A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, Stéphanie Blandin obtained her Ph.D. in 2004 for studies done jointly at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg under the supervision of Fotis Kafatos and Elena Levashina, and at the University of Strasbourg under the supervision of Jules Hoffmann (Nobel Prize 2011). She is now an Inserm investigator in the CNRS unit “Immune Responses and Development in Insects” at the Molecular and Cellular Biology Institute in Strasbourg where she is leading the Inserm group “Post-genomic analysis of antiparasitic responses in Anopheles mosquitoes”.
Dr. Blandin received a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2010 to study the “Genetics of Resistance to Malaria Parasites in the Mosquito Anopheles gambiae”. She is investigating the genetic factors that allow certain mosquitoes to naturally resist malaria parasites. These factors are potentially very important, as they render mosquitoes unable to transmit the disease to humans. The author of some 23 scientific articles, her work on the genetics of mosquito resistance was published in Science and other leading journals.
Dr Philippe Bousso
A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, Philippe Bousso earned his PhD in immunology in 2000 from the Pierre and Marie Curie University - Paris VI, and then did postdoctoral training at the University of California in Berkeley in the laboratory of Ellen Robey. In 2005 he returned to France as an Inserm investigator and is now Research Director at Inserm and Head of the Dynamics of Immune Responses Laboratory at the Institut Pasteur.
Dr. Bousso received a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2010 for research on the “Regulation and outcome of immune cell interactions in vivo”. He employs powerful imaging technology to visualize hostpathogen interactions and immune responses to tumors and is making important contributions to our understanding of the dynamics of the immune system. His discoveries are published in the leading scientific journals and his work was recognized with the J.M. Le Goff’ Prize from the French Academy of Sciences.
