I graduated with a degree in Neuroscience form the University of Lyon 1 (France) in 2008 and with a PhD from the University of Bern (Switzerland) in 2012 investigating brain endogenous mechanisms of protection. As I have a strong focus on Tropical Neglected Diseases, I joined Pasteur Institute (France) for my first postdoc to investigate therapies against Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease. I joined Pr. Gavin Wright’s lab in 2015 to start a research project aiming at identifying vaccine candidates for Animal African Trypanosomiasis at the Wellcome Sanger Institute (UK). I relocated to the University of York with Pr. Gavin Wright’s lab in October 2021 to continue this work.
I’m interested in finding vaccine targets against Animal African trypanosomiasis (AAT) by using a reverse vaccinology approach. My research has lead to the discovery of a novel invariant antigen against Trypanosoma vivax infection that we named IFX for 'invariant flagellum antigen from T. vivax'.
I’m involved in understanding mechanisms of protection elicited by IFX vaccination with the aim of translating this result obtained with an experimental mouse infection model to cattle, one of the major target animal for AAT.
I’m also interested in understanding what makes IFX a good vaccine candidate compared to other T. vivax surface-associated proteins. This could help identifying vaccine candidates for other Trypanosome species.