Dominique Ferrandon

Fellowship 2012

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Dominique Ferrandon is Senior Researcher (Directeur de Recherche) and group leader at the CNRS lab Immune Response and Development in Insects, which is part of the Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire in Strasbourg. After the completion of his studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, Dominique Ferrandon joined Prof. Chambon's laboratory for his Master thesis. Next, he performed his doctoral work under the direction of Prof. Nüsslein-Volhard in Tübingen. Thereafter, he initiated the systematic genetic approach in Prof. Hoffmann's laboratory to identify the genes involved in Drosophila innate immunity, for instance those that allow this fly to sense the presence of infections. More recently, he has developed intestinal infection models. Dominique Ferrandon has been awarded several Prizes by the Académie des Sciences and the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, including the CNRS Bronze Medal (1999), the Grand Prix Thématique Mottart of the Académie des Sciences (2006) and the Prix Lucien Tartois for research in oncology, immunology or virology of the Fondation Recherche Médicale (2008). He has been elected an EMBO member in 2010.

Integrated Study of Parasitism from cell to organism in a novel paradigm of infection in the genetic model Drosophila melanogaster

Parasitism is inherent to life and represents one of the major forces that have shaped evolution. Parasitic diseases afflict much of mankind and our current knowledge is still too fragmentary to fight them efficiently. Drosophila, a fruit fly, has been studied for over a century and is at the origin of major discoveries in biology. While we understand the main principles of the immune responses that allow it to fight against bacterial, fungal or viral infections, our understanding of its defences against intracellular eukaryotic parasites is lacking.

This project will focus on infection models, both in cell culture and in the whole organism, of a Drosophila natural parasite, the microsporidium Tubulinosema ratisbonensis. This microorganism, which lies at the root of the fungal kingdom, has evolved with major adaptations to its intracellular parasitic lifestyle and has lost many metabolic pathways. For instance, it lacks the powerhouses of eukaryotic cells and steals its energy directly from its host.

The project aims to initiate a detailed study of parasitism at different levels of organizations, shuttling back and forth between the cellular and the organismal levels. A major aim will be to implement a genome-wide screen in cultured cells to identify the host genes required imperatively for the proliferation of the parasite. We shall use the all the power of Drosophila genetics to understand how the host copes with its selfish guest at the metabolic and energy levels, a situation reminiscent of cancer-afflicted organisms.