxed context and any type of questions/discussions will be welcome. More information here.

Future seminars:

• Dr Romain Volmer (Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire de Toulouse) "Viral and host factors modulating the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses" Friday 17 March 2023 (Marcel Dorée meeting room)

Romain Volmer holds a DVM (Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine) from the Ecole nationale vétérinaire d’Alfort and a PhD in Virology from the Institut Pasteur, Paris. Following a post-doc at the University of Cambridge, he joined the Ecole nationale vétérinaire de Toulouse, where he teaches infectious diseases and leads a research program on influenza virus evolution in the joint research unit UMR IHAP INRAE- Ecole nationale vétérinaire de Toulouse.

• Prof. Jan Rehwinkel (MRC Human Immunology Unit, Univ. Oxford) "Nucleic Acids Sensing by Innate Immune Receptors" Wednesday 12th April 2023 (Marcel Dorée meeting room)

The innate immune response is critical for host defence against viruses. Cell-intrinsic mechanisms detect virus presence and restrict virus replication. Nucleic acids are often a molecular signature of infection and are recognised by receptors including Toll-like receptors, RIG-I-like receptors and cytosolic DNA sensors. These receptors signal for the induction of innate response genes such as those encoding type I interferons. These then induce the expression of restriction factors, host proteins that limit virus replication. Our work focuses on cytosolic nucleic acid sensors, in particular RIG-I, MDA5 and cGAS. We use in vitro and in vivo models of virus infections and are interested in rare genetic diseases linked to chronic anti-viral innate immune responses. In this presentation, I will discuss our recent work on MDA5, cGAS and other nucleic acid sensors.

Past seminars:

• Dr. Chiara Zurzolo (Pasteur Institute) "Tunneling nanotubes: structure/function and role in the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 " Tuesday 31 January 2023, 3:00 PM (Marcel Dorée room)

Chiara Zurzolo, MD PhD, is head of the Membrane Trafficking and Pathogenesis Unit and head of the Department of Cell Biology and Infection. In 1995, started her lab as professor of Cell Biology at Naples University Federico II, where she graduated, focusing on protein trafficking and specifically on the mechanisms of apical sorting of GPI-proteins (GPI-AP) in polarized epithelia. In 2003 she moved to the Pasteur Institute where she pioneered studies on the role of protein trafficking in prion diseases. She has made seminal discoveries in both protein trafficking and neurodegeneration. Her group has shown that the mechanism of sorting of GPI-APs (cholesterol dependent oligomerization) in the Golgi of polarized cells controls the protein function at the apical plasma membrane (2008, 2014). They uncovered the intracellular site of prion conversion and showed that prion dissemination occurs by Tunneling Nanotubes (TNTs), a new mechanism of direct intercellular communication (2009). She proposes that TNTs are involved in the spreading of different amylogenic proteins in the brain (2013) and therefore represent a suitable target to halt incurable neurodegenerative diseases. She recently showed that TNTs provide a route for SARS-CoV-2 spreading (2022).

• Dr. Sarah Gallois-Montbrun (Institut Cochin) "From HIV-1 to SARS-CoV-2 infection: viral RNAs in all their states!" Friday 3^rd February 2023, 11:00 AM (Marcel Dorée room)

Sarah Gallois-Montbrun was trained in biochemistry, molecular biology and virology at Institut Pasteur and received her PhD from the University Pierre et Marie Curie in 2004. In 2005, she was granted an EMBO fellowship and moved to the Department of Infectious Diseases in the laboratory of Michael Malim at King’s College, London. Her post-doctoral research focused on the cellular roles of APOBEC3G and APOBEC3F, two restriction factors of HIV. Her work revealed that both proteins belong to large ribonucleoprotein complexes and localize to cytoplasmic structures induced by phase separation called P-bodies and Stress granules. In 2009, she was recruited as Chargée de Recherche (CR) by Inserm and joined the laboratory of Host-Pathogen Interactions co-directed by Clarisse Berlioz-Torrent and Stéphane Emiliani at Institut Cochin, France. Through a panel of techniques in cell biology (CRISPR-CAS9 KO, siRNA KD), molecular biology (HITS-CLIP, Long-read sequencing) and virology, her group focused on the role of cellular and viral factors in the fate of cellular and viral RNAs during infection by HIV-1, the causing agent of AIDS and more recently SARS-CoV-2, the causing agent of Covid-19.

