Thierry Lang

Thierry Lang joined the Institut Pasteur in Paris in 1983 where he obtained his PhD in 1987 on endocytosis in macrophages in Antoinette Ryter research group. Following a Pasteur-Roux fellowship, Thierry spend two years at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (Head of the Unit: Pr. J. Blackwell) as post-doctoral fellow working on ultrastructural analysis of molecular interaction between Leishmania parasites and their vertebrate and insect host and parameters and functions involved in antigen processing and presentation in Leishmania-infected macrophages. He then successively joined Robert Fauve sand Geneviève Milo’s team at Institut Pasteur where he analysed every step of the infectious process that characterizes the niches that Leishmania amastigotes shape at cell or tissue level using the mouse as experimental host. In november 2012, he joined the laboratory of Trypanosomatids Infectious Processes. He was mainly concentrated in the identification and characterization of Leishmania donovani parasitism features at cellular and tissue levels using hamster and mouse experimental models. He had set up in 2011 a translational project involving five partners at the Institut Pasteur and has been coordinating a PTR “Tryp imaging” project (Oct. 2011-March 2014) that put together unique expertise’s to generate efficient tools to monitoring Trypanosomatidae infection in real time at the whole organism level. These approaches may highly improve the sensitivity and the spatial resolution of infectious processes studies and provide reliable means to quantify and visualize parasites in vivo.

Academic Qualifications

• 1983: DEA d’Immunologie Approfondie Paris 7
• 1987: Doctorat de Microbiologie l’Université Paris 7 (equivalent to PhD)
• 2005 : Diplôme d’Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR) Paris 5

Position

• Fellow of the Fondation Roux (1987-1988).
• Assistant (1989-1995) at the Pasteur Institute in the Electron Microscopy       Unit (head of the Unit : Pr A. Ryter).
• Posdoctoral Research Fellow (1989-1991) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the Immunobiology of Parasitic Diseases Unit of the Department of Medical Parasitology (head of the Unit: Pr J. Blackwell).
• Chargé de recherche at the Pasteur Institute:

-1996-1998 in the Cellular Immunophysiology Unit (head of the Unit: Pr R. Fauve).

-1998- oct 2012 in the Immunophysiology and Intracellular Parasitism Unit of the Department of Parasitology (head of the Unit: Dr. G. Milon).

-Since Nov 2012 in the Laboratory of Trypanosomatids Infectious Process (head of the Laboratory: Dr P.Minoprio

Professional activities :

               Teaching

• 2000-2006 Supervision of practical work on the immune response induced by the parasites Leishmania (Pasteur Institute, Paris).
• University Lectures – Pierre et Marie Curie -Paris VI (2005-2010) :

Parasitologie/Mycologie Fondamentale et Médicale : Biologie Moléculaire et cellulaire des agents infectieux et de la cellule hôte.

Interactions Système Immunitaire et Parasites 2010-2013

Major Research Interests 1988-2015

• Endocytosis in macrophages.
• Parasitic processes in mice intradermally inoculated into the ears with L. major or L. amazonensis metacyclic
• Bioluminescent Leishmania major in living C57Bl/6 mice: reliable probes for analysing the concomitant immunity-related processes.
• Long term follow up of Leishmania amazonensis load in C57Bl/6 and DBA/2 mice using bioluminescence imaging in combination with real-time PCR.
• Gene expression profiling of mouse mononuclear phagocytes harbouring Leishmania amazonensis amastigotes. Comparative studies on dendritic leucocytes from either susceptible or resistant mice.
• Lipid metabolism in mouse dendritic leucocytes hosting live Leishmania amazonensis amastigotes.
• Generation and validation of innovative tools for 2D- and 3D-real time imaging of trypanosomatid parasites in their mammalian host.
• Real time imaging of L. donovani in rodents