Our Team

Vanesa Mongelli

“What if the innate immune system could impact viral evolution? What if we could remove the insect immunity pathways one by one? What if viral population diversity could be modified by removing some immune pathways?”

Cassandra Koh

PostDoctoral Fellow

“What if we could replicate how an insect virus becomes part of the inherited virome of a mosquito? What if insect-specific viruses can be used to prevent the transmission of emerging human viral pathogens?”

Fernando Merwaiss

PostDoctoral Fellow

“What if same regions of the arbovirus genome fulfill different functions in the mosquito and the mammalian hosts favoring viral replication in one but not the other? What if we identify the molecular mechanisms that drive evolution of these genome regions in order to keep a constant equilibrium between hosts?”

Alessandro Torri

PostDoctoral Fellow

“What if the invertebrate immune system is not just a defense mechanism but a communication system that allows trans-kingdom crosstalk? What if RNA interference is a key player of this process?”

Bryan Arias

PostDoctoral Fellow

“What if the circular viral DNAs produced during RNA virus infection provide immune protection from subsequent infection? What if we can engineer these circular viral DNAs from insect-specific viruses to protect mosquitoes against pathogenic virus infection(s)?

Sabrina Johanna Fletcher

PostDoctoral Fellow

“What if we can understand how virus infected cells transmit immune signals to non-infected cells to protect them? What if we could find the cell surface dsRNA receptor and use it to control arboviruses dissemination?”

Yasutsugu Suzuki

PostDoctoral Fellow

“What if we could find why some mosquitoes transmit viral diseases and some do not? What if very ancient viral insertions in the mosquito genome would play a role in mosquito antiviral immunity? What if we could predict risks for expansion of novel transmission routes of vector-borne diseases?”

Hervé Blanc

Technician

“What if my deep sequencing libraries could be created faster, better and more efficiently in order to give the scientists the data they need to make even more discoveries, conclusions and ‘Aha!’ moments?”

Valerie Dorey

Technician and Lab Manager

“What if we could further streamline our experimental protocols to make the lab operate even more efficiently? What if each lab member could do more with their individual research because I was able to provide additional experimental support?”

Lionel Frangeul

Bioinformatician

“What if the informatics structure was so strong that our deep sequencing analysis could provide each scientist with solid biological and mathematical data to clarify results and propose new biological models?”

Brigitte Bidault

Administrative Assistant

“What if all administrative distractions like equipment needs, travel arrangements, welcoming of PhD Students and Post-docs, scheduling, planning and budgeting, were taken care of so that the lab members could focus all their energy just on the research and their experiments?”