• Dr. Nolwenn Jouvenet (Pasteur Institute) "Clash of the titans: RNA viruses and interferons" Friday 25th November 2022, 11:00 (Marcel Dorée room)

Dr. Nolwenn Jouvenet is the head of the ‘Virus sensing and signaling’ team based in the Institut Pasteur, Paris. The interaction between viruses and their hosts has been the driving force behind her research since she completed her Ph.D. at the Pirbright Institute, Surrey, UK. Her post-doctoral work at the Rockefeller University, New York, USA, focused on the mechanisms of assembly and budding of retroviruses. In 2012, she was granted a permanent position by the French state research organization CNRS. In 2015, she was awarded the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Prize. She was promoted to Research Director by the CNRS and was granted her own laboratory by the directorship of the Institut Pasteur in 2021. Her team focuses on mechanisms underlying virus-induced innate immunity, particularly on emerging and re-emerging RNA viruses that threaten human health, such as dengue virus, Zika virus and coronaviruses.

• Dr. Arinjay Banerjee (University of Saskatchewan) "Lessons learnt from coronavirus - host interactions in wildlife reservoirs and spill over hosts" Friday 9th December 2022, 11:00 (Marcel Dorée room)

Bats perform important ecological roles in our ecosystem. However, bats are also reservoirs of emerging viruses that have spilled over into humans and agricultural animals to cause severe disease. These viruses include Hendra and Nipah paramyxoviruses, Ebola and Marburg filoviruses, and coronaviruses that are closely related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and the recently emerged SARS-CoV-2. Intriguingly, bats that are naturally or experimentally infected with these viruses do not show clinical signs of disease. Highly pathogenic zoonotic coronaviruses have evolved proteins that can effectively block innate and intrinsic responses in human cells. In this talk, we shall explore how coronaviruses interact with innate and intrinsic responses in their wildlife (bat) and spill over (human) hosts. We will discuss lessons learnt from our studies on bat antiviral responses and translational outcomes that will enable us to design better countermeasures for coronavirus infections in humans.

Dr. Arinjay Banerjee (PhD) is the Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Zoonotic Viruses and Comparative Immunology at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, University of Saskatchewan, and adjunct faculty member at the Universities of Saskatchewan, Waterloo, British Columbia, and Toronto. Dr. Banerjee is the co-lead for One Health at the University of Saskatchewan. Research within Dr. Banerjee’s laboratory focuses on three main themes that are inspired by the One Health ideology, (1) virus-host interactions in wildlife reservoir species, such as bats, (2) virus-host interactions in spillover species, such as humans, and (3) viral vaccine development. Dr. Banerjee’s laboratory is a member of Canada’s Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network (CoVaRR-Net), and as part of this network, his laboratory investigates emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. Dr. Banerjee completed his Master of Science degree in virology from the National Institute of Virology in India where his Master’s thesis was awarded the university gold medal. Next, Dr. Banerjee completed his PhD from the University of Saskatchewan where his doctoral thesis on coronavirus-host interactions was awarded Canada’s Governor General’s Gold medal. Dr. Banerjee’s postdoctoral research at McMaster University was awarded the Gerard Wright postdoctoral award in Infection Research and the postdoctoral fellow impact award. More recently, Dr. Banerjee was selected as CBC Saskatchewan’s Top 40 under 40.

• Dr. Esther Nolte-'t Hoen (Utrecht University) "Egress of picornaviruses from infected cells via enclosure in Extracellular Vesicles: the ultimate package deal?" Friday 30th September 2022, 11:00 AM (Marcel Dorée room)

• Dr. Jeremy DUFOURT (IGMM - Montpellier) "Lighting up the central dogma of molecular biology in living embryos: Lights, Camera, Action on translation" Friday 16th September 2022, 11AM (Marcel Dorée room)

Jeremy Dufourt did his PhD in the laboratory of Chantal Vaury (GReD Clermont Ferrand) where he studied the regulation of transposable elements (TE) by small RNAs. Then he moved to the laboratory of Martine Simonelig (IGH Montpellier) for his first post-doc continuing his study on small RNAs but on the regulation of coding (non TE) mRNAs. Finally he moved to IGMM for a second post-doc in Mounia Lagha laboratory where he first worked on transcription factor dynamics and transcriptional memory during the genome awakening in Drosophila embryos. He then obtained a CNRS CRCN permanent position in 2019, and recently implemented the live imaging of translation in Drosophila, allowing for the first time to analyse spatio-temporal dynamics of translation in a living organism.

