Frank LAFONT
Research Director (DRCE)
ORCID
Contact

TRAINING

FL obtained his Master’s degree, PhD and HDR at Pierre and Marie Curie University (Sorbonne University) and is a graduate of ESCP Europe

FL completed his Master’s degree at the Collège de France and his PhD (1993) at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris). FL then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) before being appointed as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Geneva  (Department of Biochemistry and University Medical Centre) and as a staff scientist at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). In 2005, he was appointed Director of Research at the Pasteur Institute in Lille  to establish his research team there; in the same year, he joined the CNRS as Director of Research (external DR).

RESPONSABILITIES

FL has been involved in supporting research structures, notably in the following roles:

  • Scientific Director of the BioImaging Centre Lille  (2010–2025),
  • Deputy Director of the Federative Research Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine (2010–2013)
  • Project Officer at the CNRS – Institute of Biology (2014–2019).

FL has been involved in numerous learned societies and technology networks at various levels, including: founder (2010) and Chair (2014–2015) of the CFATG (autophagy), Secretary of the SBCF (2016–2019, Cell Biology), member of the Scientific Committee for the SFB-GEM (2016–2025, Biophysics), and for the Local Probes Forum (2013–2023, near-field microscopy).

FL is involved in science communication: founder of the IPL’s Kid Campus (2006), initiator (2009) of the ‘apprentice researchers and journalists’ programme in the Hauts-de-France region, DECLICs captain (since 2018), board member of L’Arbre des Connaissances (2013–2025), the steering committee of MPLS-Nord (since 2014).

COMPETENCES /EXPERTISES

Since 2005, when he arrived in Lille, his research team has focused on the role of autophagy in host-microorganism interactions and on characterising the forces of interaction, adhesion and elasticity involved in these interactions. Since 2026, as Director of the Centre for Infection and Immunity of Lille (CIIL, Univ Lille, CNRS UMR9017, INSERM U1019, CHRU Lille, Institut Pasteur de Lille), he has focused on aspects of mechanobiology at various scales: molecular, cellular and tissue.

FL: 124 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Google Scholar h-index: 45, 23,194 citations; ResearchGate h-index: 45, 17,649 citations; WOS h-index: 30, 11,805 citations (14 April 2026)

Key pioneering achievements in the following topics (orcid.org/0000-0001-8668-2580):

  • Demonstration of the regulation of polarised neurite growth by glycosaminoglycans
  • Demonstration of the role of actin cytoskeletons and microtubules in the polarised transport of epithelial cells
  • Cloning/sequencing, and functional roles of annexin XIIIb in polarised cells
  • Role of ubiquitination in lipid rafts
  • Role of CD44 and rafts in infection by Shigella flexneri
  • Role of autophagy in the early stages of Shigella flexneri, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis and Coxiella burnetii
  • Involvement of LC3 and ESCRT complexes in the disruption of intracellular compartments
  • Introduction of the concept of hardness tomography on living cells and validation through innovation achieved by correlating the three types of microscopy on the same sample (near-field, electron and optical)
  • Development of automated force spectroscopy on prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells
  • Role of ubiquitination in the early stages of norovirus infection