CV Science

Christophe BELOIN Assistant Professor PhD in Microbiology

Course and current status

I prepared my PhD in the laboratory of Structure and Expression of Bacterial Genome directed by Dr. Françoise Le Hégarat at the University Paris XI where I studied histone-like proteins of the Gram positive bacteria Bacillus subtilis. I obtained my PhD in 1998. The same year I joined the laboratory of Prof. Charles J. Dorman in Trinity College Dublin as a European Post-doctoral fellow. During these three years my research has been focused on the regulation of virulence gene expression in the pathogenic bacteria Shigella flexneri. In 2001, I came back to France on a postdoctoral proposition in the 5 year group recently created by Dr. Jean-Marc Ghigo. I participated to the implementation of the G5 Genetic of Biofilms Laboratory. In 2003, I was recruited at the Institut Pasteur as Assistant Professor (Chargé de Recherche). Since 2007, I'm leading a small 3-4 people group in the Laboratory directed by Dr Jean-Marc Ghigo. Since 2011 I have also been appointed as the assistant director of the Microbiology course of the Institut Pasteur.

Scientific summary

I'm especially interested in the identification, genetic regulation, structural characterization and rationale design of inhibitors of new bacterial adhesins as well as in the molecular mechanisms leading to the extreme tolerance of bacterial biofilms towards antibiotics. Recently I developed different in vivo models of bacterial biofilms infection including a rat model of totally implantable central venous catheter. We use these models to better understand the formation of biofilm within the host context and to assess novel prophylactic and curative strategies to fight biofilms.