 

  

• Dr. Stacey Gilk (Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center) "Fine tuning cholesterol in the intracellular niche" Mardi 30 août 2022, 11h (Salle Marcel Dorée)

S. Gilk works on the bacterial pathogen Coxiella burnetii and its interactions with the host cell, with a special twist on the role of host cell lipids in the biogenesis of the intracellular replicative niche of this microbe. She has developed interesting and powerful tools to measure the intralumenal pH of endosomes and lysosomes.

Dr. Gilk received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Notre Dame and her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Vermont.  Her graduate work in Dr. Gary Ward's lab focused on characterizing proteins involved in motility and host cell invasion by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii.  Following a post-doc at the University of North Carolina where she discovered her fascination for lipids, she joined Bob Heinzen's lab at the Rocky Mountain Labs, National Institutes of Health, in Hamilton, MT as a postdoctoral fellow in 2007.  At the NIH, she focused on the role of cholesterol in interactions between the intracellular bacterial pathogen Coxiella burnetii and the host cell.  She joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Indiana University School of Medicine in 2013, and moved to the Department of Pathology and Microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2020.

 

• Prof. Dan V. Nicolau (McGill University, Montreal). "Something has to give: Computation with motile biological agents". Tuesday 28th June 2022, 2:00 PM (Marcel Dorée seminar room)

Dan, who is a Professor at, and the Head of the Department of Bioengineering at McGill University, has a PhD in Chemical Engineering, a MS in Cybernetics, Informatics & Statistics and a MEng in Polymer Science & Engineering. He has published ~130 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, a similar number of full papers in conference proceedings and 6 book chapters. He has edited one book (with U. Muller; on microarray technology and applications), and edited or co-edited the proceedings of 30+ conferences. Dan is a Fellow of the International Society of Optical Engineering (SPIE) and the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE NanoBioScience. His present research aggregates around three themes: (i) technologies for both largely-parallel, and rapid-sequential high throughput screening; (ii) information storage and processing in biomolecular and/or nano-systems; and (iii) intelligent-like behaviour of microorganisms in confined spaces.

• Dr. Nathalie Sauvonnet (Institut Pasteur - Paris). "Impact of tissue microenvironment and mechanical forces of the gut on pathogens invasion". Friday July 8th 2022

As a cell biologist and microbiologist Nathalie Sauvonnet major interest focused on protein trafficking in different cellular compartments. In bacteria, during her PhD and postdoc she studied secretion mechanisms (Type 1,2,3 secretion system, TnSS) and type IV pili, often involved in pathogenic processes. Using microbiology methods, genetics screens, scanning electron microscopy and biochemistry approaches, she uncovered characteristic features of secreted cargos, revealed the close relation between type IV pili and T2SS and analysed the impact of T3SS on host cell transcriptome. As a permanent researcher, she turned her interest to eukaryotes having multi-compartmentalized cells and studied endocytosis and the dynamics of the endomembrane system. Since 2006, she leads a small team aiming to determine the interplay between intracellular trafficking, tissue mechanics, tissue homeostasis and host-pathogen interactions. On endocytosis, her team used RNAi screen, CrispR-Cas9 gene edition, live TIRF microscopy, robust image analysis and single particle tracking, to characterize the molecular and dynamical aspect of clathrin-independent endocytosis. In parallel, she also studied the consequence of pathogens invasion on the host cell intracellular trafficking. More recently she developed organ-on-chip technology to investigate host-pathogen interactions at the tissue scale using several examples of pathogens (ex: Shigella and SARS-CoV-2) in the aim to decipher the impact of tissue microenvironment and mechanical forces on pathogen invasion.

• Dr. Christel Vérollet (IPBS - Toulouse). "Understanding cell-to-cell transfer of HIV-1 towards macrophages: a perspective for HIV/Tuberculosis co-infection". Friday March 25th 2022

Our team at IPBS, Toulouse (led by C. Vérollet and R. Poincloux, https://www.ipbs.fr/phagocyte-architecture-and-dynamics) investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms used by macrophages to interact with their environment in different physiological and pathological contexts, including HIV-1 and HIV/Mtb co-infection. In particular, I am a cell biologist working on how HIV-1 hijacks macrophage cytoskeleton (podosomes and tunelling nanotubes) to spread and disseminate.

