CV Science

Thomas HENRY PhD in Infectious Diseases, Lyon, France

Course and current status

2009-           Principal Investigator, Inserm DR2

Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie (CIRI)
Inserm U1111, CNRS UMR5308, UCBL, ENSL, Lyon, France          

                       Team “Inflammasome, bacterial infections and autoinflammatory diseases”

2005-2009      Post-doc: Stanford University, Dr Denise MONACK’s lab,   

             “caspase-1 dependent cell death of macrophages infected by Francisella tularensis”

2002-2005       PhD: CIML (Immunology Centre of Marseille Luminy), Dr Jean-Pierre GORVEL’s lab        “Physiology of Salmonella typhimurium within eukaryotic cells”

Scientific summary

The overall goal of the lab is to understand the innate immune responses and their deregulation.

Particularly, we are studying the inflammasome responses during bacterial infections and auto-inflammatory syndromes.

Regarding bacterila infections, we mostly use Francisella tularensis, the agent of tularemia, as a model to better understand the inflammasome signaling pathway and its regulation as well as to decipher virulence mechanisms targeting this pathway. Recently, we have extended our work to a family of IFN-inducible proteins termed the GBPs (Guanylate Binding Protein) that play a key role in the host defenses against numerous microbes partly through facilitating inflammasome activation. Other bacterial pathogens used in the lab are Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhimurium.

Furthermore, we are studying how the deregulation of inflammasomes can lead to autoinflammatory syndromes focusing on Familial Mediterranean Fever but also exploring other more complex autoinflammatory syndromes. This translational axis has two main objectives: the first one is to better understand these diseases and the second one is to develop novel diagnostic tools.