Welcome to the web site of the Trypanosome Cell Biology Unit (TRYPA)!
Our lab is studying African trypanosomes, with perspectives in the field of both parasitology (team directed by Brice Rotureau) and genetic diseases (team directed by Philippe Bastin). Indeed, trypanosomes are significant parasites of man and cattle in central Africa and there are currently no efficient vaccines against them. Moreover, trypanosomes are also excellent models to study human genetic diseases due to defects in cilia and flagella. Our lab is an international mixture with several nationalities and expertise in parasitology and cell biology. We are a Pasteur full research unit and are affiliated to the Department of Parasites and Insect Vectors (headed by Lucy Glover) but also to the Department of Cell Biology and Infection (headed by Guillaume Dumenil). We belong to an INSERM unit (U1347, now headed by Chetan Chitnis) that involves other teams working on Plasmodium and on Leishmania. We are also part of the LabEx IBEID, a consortium whose aim is to develop a structure to anticipate and tackle emerging infectious diseases (Philippe is coordinator, together with Carla Saleh). We are also partners of the Labex ParaFrap. We live on the first floor of the Nicolle building but are travelling regularly through the multiple platforms of the campus.
BLUESKY: Click here for direct connection to our BlueSky thread
X/TWITTER: For obvious reasons, this is not updated anymore but you can find older publications by clicking here.
VIDEOS: Link to see trypanosomes in 3 dimensions! (in French)
Click here for a general presentation of sleeping sickness (in French)
LATEST NEWS:
July 2025. Delighted to announce that Amandine Hecquet was awarded a doctoral fellowship from Sorbonne Université to pursue her work on IFT in multiple parasites!
July 2025. Daniel’s paper is now published in JCS. Great work showing insertion (and removal!) of tubulin in flagella. His interview can be found here.
June 2025. Congratulations to Parul for her bright PhD defence!
22/10/2024. Great presentation by Aline for her last lab meeting
5/07/2024. Delighted to announce that Justine got a fellowship from the doctoral school to investigate trypanosome development in the tsetse fly!
17/06/2024. Serge and Aline’s paper on LRRC56, the first IFT cargo ever formally demonstrated in trypanosomes is out in MBoC! It shows unexpected connection with the docking complex.
Click to see IFT and LRRC trafficking: Movie S1
15/01/2024. We have the pleasure to host Andreu Saura from the lab of Slava Yurchenko. He is going to spend one month with us investigating flagella of the intriguing Vickermania parasite.
06/12/2023. Congratulations to Thierry and Nathalie who were awarded the “médaille d’honneur du travail” for respectively 40 and 35 years at Institut Pasteur!
29/09/2023. Congratulations to Daniel who did a brilliant PhD defence! Many thanks to all jury members for their participation.
17/07/2023. Welcome to two new lab members, Dr Hashem Almousa as postdoctoral fellow and Hilin Finianos as a summer student.
18/06/2023. Great experience during our lab retreat at Saint-Malo, multiple discussions around all topics of the unit and also nice time in the evening walking on the beach ;)
06/06/2023. How and why do amastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi bother retaining a motile flagellum? Read our opinion piece with Aline in mBio
14/04/2023. We have a Master position open! Click here for more information. Apply now for a 6-month project in 2023-24.
01/04/2023 Welcome to Christine who joins us as a research engineer!
31/03/2023 Thierry left us for a well-deserved retirement after 17 years in the lab. Thank you so much for all the great work, the exceptional images and the unvaluable friendship!
31/08/2022. Fantastic week with the visit of our partners for the PTR project with IP Montevideo, IP Lille and Oxford Brookes University. Multiple exciting discussions about basal body and centrioles in T. brucei and in Toxoplasma.
01/08/2022. A little party to celebrate our “Equipe FRM” grant! Congratulations to all contributors and thank you FRM!
01/07/2022. Adeline’s image of segmented trypanosome flagella is on the front cover of Bioessays!
03/06/2022. In this Bioessays manuscript, we propose a new hypothesis to explain cilia diversification across evolution. More information on this Twitter thread.
18/05/2021. Estefania’s paper on FLAM8 distribution during the trypanosome life cycle is now available on line: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cmi.13347