Dufrancais O, Mascarau R et al. . CMLS, 2021; Mascarau R, et al. . IJMS, 2020; Dupont M, et al. Elife, 2020; Xie M, et al. MBio, 2019; Souriant S, et al. Cell Reports, 2019; Raynaud-Messina B, et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018; Vérollet C, et al.  Blood, 2015 

• Dr. Félix Rey (Institut Pasteur, Paris). "Structure and evolution of class II enveloped viruses" Friday March 11th 2022 (Visio Zoom disponible)

Felix Rey is a structural biologist (PhD in 1988 at the University of Paris-Sud), with postdoctoral training at Harvard University (1988-1995), where he specialized in the structure of viruses. In 2004 he joined the Pasteur Institute as head of the virology department and at the same time he created the Structural Virology Unit (UMR 3569 CNRS/Pasteur), which he still heads today. His research focused on 3D structures of viral polymerases and on the replication nucleoprotein matrix of negative-strand RNA viruses. He mainly focused on the study of viral envelope proteins, on how they induce membrane fusion with implications in "reverse vaccinology", paving the way for the design of vaccines focused on specific antigen for viruses such as dengue and Zika, and more recently on bunyaviruses. Felix Rey's work has notably led to the identification of a separate class of membrane fusion proteins (called "class II") present in viruses such as flaviviruses (Zika), alphaviruses (Chikungunya), bunyaviruses (viruses Rift Valley fever), rubiviruses (rubella virus).

• Dr. Roy Matkovic (Institut Cochin, Paris). "A dual repressive effect employed by HUSH to keep HIV silent". Friday 4th February 2022 (Zoom conference available)

 If on a long time scale the mobile DNA elements and retroviruses constitute positive drivers of the evolution of species, on a short time scale they can disrupt the integrity of our genome by integrating/spreading into it. One of the complexes that allows them to be epigenetically repressed, by deposition of H3K9me3 marks and heterochromatinization, is HUSH. We have previously shown that this complex can inhibit the expression of an HIV-1 minigenome in the J-Lat A1 latency model and that its antagonism by HIV-2 Vpx is able to increase the expression of HIV-1 LTR-derived RNAs. How HUSH is able to repress the HIV provirus remains enigmatic. Together, we will discuss the mechanism used by HUSH to keep HIV silent. We will show that the HUSH member TASOR is actually at the RNA/epigenetic repression interface and that it associates with epigenetic/transcriptional and RNA degradation factors to repress HIV at two steps. Finally, we will build a model of its mechanism that appears to be globally conserved during evolution when it comes to silence exogenous DNA in order to preserve the genome integrity.

• Dr. Delphine Judith (Institut Cochin, Paris). "ATG5 drives an LC3-associated pathway to counter BST2/Tetherin antiviral functions". Friday 28th January 2022 (exclusively in visio via zoom)

 Delphine performed her PhD at the Pasteur Institute in the laboratory of Pr. Lecuit (Inserm U1117). During her PhD research, she focused her work on the study of the impact of the autophagy machinery on CHIKV replication. Her major achievement was the discovery of the critical species specificity of the virus, which sheds light on the differential behavior of mouse vs. human cells in response to CHIKV.

After her PhD, she moved to London for a post-doctoral position in the laboratory of Dr. Tooze at The Francis Crick institute. The aims of her project were to dissect the intracellular trafficking route through which mammalian ATG9A travels and determine the role of this protein in autophagy by an in-depth analysis of the ATG9A compartment. First, she established an immuno-isolation approach to purify endogenous ATG9A compartments from mammalian cells. Then, she revealed that ATG9A-positive membranes containing activated PI4KIIIb catalyze the production of PI4P at the formation site and thus initiating and driving autophagosome biogenesis and subsequently autophagy. This study opens up a whole new perspective on this process as it has been assumed PI3P is the only lipid required in the autophagy pathway.

After this work she joined, for a postdoctoral work, the laboratory of Dr. Clarisse Berlioz-Torrent in Paris, at the Cochin Institute, where she studied the impact of LC3-associated pathway on HIV-1 infection. The focus of her work is to dissect the LC3-associated process subverted by Vpu to counteract BST2 restriction, and more precisely the initial step occurring at the plasma membrane and required to initiate the process.

