INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE (INSERM)

INSTITUT COCHIN

Dr. Jacques Dutrieux

I’m a junior scientist at the Institut Cochin heading the group Dynamics of Viral Genomes in Rémi Cheynier’s team.

My work is focused on viral latency, especially on HIV. We are developing original methods to follow viral genomes within the cell (with high throughput sequencing and live imaging…) and particularly the fate of unintegrated HIV DNA. We are also developing new omics approach such as viral genome specific immunoprecipitation or spatial transcriptomics to better understand their partners and their dynamic within the tissues but also to better understand the initiation of intrinsic immune response in situ after infection. We will apply these new technological approaches in the Y4F consortium to study the immune response in the mucosae after infection or vaccination.

Dr. Rémi Cheynier 

I’m an Inserm Research Director at the Institut Cochin in Paris and a specialist of the immunopathology of viral infections.

My group seeks to understand the establishment of the immune responses both during the acute phase of viral infections at their portals of entry and induced by mucosal vaccines. We have identified IL-7 as a danger signal in infected mucosae and as a potential adjuvant for mucosal vaccines. When administered systemically or locally, IL-7 stimulates the expression of chemokines in tissues, leading to massive infiltration of immune cells into the targeted mucosa, allowing the development of mucosal immune responses.  We confirmed this hypothesis in both vaginal and pulmonary vaccination, in both mouse and non-human primate models. We will bring our expertise in immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization to study viral infection and the development of local immune responses in the skin following vaccination in Human and NHP model, as well as following YF challenge in NHP.