CV Science

LOREDANA SAVEANU Loredana Saveanu, MD, PhD Immunology, HDR

Course and current status

Directrice de recherche INSERM since 2019

team leader from 2015

Present adress:

INSERM U1149,

Hopital Bichat

 X Bichat Medical University, 5th floor

16 rue H Huchard

75018 PARIS

tel 0686604408

mail: loredana.saveanu@inserm.fr

Education:

1990             Bachelor’s degree, Biology and Chemistry College “D-na Stanca”, Satu-Mare, Romania

1996             MD, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj Napoca, Romania

2004             PhD, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania. Host laboratory: Inserm U580/U25

2009             Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches, Université René Descartes Paris V

Link Research Unit: https://cri1149.fr/

Scientific summary

Antigen processing and presentation by class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC-I) are fundamental for the acquired immune response and most of my research projects gravitated around the underlying molecular mechanisms of these processes. All nucleate cells of the body express MHC-I molecules. MHC-I binds short antigenic peptides to expose them at the cell surface in a configuration recognized specifically by the antigen T cell receptor (TCR) of CD8⁺ T cells. The interaction between MHC-I loaded with antigenic peptides and the TCR is a crucial step for the immune defense against intracellular pathogens, viruses and tumors. My research activity started in 2000. My results shed light on the function of the transporter associated with antigen presentation (TAP), allowed the identification of a new class of antigen trimming enzymes and described novel cell biology mechanisms involved in the presentation of exogenous proteins antigens by dendritic cells (DCs) via MHC-I (Nature 2003, Nature Immunology 2005, Science 2009). I started an independent research group in 2015, as leader of an ATIP-AVENIR team, a competitive grant for French young researchers. Our team investigates the molecular mechanisms by which the endocytic system regulates the trafficking and signaling of immune receptors, such as endosomal TLRs (Nature Immunology 2017), Fc immunoglobulin receptors (Cell Reports 2018) and antigen T Cell Receptor (Nature Communications 2020). Using in vitro cell biology and biochemistry (in situ labeling) approaches, combined with in vivo murine models of cancer and infections, we are investigating the molecular mechanisms by which endocytic pathways control the signaling of immune receptors.