• Dr. Coralie Daussy (MFP - Bordeaux). "Viral control by Adenovirus of the cellular membrane damage response". Friday 18 June 2021 at 11 AM (visio)

Team: "Spatial and temporal control of virus-host interactions" / Laboratoire Microbiologie Fondamentale et Pathogénicité (MFP) - UMR 5234 - Bordeaux

• Dr. Elizabeth Bik. "The Dark Side of Science: Misconduct in Biomedical Research". Mercredi 8 Septembre à 13h via Zoom. Elisabeth Bik is a Dutch microbiologist living in California, who has worked for 15 years at Stanford University and 2 years in industry. Since 2019, she is a science integrity volunteer and occasional consultant, who scans the biomedical literature for images or other data of concern and has reported over 4,000 scientific papers.

Abstract: Science builds upon science. Even after peer-review and publication, science papers could still contain images or other data of concern. If not addressed post-publication, papers containing incorrect or even falsified data could lead to wasted time and money spent by other researchers trying to reproduce those results. Several high-profile science misconduct cases have been described, but many cases are yet undetected. Elisabeth Bik is an image forensics detective who left her paid job in industry to search for and report biomedical articles that contain errors or data of concern. She has done a systematic scan of 20,000 papers in 40 journals and found that about 4% of these contained inappropriately duplicated images. In her talk she will present her work and show several types of inappropriately duplicated images and other examples of research misconduct. In addition, she will show how to report scientific papers of concern, and how journals and institutions handle such allegations.

Elisabeth Bik's minibio: E. Bik is a science integrity consultant who specializes in finding image duplications in scientific papers. After receiving her PhD in Microbiology at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, she worked 15 years at the Stanford University School of Medicine on the microbiomes of humans and marine mammals. From 2016-2019, she worked at two microbiome startup companies. In March 2019, she left her job to become a science integrity volunteer and occasional consultant. She can often be found discussing science papers on Twitter at @MicrobiomDigest, writing for her blog ScienceIntegrityDigest or searching the biomedical literature for inappropriately duplicated or manipulated photographic images and plagiarized text. She has reported over 4,000 papers for issues with image duplication or other concerns. Her work has been featured in Nature, Science, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, and The Times (UK). In April 2021 she was awarded the Peter Wildy Prize by the UK Microbiology Society for her contributions in science communication.

Postponed seminars due to Covid-19 pandemic

• Pr Alessia Zamborlini (Paris Saclay University). "SUMOylation of Lysine 595 cooperates with phosphorylation of Threonine 592 to regulate SAMHD1 antiviral activity" POSTPONED DUE TO COVID19 PANDEMIC

Summary of the talk: SAMHD1 is a cellular triphosphohydrolase that inhibits the replication of HIV-1 in non-cycling immune cells by reducing the concentration of dNTP below a threshold required for efficient reverse transcription of the viral genome. Phosphorylation of residue T592 suppresses the antiviral activity of SAMHD1 in cycling cells. However, phosphomimetic mutants efficiently deplete the cellular dNTP pools, indicating that additional functions and/or post-translational modifications play a role in the regulation of SAMHD1 restriction activity. A. Zamborlini's team found that SAMHD1 is SUMOylated on residue K595, a modification that relies on the integrity of a SUMO-interacting motif. Furthermore, their data provide compelling evidence that, in non-cycling cells where most of the protein harbors an unphosphorylated T592 residue, SUMOylation of K595 defines the fraction of restriction competent SAMHD1.

Pr. Alessandra Zamborlini's minibiography: She obtained an M2 degree in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Technologies (Faculty of Pharmacy) and then a PhD in Virology (Medical School) at the University of Padua (Italy). During her PhD training she studied the role of the cellular components of the ESCRT machinery in the budding of HIV-1 in the lab of Heirich Gottlinger (Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA). She next joined the lab of Ali Saïb as a Post-doctoral fellow where she developed several projects aiming to better understand the persistence of the virus in quiescent T cells and the regulation of the integration step by post-translational modifications. In 2010 she obtained a position as Lecturer at Cnam (Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Paris) and in 2019 she has become Professor in Virology at the Paris Saclay University. Her research projects aim to decipher the molecular bases underlying the coordination of the multiple activities of SAMHD1 as well as the contribution of SUMOylation to the antiviral response in non-cycling immune cells.

