caroline leroux PhD virology
Course and current status
Degrees
- Habilitation to direct research (HDR), university Lyon 1, 2001
- PhD in virology, University Lyon 1, 1995
Present and past positions
- 2002-present: director of research INRA (tenure position). Group leader "retrovirus, evolution and cancer" team, joined research unit "retrovirus and comparative pathology" UMR754 INRA Lyon
- 1999-2002: senior researcher associate (CR1) INRA, tenure position UMR754 INRA Lyon
- 1999-2002: senior research associate (post doc), UMR754 INRA Lyon
- 1995-1999: senior research associate, University of Pittsburgh, dpt of molecular genetics and biochemistry (Pr RC Montelaro)
Scientific summary
I developed my expertise on animal retroviruses and the associated mechanisms leading to disease development and progression. In this context, I work on several retrovirus in large farm animals such as SRLV (Small ruminant lentiviruses) in sheep and goats, EIAV (Equine infectious anemia virus) in equids and JSRV (Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus) in sheep.
EIAV in equids
I described the evolution of the virus during the different phases of the diseases and demonstrated that each clinical episodes was associated with the emergence of new viral complex populations. I am involved in studies on the genetic and biological diversity of EIAV isolates circulating throughout Europe and at the origin of recent epidemic events.
We recently described a new pathological entities in the lung of naturally infected horses (in press) resembling the one observed in infants infected by HIV. We are pursuing with studies on the EIAV tropism in vivo and ex vivo for primary pulmonary epithelial cells..
JSRV-induced cancer in sheep as a model of lepidic pulmonary adenocarcinoma in human
Our project aims to decipher the molecular and cellular mechanisms leading to the transformation of the alveolar and bronchiolar epithelial cells. We focus on the in vivo events, using post mortem tissues as well as cancer-derived primary cells. JSRV induced in sheep a pulmonary adenocarcinoma closely related to lepidic adenocarcinomas in human lungs, formerly known as bronchioloalvéolaire cancers. We are interested by the mechanisms in these 2 diseases, using the cancer naturally induced in sheep as a study model for the events occurring in humans.
More recently and based on our expertise on primary lung cells, we are developing projects to study the deregulation of cell proliferation in rare pulmonary diseases.
