About
Allon Weiner – Faculté de Médecine Sorbonne Université, Site Pitié-Salpêtrière – Cimi Paris
Many pathogens possess the ability to invade host tissues using complex strategies that allow breaching of host barriers, subversion of host biological pathways and uptake of host resources. Invasion is often highly dynamic, occurs in remodeled cellular environments, and involves many pathogen and host molecular factors. Therefore, investigation of invasion requires combining high spatio-temporal resolution approaches with functional and molecular information obtained at the single cell level. In our recently opened ATIP-Avenir research group, we study invasion by the opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans using live imaging, cutting edge correlative “volume” electron tomography and cell biology approaches. We aim to resolve the seemingly contradictory paradigm of C. albicans invasion as an intracellular process that causes no cellular damage, reveal the precise role of pathogen and host factors in regulation of invasion and establish a mechanistic understanding of this enigmatic process.
website: www.weinerlab.org