• Dr Christophe Mueller (Strasbourg university). "Host immune evasion by Pseudomonas aeruginosa? A study of the impact of its lectin LecB on the murine immune system." POSTPONED DUE TO COVID19 PANDEMIC

Dr. Christopher Mueller is CNRS director of research at the University of Strasbourg, France, and the CNRS research team Immunology and Immunopathology. He has obtained his PhD in Heidelberg / the University of London on c-fos transcription factors and spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in UC-Berkeley working on transcriptional regulation in the yeast S. cerevisiae. He became an immunologists at Schering-Plough, Inc., France, and integrated the French national research system CNRS to continue his research on the immunobiology of the myeloid cell lineage in the skin and lymphoid tissue. He now heads a research team in Strasbourg to study the impact of the cellular microenvironment on immune cell differentiation and activation in the context of infection and autoimmunity. He has recently shown that mesenchymal cells instruct lymphatic endothelial cells via TNFSF11 (RANKL) – TNFRSF11a (RANK) to create the niche for sinusoidal macrophage differentiation.

He is a member of the Labex Medalis, former director of the International PhD programme of the University of Strasbourg, and co-founder of the Upper Rhine Immunology group, comprising the Universities of Strasbourg, Freiburg and Basel.

• Dr. Sarah Gallois-Montbrun (Institut Cochin, Paris) "Non-canonical Roles of Argonaute proteins in HIV-1 viral RNA expression" - initially planned on the 13 of December 2019 but postponed to 2020
  

Summary of the talk: During its replication, HIV-1 produces more than 50 different transcripts coding for all the proteins necessary for viral particles assembly. Balanced production of viral isoforms is highly regulated both temporally and spatially. Current research in my group aims at characterizing the role of viral and cellular factors involved in HIV-1 RNA production. In particular, we investigated the role of the miRNA pathway and demonstrated that key proteins of these pathway, Argonaute 1 and Argonaute 2, participate at different levels of viral RNA production independently of the presence of miRNA. In parallel, we recently developed a long-read sequencing assay to quantify production of HIV-1 isoforms and to decipher the cascade of splicing events taking place at early time points after infection. 

Dr Gallois-Montbrun's minibiography: After completing her PhD studies at Pasteur Institute Paris in 2004 on cellular metabolism of anti-HIV-1 drugs, she undertook post-doctoral training with Prof Michael Malim at King’s College London. There she focused on characterizing cellular protein and RNA partners of APOBEC3G and APOBEC3F, two HIV-1 restriction factors. She was recruited as Inserm research scientist at Cochin Institute in 2009.  Since then, her group has aimed at dissecting mechanisms regulating HIV-1 RNA fate and how these impact on viral replication.

• Prof. Jack Stapleton (Iowa university, USA) "A flavivirus genome-derived noncoding RNA regulates T cell function and restricts virus replication" Friday the 21st of February 11 am

Jack Stapleton's minibio: Jack is a Professor of Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the University of Iowa.  Over the last 3 decades, his laboratory has focused on positive strand RNA viruses (HIV, HCV, GBV-C/HPgv) and how members of the Flaviviridae interact with HIV and immune function.  Most recently, the lab studies how HCV and yellow fever virus genomic RNA is processed into short, noncoding RNAs that regulate T cell function and enhance viral replication.  He also has conducted numerous translational studies on how human pegivirus (GBV-C) prolongs survival in HIV infected people, and characterized mechanisms involved in this beneficial co-infection.

• Dr. Philippe Benaroch "Host-HIV interplay in human primary myeloid cells" - 22nd November 2019

Philippe Benaroch is research director at the CNRS and heads the team “Myeloid cells and immunity” within the Department of Immunology at the Institut Curie in Paris. He will present recent work and unpublished data regarding a recently identified blood dendritic cell subset, its unique relationship with HIV and some of its shared properties with infected macrophages.

Philippe Benaroch is particularly interested by myeloid cells that represent a very ancient form of cellular immunity against pathogens and tumor cells. Myeloid cells are very plastic, endowed with an ever-growing list of functions in innate and adaptive immunity. How myeloid cells crosstalk with HIV and tumor cells and how this interplay is regulated remains to be established at the molecular level and represent the focus of his lab.

