SFI 2019

As an Immunology Professor in Nantes, I have created and headed an Inserm team to study both function and specificity of human tumor infiltrating T cells (TIL) and set up adoptive therapy protocols for melanoma patients. Studying colorectal TIL, I discovered the first human Treg subset induced by the intestinal microbiota. I now work, as an Emeritus Professor, together with Inserm researchers, to delineate the role of these Treg in chronic inflammatory diseases and cancers.

I completed my PhD in Immunology and Parasitology in 2004 at the Claude Bernard University (Inserm U346, Lyon, France), investigating the behavior of human dendritic cells infected by Toxoplasma gondii parasite. Then, I did my post-doctoral training in the group of Agnès Lehuen (Inserm U561, Paris, France) and we demonstrated the regulatory behavior of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in a context of virally-induced autoimmune diabetes in mice (Diana et al., Immunity, 2009 and J. Exp. Med., 2011). In 2011, I was appointed as research associate at the INSERM and I led a project about the role of neutrophils in the initiation of autoimmune diabetes in mice (Diana et al., Nat. Med., 2013). At present, I am developing my research projects in the Necker Enfants Malades Institute (Paris, France) and we recently revealed how the gut microbiota prevents the development of autoimmune diabetes via the induction of antimicrobial peptides in the pancreas (Sun et al., Immunity, 2015; Miani et al., Cell Metab., 2018). We are now investigating the role of the antimicrobial peptides in other autoimmune diseases.

Ms. Joyce-Shaikh has more than 20 years of biotech industry experience specializing in translational systems of immune function and immuno-oncology. Her work has contributed to several patents as well as peer-reviewed publications in several high-ranking international scientific journals including Nature, Immunity, Nature Medicine, and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. She is currently a project lead in the Discovery Immuno-oncology group at Merck Research Laboratories, in South San Francisco, California, USA. Her research focuses on understanding the complex interactions between immune cells in the specialized gut microenvironment and how inflammation promotes dysbiosis, gut permeability, and tumor development.

Dr. Wambre was born and raised in France. He received his MS degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Lille in 2003 and his Master of Business Engineering (MBE) from the Ecole de Biologie Industrielle (Cergy) in 2004. He attended the University Pierre & Marie Curie (Paris 6) in 2008, receiving his PhD in Immunology. Dr. Wambre joined the Benaroya Research Institute in 2009 to complete a postdoctoral fellowship and subsequently became an Assistant Member. His research interests focus on providing in depth immune monitoring of antigen-specific T cell responses in allergy and cancer vaccine development with the primary objective of enhancing our understanding of the pathogenesis, regulation and functions of the adaptive immune system in disease pathways.

I’m an agricultural engineer, then I pursued with a PhD in Toxicology and Immunology. I started my researches in the field of Food Allergy in INRA (French national institute for agronomic research), in the “Food Allergy Unit” , and I have now the chance to be Director Associate of the joined Unit SPI CEA-INRA, and Leader of the Food Allergy Unit. Our researches deal with the analysis of the environmental factors (notably during the perinatal window) and of the intrinsic properties of proteins that determine allergenicity (mechanistic and integrative studies, thanks to animal models and samples from clinics / cohorts). We are also performing translational researches combining immunological and metabolomics approaches in order to identify biomarkers useful for diagnosis and personal medicine.

After 15 years of research in immunology and T cell development, Julie recently gained a tremendous interest in studying the interactions between the immune and the central nervous systems. She is currently leading a team that aim at understanding the role of meningeal gamma delta T cells in cognition and learning behaviour, at steady state and upon neurodegeneration using mouse model of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Stephan Gadola is a Rheumatologist and Immunologist from Basel, Switzerland, with 6 years experience in early drug development. He started his research in basic immunology in the lab of Enzo Cerundolo in Oxford. Contributions to the CD1 field include the development of CD1 tetramers; Novel sructural insights into human CD1b, CD1c and CD1d, iNKT receptors; identification of human Va24-negative CD1d-restricted T cells; characterisation of human CD1d-iNKT TCR interactions; and the characterisation of the human iNKT cell repertoire based on TCR affinity in health and different autoimmune conditions.

R. Mallone received his MD PhD degree from the University of Turin, Italy. After a Postdoc with Jerry Nepom at the Benaroya Institute in Seattle, he moved to Paris where he is currently an Inserm Research Director and an Associate Physician in Diabetology at the INSERM Cochin Institute. His research focuses on autoimmune T cells and the understanding of type 1 diabetes mechanisms in order to develop T-cell-based biomarkers and therapeutics.

Dr. Magali Irla has a long-standing interest in the induction of T-cell tolerance that takes place in the thymus. Her research mainly focuses on medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) that possess the fascinating capacity to express thousands of peripheral self-antigens. Her work has established that the crosstalk between mTECs and CD4+ T cells controls medulla patterning, Aire+ mTEC cellularity and the thymic entry of peripheral dendritic cells, which also contributes to central tolerance.

