About
The research activities of our group focus on the understanding of the complex relationship between immunity and neural functions during rabies virus (RABV) infection, which should ultimately help in the comprehension of viral encephalitis physiopathology that could be shared with other neurotropic viruses. Brain-connectivity-and-neurodegenerative-diseases
Our team holds a large experience in the production of recombinant and mutant RABV, in development of antiviral therapy, in animal models and in culturing primary neuronal and glial cells in different supports and devices in order to investigate host-rabies virus interaction. It has also developed a strong expertise in studying the capacity of RABV to modulate the innate immune response during the early steps of infection.
The most relevant objectives of our group are
- to decrypt the dynamics of cooperation between the different human brain cells (mainly neurons, astrocytes and microglial cells) during RABV infection;
- to determine how the crosstalk between these cells, in particular glial cells and neurons, is correlated with the dysfunction of neurons, and
- to decipher how RABV spread affects the neural network connectivity using mice models, organ on chip model, single cell sequencing, proteomics, high-throughput fluorescence microscopy and multielectrode arrays readouts on RABV-infected neural networks.