Researcher

PhD Students
Severine Grinberg

Created in 2012, the research axes of the team focus on the regulation of cytokine production during viral infection and inflammation in autoimmune diseases.

Scientific projects and goals:

• Drug discovery:

The laboratory generates and optimizes original screening assays dedicated to the identification of immune modulatory molecules. These assays are used to screen in house or external libraries.

Once identify, the lab have an establish work flow to validate lead compounds, going from in house chemical optimization, evaluation on in vitro and vivo model of inflammation and infection, to evaluation on material from patients with autoimmune disease such as lupus.

CXCR4 dependent immune regulation in inflammatory and infectious models.

We have recently shown that some small endogenous amines regulate interferon and cytokine production in innate immune cells by engaging the chemokine receptor CXCR4. Our future projects aim to design, synthetize and characterize small compounds able to modulate inflammation through CXCR4. Furthermore, it is essential to understand the molecular mechanism by which natural amines regulate innate immunity. Our discoveries have a great potential in clinics for treating auto-immune diseases like lupus or chronic infectious diseases as HIV.

Main Publications

Smith N et al. Natural amines inhibit activation of human plasmacytoid dendritic cells through CXCR4 engagement. Nat Commun. 2017

Science outreach

La gazette du Laboratoire : Therapies-innovantes-pathologies-auto-immunes.
CNRS inc: Une-molecule-prometteuse-pour-traiter-le-lupus .
France 2-TV5 monde: Impact du cerveau sur nos défenses immunitaires (diffusion le 1 Septembre 2017)