Date : 27/02/2012

Laboratory
Immunity and Cancer
U932, Institut Curie
12 rue Lhomond
75011 Paris
Website
Main discipline : Cell Biology
Lab director : Sebastian Amigorena

PhD Supervisor
Nicolas Manel
email : This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
phone: +33 1 56 24 64 33

Subjects
1.: Human immunology
2.: Virology (HIV)
3.: Synthetic biology/Modeling

Tools and Methodologies
1.: Cellular immunology/virology
2.: Gene expression/sequence analysis
3.: Biocomputing/Modeling

Summary of lab's interests
The lab is interested in the principles that regulate innate immunity. We are particular interested in discovering the molecular mechanisms that influence decision-making processes during an immune response. Innate immunity is an ancient and universal form of defense against pathogens such as viruses. Dendritic cells play a central role in controlling innate immune responses. Dendritic cells express a unique machinery to sense pathogens and orchestrate activation of the adaptive immune system. However, how dendritic cells sense HIV and how this sensing can contribute to immune protection is not well understood. As a consequence, the ability to exploit innate immunity against HIV in therapeutic or prophylactic contexts has yet to be achieved.

Summary of project
The lab has developed several new tools to analyze the innate immunity against HIV. Several projects are proposed for a PhD thesis, which may be selected according to the candidate: (1) Identification of the signaling and transcriptional modules that regulate the innate response against HIV in dendritic cells (2) Non-linear modeling of the innate immune response in dendritic cells (3) Relationship between viral DNA sequences in HIV-infected patients and the innate immune response. The projects will benefit from strong integration with other projects in the lab and with collaborators in bioinformatics and modeling. The Institut Curie provides state-of-the-art facilities and an international environment. The highly motivated student should have a strong background in immunology and/or virology.

Interdisciplinarity of the project
This project will take place at the frontiers between immunology/virology, bioinformatics and modeling. It requires candidates with an interdisciplinary training in biology as well as in informatics/mathematics/modeling. Candidates coming from my 'regular' grad school (Gc2ID) have a 'pure' experimental/biology training, and are missing the bioinformatics aspect which is required.

Do you have an available funding for this project ?
Candidates will be able to apply to Curie International PhD program (if foreign), and to specific AIDS fundations (ANRS, Sidaction)