COMPETENCES / EXPERTISE

François Trottein received his PhD degree in 1992 from the University of Lille. He did a post-doc at the Walter and ELIZA Hall Institute, Royal Melbourne Hospital. In 1995, he obtained a tenure position at CNRS and he started to develop his own group at the Institut Pasteur de Lille. Since 2005, François Trottein has been working on host/pathogen interactions (parasites, bacteria, viruses). He has made major contribution in the field of innate immunity and lipids, either eicosanoids and antigenic lipids. For the later, he described the role (either beneficial or deleterious) of Natural Killer T cells, a population of lipid-reactive T cells, during infection. Since 2010, his group is developing research projects on respiratory infections and more precisely on influenza A virus (flu), SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and Streptococcus pneumoniae, the leading cause of bacterial pneumonia in humans. The research group has a strong interest in gut microbiota. The group has recently patented several therapeutic applications in influenza and pneumococcal infections, including compounds produced by the gut microbiota such as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and tryptophan derivatives. Pharmacological approaches, prebiotics, next-generation probiotics and postbiotics are being developed. François Trottein has also an interest in ageing in immune defense mechanisms and pathology associated with respiratory infections. The role of age-related cellular senescence and gut microbiota imbalance is being studied