TRAINING

Loïc Coutte, PhD, is a researcher at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). He is based at the Institut Pasteur de Lille, France. Dr. Coutte has a long-standing interest and experience in infectious diseases, protein secretion and gene regulation.

After completing his PhD in 2004 at the Institut Pasteur de Lille on the maturation of the filamentous haemagglutinin of B. pertussis, he moved to the University of Texas at Houston to work on the type IV secretion system of Agrobacterium tumesfaciens and then on the regulation of the vls antigenic variation system of Borrelia burgdorferi. Since 2009, he is an INSERM researcher at the Center of Infection and Immunity of Lille. His areas of expertise are gene regulation, molecular biology, protein production and secretion and animal infection models.

His research project covers two main areas. The first focuses on the genetic regulation of virulence factors in B. pertussis (BP). The second focuses on deciphering and improving immune mechanisms against BP with the aim of enhancing the BPZE1 vaccine strain developed in the laboratory. He is also participating in the European NoseVac project, which aims to develop nasal vaccines to prevent or reduce the colonization and infection of the respiratory tract by pathogens.