Professor. Gérard Eberl
Gérard Eberl completed his PhD at the University of Lausanne on the structure of epitopes recognized by T cells, followed by a first post-doctoral fellowship at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, also in Lausanne, on the development and function of invariant NKT cells. A second post-doctorate in New York led him to characterize the role of the nuclear hormone receptor RORgt in innate lymphoid cells (ILC). In 2005, Gérard was recruited to the Institut Pasteur in Paris to lead the Lymphoid Tissue Development Unit, which became the Microenvironment & Immunity Unit in 2015. For 10 years now, his laboratory has been studying the impact of symbiotic microbiota on the development and activity of the immune system, mainly in the gut, but also at more distant sites, such as adipose tissue and the lung. More recently, he has been interested in understanding how the microbiota also influences mouse behavior through activation of the innate immune system, and how the nervous system modulates immune responses. From 2015 to 2019, Gerard was the director of the immunology department at the Institut Pasteur.
Professor Pierre-Marie Lledo
With interests ranging from brain development to neural circuits functions (and their related disorders), P-M Lledo is best known for his early studies on the unusual malleability of some neural circuits, hippocampus and olfactory bulb, that allows experiences to shape the lifelong wiring of the brain.
His research has employed techniques from systems and molecular neuroscience to probe the role of adult neurogenesis underlying neuronal plasticity. Such work had profound implications for developmental disorders (neurological and psychiatric disorders), as well as for learning and education.
To achieve this, P-M Lledo has pioneered use of the olfactory system as a model system for sensory systems and plasticity. His laboratory is now accepted world-wide as one of the centers of expertise in elucidating the functional implications of adult neurogenesis in normal and pathological conditions such as major depression and bipolar depression.
More recently, the Lledo’s lab has played a pivotal role in elucidating some mechanisms underlying brain-body interactions and neuro-immune crosstalks, shedding light on previously unexplored aspects of regulation of brain adult neurogenesis by the gut microbiota and peripheral infection. By investigating how the peripheral immune system participate in brain plasticity, PM Lledo provided evidence on the existence of a permissive niche for peripheral macrophage engraftment of the brain and key role of peripheral blood-borne factors (i.e., GDF-11) in rejuvenating the aging brain and stimulating brain plasticity.
Today, Prof. Lledo is one of the main opinion leaders in plasticity of the adult central nervous system, as demonstrated by his publication list (213 originals papers since 1991; Total citations: 21,230 — H-index: 75 on Feb 2024) and invitations to international Congresses (116 since 1998) and numerous scientific prizes. Among several responsibilities, Prof. Lledo has been the corresponding investigator in Paris of a network called the "European Neuroscience Institute" and Chairman of the Scientific council at the Pasteur Institute, Chairman of the Scientific council (Neuroscience Section) at the FNRS (Belgium). He is now member of the Academia Europaea, Chairman of the Department of Neuroscience at Institut Pasteur and Director of a CNRS laboratory. PM Lledo is co-inventor of several patents and has authored multiple peer-reviewed journal and conference articles.
Dr. Gabriel Lepousez
Gabriel Lepousez is a French neuroscientist and an international expert on sensory perception and brain plasticity. He received his doctorate in Neuroscience from the Paris Sorbonne University, and hold a research position at Institut Pasteur in the Perception and Action Laboratory, head by Prof. Pierre-Marie Lledo.
For more than fifteen years, Gabriel has been studying how the brain perceives, memorizes and interprets sensory information from our environment, and how these processes dysfunction in certain neurological diseases. His work focuses on the fundamental mechanisms of chemosensory perception and memory, on the principles of brain sensory regeneration, on the crosstalk between the nervous and the immune system, and on the neural bases of interoception, our ability to perceive our body's internal signals through brain-body communication.
Dr. Fabian Guendel
Fabian Guendel is originally from Costa Rica. He moved to France after finishing high school in Costa Rica. He graduated from ENS Lyon and the Pasteur Institute–Sorbonne University as an immunologist.
He then moved to Germany for his doctoral studies, working under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Diefenbach at the University of Freiburg and the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. During his PhD, he characterized the myeloid compartment of solitary lymphoid tissues in the small intestine. He demonstrated that these cells are important regulators of ILC3s as well as epithelial cell function.
He later returned to Paris to work with Prof. Gerard Eberl, studying the effects of early-life stress on intestinal development and function.