• Dr. Lise Chauveau (Oxford university, UK) "The immune system’s Trojan horse: Using cGAMP-loaded VLPs for vaccination"  - 11 October 2019 2pm

Dr Lise Chauveau is interested in how viruses induce an immune response, the type of response induced and how viruses may counteract it. She studied Biology at the Ecole Normal Superieure de Lyon where she obtained a Master degree in 2012. She then moved to the Pasteur Institute in Paris to complete a PhD in the laboratory of Prof Olivier Schwartz in 2016. There, she studied factors influencing the ability of HIV-1 and HIV-2 to infect cells of the immune system, CD4 T cells and dendritic cells. This is where her interest in antiviral immunity and how viruses might modulate it sparked. She is now a postdoctoral researcher with Dr Jan Rehwinkel at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, UK. She currently works on an original vaccination strategy using HIV-derived virus-like particles that incorporate an innate immune messenger (cGAMP) to induce potent and protective immune response against viruses.

• Prof. Ricardo Soto-Rifo (Universidad de Chile) "The complex life of HIV-1 full-length RNA" - Tuesday 1st of october 2019
  

Dr. Soto-Rifo has been always interested in the molecular and cellular mechanisms controlling gene expression in Eukaryotes with a special emphasis in RNA viruses as study models. Dr. Soto-Rifo studied biochemistry at Universidad de Santiago de Chile and then moved to France where he obtained a Master in Sciences degree from Université Claude Bernard Lyon-1 in 2006 and then a Ph.D in Life Sciences from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon in 2010. He worked at the Human Virology Department (currently the International Center for Infectiology Research, CIRI) under the supervision of Dr. Théophile Ohlmann on the translational control of the HIV-1 and HIV-2 genomic RNA. During his post-doctoral training at Dr. Ohlmann's lab, Dr. Soto-Rifo worked on the remodeling and localization of the messenger ribonucleoprotein complexes (mRNPs) containing the HIV-1 genomic RNA by analyzing the role of the DEAD-box RNA helicase DDX3 in these processes. In 2013, he moved to Biomedical Sciences Institute at Universidad de Chile Faculty of Medicine to start his own laboratory at the Virology Program. Since then, Dr. Soto-Rifo's reasearch has been mainly focused in understanding the mechanisms involved in RNA metabolism during HIV-1, HIV-2, respiratory syncytial virus and Zika virus replication.

The presentation will be focused on the role of the RNA modification N6-methyladenosine (m6A) and its associated cellular machinery in defining the cytoplasmic destiny of the HIV-1 genomic RNA during the late steps of the viral replication cycle.

• Dr. Pierre-Olivier Vidalain (CIRI) "Searching for chemical activators of the interferon response : surprises from a chemobiological approach" - 13th September 2019
  

Pierre-Olivier Vidalain, Research Director, CNRS. After his Ph.D in immunology (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon), Pierre-Olivier joined Marc Vidal's team (Harvard Medical School, Boston) where he was trained to high-throughput screening techniques and protein-protein interaction analysis. Recruited in 2005 at the CNRS, he worked successively at the Institut Pasteur and the Université Paris Descartes where he studied interactions between viral and cellular proteins and developed multiple assays for the identification of antiviral compounds targeting host factors. He has a special interest in the immunomodulatory properties of small compounds inhibiting the pyrimidine biosynthesis pathway. In January 2019, he joined the International Infectiology Research Center in Lyon to continue his work at the interface between innate antiviral immunity, metabolism and chemobiological approaches.

• Dr. Jost Enninga (Institut Pasteur, Paris) "Subversion of infection associated macropinosomes drives the intracellular niche formation of bacterial pathogens" - 5th July 2019

Jost Enninga heads the research unit « Dynamics of host-pathogen interactions » within the Department of Cell Biology and Infection at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He performed his Ph.D. studies in the Laboratory of Cell Biology at the Rockefeller University, New York, under the supervision of Dr. Guenter Blobel. There, he focused on how viruses subvert host cellular trafficking processes. Afterwards, Jost moved to the Institut Pasteur in Paris in 2004 to study the early events of bacterial host cellular invasion with Dr. Philippe Sansonetti and Dr. Guy Tran Van Nhieu. Between 2008 and 2012, Jost built up his own junior team at the Institut Pasteur, and he heads his current research unit since 2013. His team investigates the intracellular niche formation of different bacterial pathogens, including Shigella and Salmonella.  Main questions are membrane trafficking subversion by the pathogens, and how specific intracellular localizations trigger distinct immune responses. His research unit develops imaging-based technologies that allow the analysis of host-pathogen interaction dynamics with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution.