The research of my lab is essentially focusing on the early mechanisms of Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) entry and persistence at mucosal site, including the male genital tract, and how mucosal immunity interferes with these mechanisms. therefore, we analyzed the mucosal IgA antibody response in HIV seropositive patients but also in HIV resistant individuals, namely HIV-1 exposed but IgG seronegative subjects. From these basic science discoveries, we have design a prophylactic vaccine prototype that fully protect non human primate against virulent challenges mimicking sexual transmission of HIV.

Dr. Carole Guillonneau is an immunologist at the Centre de Recherche en Transplantation et Immunologie (CRTI) - INSERM1064 in Nantes, France. After a Postdoc in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Prof. Doherty in Australia, she moved to Nantes and obtained a permanent position at the CNRS. She currently leads a team at CRTI that focuses on the biology of CD8+ Tregs and investigates their clinical potential and new therapies to replace conventional immunosuppression in the context of transplantation and immune-related diseases.

Dominique Baeten received his medical degree and PhD in medical sciences from Ghent University, Belgium. After his specialization in internal medicine and rheumatology he did his post-doctoral training in immunology at INSERM U437 in Nantes, France; and Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, USA. He received additional Professional Executive Training at the Audencia Business School in Nantes, France.
He joined the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 2006 to build a pre-clinical and clinical research line on immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. The research of his team resulted in over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including lead-author publications in N Engl J Med, Lancet, and Nat Med. He is recipient of several personal scientific awards and grants, including a VICI grant from the Netherlands Scientific Organization and a European Research Council Consolidator grant. He was appointed Director of the FOCIS Center of Excellence at the University of Amsterdam in 2007 and Head of the Department of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the Academic Medical Center/University of Amsterdam in 2011.
Keeping a part-time position as Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Amsterdam, he joined UCB in August 2016 where he is currently Vice-President and Head of the Immuno-Bone Therapeutic Area. His major interest is in early clinical development (bringing solutions to the right patient population) and translational medicine (linking unmet needs back to the cellular and molecular pathways).

Yves Renaudineau is PharmD, PhD and Professor of Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine in Brest. He is currently responsible of the laboratory of immunology and immunotherapy at Hospital Morvan, a specialized laboratory in autoimmunity. He is also member of the INSERM team U1227, lymphocytes B and autoimmunity. Dr. Renaudineau's research interests include the role of B cells in the pathophysiology of autoimmunity and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, with a special focus on DNA methylation and calcium flux due to their interconnections. Recently he has been awarded by the Matwin program (2017 and 2019), together with Dr O Mignen, for the development of a first in class monoclonal antibody targeting a new pathophysiological calcium pathway.

Vassili Soumelis is a Professor of Immunology at Université Paris Diderot, senior physician in immunology, Hôpital Saint Louis, Paris, and team leader in the newly created Inserrm Unit HIPI ‘Human Immunology, Pathophysiology, Immunotherapy’. He made important contributions to the fields of human immunology, dendritic cell and T cell biology, cytokine biology, disease physiopathology, including HIV infection, allergy, autoimmunity and cancer. In the past 8 years, his focus shifted to the large-scale systems analysis of immune cell diversity and cell-cell communication in tissue inflammation, using bioinformatics and mathematical modeling approaches.His team combines expertise in immunology, computational biology, and medicine.
Vassili Soumelis coordinated a European FP6 Excellence Grant (2005-2009), participated in a EuroTransbio project (2007-2009), coordinated bioinformatics and systems biology in the European consortium MAARS (FP7), and received ERC consolidator and proof-of-concept grants. He is currently the coordinator of the H2020 project ImmunAID, working on multi-omics data integration for the diagnostic classification of rare auto-inflammatory diseases.
V. Soumelis has published over 80 scientific articles in international journals. He is serving as a reviewer for many research journals, including Nature, Immunity, Nature Communications, the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Plos Computational Biology.

PhD in Immunology, researcher at CNRS founded the ‘Integrative Immunology: Differentiation, Diversity, Dynamics’ team and the ImmunoComplexiT network to better understand ‘Complex Systems’. From experimental investigation in murine models, she developed systems immunology to model T cell dynamics by mathematical and computational approaches. https://iscpif.fr/upcomingevents/groupe-de-discussion-comprendre-et-modeliser-la-complexite-du-systeme-immunitaire/

Shai Shen-Orr is an Associate Prof. at the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where he heads the Systems Immunology & Precision Medicine laboratory since 2012. His research is focused on charting the immune system landscape – namely the principles by which the immune system varies over time as a function of environment and genetics. For this, his lab develops novel computational methodologies, empowering human immune monitoring for precision medicine.
Prof. Shen-Orr is also the Chief Scientist of CytoReason. CytoReason is building a machine learning model of the immune system; which it applies to drug development in collaboration with leading pharma companies.

Marc Bonneville, D.V.M and CNRS research director (on leave), is currently VP in charge of scientific and medical affairs at Institut Merieux, a biopharmaceutical holding developing diagnostics, therapeutics and services in the fields of infectious diseases, oncology and agro-food. He is also the chairman of the Alliance for Research and Innovation of Healthcare Industries (ARIIS). He has worked for 25 years as an academic researcher at INSERM on cellular immunology topics with a particular focus on gamma/delta T cell immunobiology. MB has authored 200+ publications, is a co-inventor of 8 patents and a co-founder of Innate Pharma SA.