Despite significant progress made in vaccination, infectious diseases continue to pose a significant burden, causing suffering and leading to numerous deaths globally. For instance, tuberculosis claimed the lives of 1.6 million people in 2021, while there were 1.5 million new HIV-1 infections and over 500,000 AIDS-related deaths reported that year.
Innate immunity represents the first phase of the response to an infection, and it has decisive impacts pathogen clearance and on long-term immune protection. To better understand how the innate immune system senses and responds to the presence of pathogens such as HIV-1, we infect humanized MISTRG mice and we determine:
· Which cells sense the presence of the virus?
· Which innate immune receptor(s) do they rely on (TLRs, RLRs, NLRs, …)?
· What are the consequences of this innate immune response on the pathogen and on the host? Pathogen control or chronic infection? Return to homeostasis or immunopathology?
The best vaccines are generally those that mimic the immune response triggered by natural infection with the corresponding pathogen. With a better understanding the innate immune response to human pathogens, we will be able to rationally design new vaccine strategies, that may confer protection to millions of people worldwide.
Selected Publication
Broad CTL response is required to clear latent HIV-1 due to dominance of escape mutations. K. Deng, M. Pertea, A. Rongvaux, L. Wang, C.M. Durand, G. Ghiaur, J. Lai, H. Hao, C. Gurer, A.J. Murphy, D.M. Valenzuela, G.D. Yancopoulos, T. Strowig, P. Kumar, S.G. Deeks, J.D. Siliciano, S.L. Salzberg, R.A. Flavell, L. Shan, R.F. Siliciano. Nature. 2015. 517(7534):381-5.