• Dr. F. Perez (Institut Curie) "Exploring the Secretory Pathway : from Basic to Translational Research" - 28th of June 2019

Dr. Franck Perez is Research Director at CNRS and Chairman of the "Cell Biology and Cancer" Unit of the Institut Curie in Paris. His group is studying intracellular trafficking with an important focus on the development of new methods and tools for Cell Biology studies. For example, he developed at the Institut Curie the use of automated cellular screening and co-founded a High Content screening platform (BioPhenics, with Dr. J. Camonis). In addition, his group created a novel trafficking assay and have strongly invested on the development of recombinant antibodies for cell biology. Recently, he created a novel antibody library based on a humanized nanobody scaffold and created a therapeutic antibody platform.

Dr. F. Perez is Scientific Director of the cell screening platform Biophenics and of the Therapeutic Antibody platform TAbIP and the head of the "Dynamics of Intracellular Organization' team at the Institut Curie. He authored more than 90 scientific articles, developed free software and filled several patents. He is a co-founder of Start-up in the field of immuno- and cellular-therapies, Honing Biosciences.

• Dr. Sylvie Lecollinet (Virology department at ANSES/Veterinary school, Maisons-Alfort) “From basic to applied research on zoonotic West Nile and Usutu flaviviruses” - 14th June 2019
• Dr. Niedergang Florence (Institut Cochin - Paris) "Macrophages upon viral infection, emergence of opportunistic diseases" - 9 th May 2019
• Dr. Mauffret Olivier (LBPA - ENS Cachan) "Structures-functions relationships of the zinc fingers domains of HIV-1 nuclecocapsid protein" - 15th February 2019
• Dr. Manel Nicolas (Institut Curie) - "Activation of innate immune sensors by viruses and self" -1st February 2019
• Dr. Carocci Margot (INSERM UMR-949, Université de Strasbourg) "Development of novel strategies to fight flaviviruses: from targeted screen to in vivo antiviral validation" - 7th December 2018
• Dr. Cimarelli Andrea (Inserm U1111 - CNRS UMR 5308 - Université / ENS de Lyon) "Interferon-stimulated transmembrane proteins (ifitms) as a novel paradigm of restriction factors targeting the in and out of a viral life cycle" - 14th November 2018
• Dr. Margottin-Goguet Florence (Institut Cochin - Paris) "HIV Latency as an intrinsic host defense antagonized by lentiviral proteins" - 21th September 2018
• Dr. Oehlers Stefan (Centenary Institute - University of Sidney) "Vascular control of mycobacterial immunity" - 6 July 2018
• Dr. Shu Sin Chng (Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore) "Bacterial lipid trafficking and outer membrane homeostasis"
• Prof. Slupphaug Geir (Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Trondheim, Norway) “Are endogenous and chemically induced base methylations in human mRNA processed differentially?”
• Dr. Chojnacki Jakub (IrsiCaixa AIDS research institut - Barcelona) "STED microscopy studies of HIV-1 dynamic structure and virus-cell interactions."
• Dr. Gaudin Raphaël (Inserm U1110 - Strasbourg) "Zika virus induces monocyte transmigration, spreading the infection to the brain"
• Dr. Muriaux D.  (CEMIPAI) "Présentation de la plateforme CEMIPAI et ses technologies innovantes"
• Prof. Yegutgin G. (University of Turku - Finland) "Emerging roles of purine-converting ectoenzymes in inflammation and tumorigenesis"
• Dr. Smyth R. (IBMC, Strasbourg)
• Dr. Lyonnais S. (IBMB-CSIC, Barcelone)
• Dr. Long J. (Imperial College of London)
• Dr. Meunier E. (IPBS, Toulouse)
• Dr. Herbeuval J.P. (UMR 8601, Paris) "Controling unruly interferon production: How monoamines restrain innate immunity"
• Dr. Wodrich G. (UMR 5234, Bordeaux)
• Dr. Henriet S. (University of Bergen, Norway)
• Dr. Janvier K. (Institut Cochin, Paris)