Project Lead in the development of novel therapeutic approaches linked to the vaginal microbiota and women’s health. I focus mainly on fertility, inflammation, endometriosis and pregnancy outcomes. Active analyst on the omics and on the bech teams Still working at IDMIT (CEA) labTechs: Shotgun, Targetted NGS, Transcriptomics, scRNAseq

The immune response in the vaginal mucosa is modulated by different factors where themicrobiota that inhabit this environment plays a major role. In healthy women, the vaginalmicrobiota is rich in aerobic bacteria and is dominated by lactobacillus. A healthyenvironment (also called eubiotic) is anti-inflammatory and protects women againstpathogens. However, an alteration of the microbiota composition – or dysbiosis – isassociated to a pro-inflammatory environment, detrimental for women health.Chlamydia trachomatis is the agent causing a sexually transmitted urogenitalinfection. This STI is the most prevalent infection in women that are also infected with HIV-1. The infection with CT provokes an inflammation that increases susceptibility to HIV-1.However, up to now, there is no study probiotic on the marked that lowers the risk for STI acquisition.I aim to select a probiotic strain to modify vaginal microbiota and disminish the risk for HIV-1 and Chlamydia infection using the preclinical macaque cynomolgus in vivo model and cervical cell lines as the in vitro model for signaling characterization.

Enterococcus faecalis is a natural commensal of the human microbiota. Under certain conditions such as immunodeficiency and antibiotic treatment, E.faecalis can translocate trough the intestinal epithelium and infect the bloodstream and multiple organs producing systemic infections.My host lab identified a novel virulence facteur and named it ElrA (Enterococcal Leucin Rich). It is a surface protein internalin-like that has an important role in virulence (deleted mutant is attenuated for virulence in an in vivo model). It interacts with a eukaryotic protein. The main objective of my PhD is identifying the role of ElrA in the infectious process, its roles during infection, and signalization pathways implicated. Plus, correlate the data with the roles of the identified partner protein in the hostSupervisors: Dr. Pascale Serror and Dr. Cristel ArchambaudTechniques used: Cell culture, Cell infection, Protein purification, Western blotting, Immunofluorescence, Live-imaging, Animal experimentation

Bacterial epigenetic control of the host is a novel emerging subject in microbiology.Many bacteria such as Listeria monocytogenes, Legionella pneumophila and Chlamydia trachomatis have been identified as having virulence factors that specifically target the host nuclei. C. trachomatis is a intracellular pathogen that possesses a secreted protein NUE (NUclear Effector) was the first protein identified in bacteria as having a tropism for the host cell nuclei, binding to chromatin and inducing a methylation in histones that control the expression of human genes.During the second year of my master degree I identified many potential Chlamydial proteins as putative nuclear effectors that have a tropism for the host's nuclei and that are secreted by a Type III Secretion System.Supervisor: Dr. Agathe SubtilTechniques used:Cellular transfection, Immunofluorescence and Microscopy, Subcellular fractionation, Electrophoresis and Western Blotting, Primer design, Cloning and transformations, Sequencing, Protein extraction, Bioinformatics, etc.

Mycobacterium abcessus is an opportunistic pathogen responsible of infections in patients with cystic fibrosis.A mutant of a locus that encodes for a lipopeptide producer enzyme was identified as being avirulent. In this project, an inverse genetic approach was used in order to identify a lipopeptide implicated in virulence by comparing phenotypes with the wild type bacteria.Supervisor: Dr. Gilles Etienne

Caracterisation of two avirulent mutants implicated in the production of lipoproteins in Mycobacterium abscessesTechniques used: Bacterial culture in P2+, total lipid extraction, fractionation by column elution, thin layer chromatography, mass spectrometry and magnetic resonance, bioinformatics

Asseting the capacity of Aloe sp. for capturing contaminating copper in polluted water.